‘Little Fires Everywhere’ Episode 6 portrays ‘The Uncanny’ parallels between Mia and Elena’s varied pasts
New York 1981. That's where 'Little Fires Everywhere' Episode 6 titled 'The Uncanny' takes us. Into the past when Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) was Mia Wright and what really happened in her life to make her the way that she is today -- paranoid, passionate and extremely protective is her daughter Pearl. The episode also shows us what caused the drift between Mia and her family while portraying the loss that she had experienced in life, the manipulation that she lived through and living in the absence of all the privileges that Mia believed Elena had at her disposal.
The episode then draws a parallel by portraying the very privileged life that Elena (Reese Witherspoon) had had in the past and underlines the struggles that she faced as well. It is not a comparison so much as an observation. It is as if the episode hopes to correct all the judgments that the audience has amassed over time about both Mia and Elena by showing us their perspective about the choices that they had made in life.
Between 1981 and 1983 we see how young Mia and Elena live life with the cards that they were dealt with. How each of them had a turning point that altered their lives irrevocably.
As a wide-eyed young aspiring artist, Mia’s time in New York, away from home and her loving brother was all about doing her best within her means to become an artist. With the help of a well-recognized photographer such as Pauline, she begins to explore her art, her expression and more when financial burden ends up in her choosing the only path that she knew would help her in making her dream come true. She decides to become a surrogate, uses the money that she earns through her pregnancy to fund her education.
She has her brother’s support, her mentor and soon turned lover Pauline’s support and just when all seems to be fine, she wakes up to the news of Warren -- her brother’s death. The man who was Mia’s constant support and showered her with unconditional love is no more and all that she is allowed to do to honor his memory is stay at home so that people at the funeral don’t ask too many questions. This is just the beginning of her turning point. She decides to keep the baby instead of handing her over to the couple who hired her to be a surrogate mother. When she calls after a few weeks to inform Pauline that she kept the baby, she gets more bad news. Pauline is no more. Her lover and the other pillar of her strength lost her life to Ovarian Cancer. This is what pushes Mia further away from the life that she had “planned” to live. She goes on the road in the blue chevy that her brother had saved up for, and saved hard. This is her way of honoring her brother and Pauline. The picture of the very pregnant Mia was taken by Pauline right after the two of them had fallen in love and that moment explains the emotional attachment that Mia had to the picture.
On the other hand, we see Elena deal with the choices that she made. She did not say yes to Jamie and instead got married to Bill to settle down at Shaker Heights. Then she gave birth to kids -- three of them -- and finally she is back at work. The Elena that we meet here is so much different from her present. She is more passionate, a lot more impulsive and ambitious. What really changes her life is her fourth pregnancy which is without mincing words, unwanted. She had assumed that she would finally be able to get back to work, but before she could even file her first story after returning, she learns she is pregnant again.
All the privileges that Mia had thrown at Elena’s face in one of the previous episodes come back to us when Elena sits down for a conversation with her mother. Elena doesn’t want a baby, and she believes that she has a choice that would allow her to not go forward with carrying the baby to term. However, her mother tells her “not for people like us”. Even privileges come with their complex set up cons that we oftentimes fail to look at. While we can definitely agree that Elena had a life of privilege that gave her a way to be a “good mother”, Elena has had to sacrifice a lot as well. She had to give up her dreams of being a hotshot writer for the Times and be in love with a man who would understand her ambitions and support her dreams. She chose to do so, but to come to terms with regret, facing the person who you rejected live the life that you had always dreamed of, in a way, ends up becoming Elena’s turning point.
Just as she ended up meeting Jaime in the present, when she realized she had no control of how her life was panning out in the presence of Mia, she approached him in the past as well. She had called him, sobbing over a call, making him anxious enough to have him drive down to Rochester only to throw all of it in his face when she accuses him of taking advantage of her during a tough moment. She claims all she wanted was a friend and not a fling in a motel and in hindsight, we understand where Jaime came from when she threw Elena’s offer for a nightcap in her face. The two woman accept the choices that they have made despite the hardship that would come with it and that is all that is common between them. Their struggles are different, their lives are different and their opinions about parenting are completely different and yet, they are determined to break through.
'Little Fires Everywhere' new episodes drop of Wednesdays on Hulu.
