Drama;
Rated ‘TV-MA.’
Stars Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, Hoon Lee, Ciarán Hinds.
I watched the new “East of Eden” limited series expecting good entertainment, knowing the title the way anyone did who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. Back then, John Steinbeck was required reading. Schools assigned The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, books about dirt, hard labor and stubborn people trying to get by. It is hard to find a match for Steinbeck today, maybe Cormac McCarthy or early Bruce Springsteen, storytellers who understand that ordinary lives carry biblical weight.
I didn’t know the plot of “East of Eden” when I started this seven-episode streaming series, and I had no idea about the family bloodline behind it. I only knew the book’s reputation and the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan. In his prime, Kazan had the stature of a Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola or Steven Spielberg. He put a young James Dean at the center of that movie, an actor with the kind of raw, wounded presence you only see once a generation, much like an early Leonardo DiCaprio.
When Steinbeck published the novel in 1952, critics and censors attacked it as obscene for its depictions of sadomasochism, the sexual blackmail of town leaders, and a mother who murders her parents and abandons her babies. Bound by Hollywood censorship, Elia Kazan had to cut the first two-thirds of the book, softening a dark, taboo-breaking story into a family drama. Moviegoers who bought the paperback expecting a James Dean romance were shocked to find how ruthless and explicit Steinbeck’s actual novel was.
Watching this new version unfold, I realized how much the saga belongs on Netflix. Most theatrical releases don’t hold the mass appeal they used to, while streaming has the reach to bring a sprawling, 600-page work straight into millions of homes. What makes this series stand out is that the story is uncompromisingly dark, yet it has wide appeal, pulling viewers in with universal human struggles even when the characters are at their worst. Steinbeck built his narrative around the book of Genesis, repeating the rivalry of Cain and Abel across generations of the Trask family. Turning a novel like that into a screen adaptation is where the magic happens, putting direction and dialogue on paper so a team of professionals can organize and present the vision.
Zoe Kazan ran the project as creator, head writer and showrunner. In the streaming world, the showrunner oversees the entire operation, shaping scripts, hiring directors, guiding casting, and making creative calls on set and in the editing room. Zoe is Elia Kazan’s granddaughter, and that family connection gave her a path to the rights through the Steinbeck estate. Instead of remaking the original movie, she pitched the novel’s major sections he left behind. Kazan is an established film, television and stage actor, as well as a playwright and screenwriter, and it’s easy to celebrate what she accomplished here. I can imagine the pressure she must have felt under the shadow of her grandfather’s classic.
What jumped out at me right away was the character who drives the plot: Cathy Ames, later known as Kate, played by Florence Pugh. In most stories, you like the protagonist. Cathy claws her way onto the screen, literally, and never gives you that comfort. She is the definition of a bitch. She starts out using men and working as a whore, fakes her own death in a house fire that kills her parents, and shows she is willing to kill, lie and cheat her way to success like so many fraudulent people.
Pugh is phenomenal, bringing a chilling realism to a thoroughly dark character. This series uses dramatic irony to great effect a few times, giving us, the viewers, insight the participants on screen don’t have. We see Kate for who she is right away, while her partner Adam Trask cannot. Christopher Abbott also plays Adam as an unlikable man, though I found myself rooting for him at certain points, just like I did for Kate. In their quieter moments early on, when she was still Cathy, I wished she would realize who he was, fall in love with him, and let herself be vulnerable. Neither of them knows how. Both suffered childhood trauma that rules their behavior. Because they don’t know how to communicate, we watch them stuff their emotions down, living in fear of what is inside them and chasing demons to numb the pain.
That damage starts in the first episode in Connecticut with Adam’s domineering father, Cyrus Trask, another abrasive presence, played by Tracy Letts. Cyrus tears Adam and his younger half-brother, Charles, apart by forcing them onto opposing paths into adulthood, sending gentle Adam far away into the army while keeping volatile Charles close to home on the farm. Cyrus is a fraud himself, a man who built his military reputation on lies about his Civil War service and stolen government money. Mike Faist plays Charles as a coiled, lonely tough guy who resents Adam for being their father’s favorite. When a beaten Cathy shows up on their doorstep in the second episode, Charles is the only one who sees right through her act because he recognizes the same darkness in himself. Even so, her presence sows discord in the brothers’ home.
Two men hold the story together. I found myself liking Sam, the good man played by Ciarán Hinds, who steps into the mess in a Moses-like manner. When Cathy goes into labor and bites Sam’s hand, he delivers the twins anyway, and later returns to prod Adam out of his stupor and name the boys Caleb and Aron from the Bible.
Just as important is Lee, the Trasks’ Chinese houseman, played by an amazing actor named Hoon Lee. In a period ugly with anti-Chinese racism, he protects himself by speaking broken pidgin around white strangers, pretending he was born in China even though he was born right here in the States. Around people he respects, like Sam, he drops the act and speaks clear, thoughtful English, and we learn he’s a sage.
This series made me want to read the Bible. Well, maybe not the entire scripture, but for sure Genesis. And I’ll most definitely be digging into the pages of Steinbeck’s East of Eden and seeing the original 1955 Kazan film. For an adaptation to be truly great, the source material has to be great. This story is both dark and broad in its appeal, and the show brings a 100-year-old period to life while staying relevant in today’s artificially augmented world. I highly recommend it as one of the best series this year.
