Little Fires Everywhere, based on the best-selling novel by Celeste Ng, holds no bars when exposing the disadvantages that minorities faced in a 1990s Shaker Heights, Ohio or the attempts of its inhabitants to obscure the face of institutional racism.
Fight or flight – a question, an idea, or an undeniable force of nature? For Mia Warren (Kerry Washington), it is the force that drives every decision she has made thus far in the series. Mia is a single-parent and struggling artist whose erratic lifestyle has led to trips to countless states and cities. In the late 1990s, Mia and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood), find themselves in Shaker Heights, Ohio in search of yet another place to dwell temporarily while Mia works on a new project. Unbeknownst to Mia and Pearl, their lives will quickly be upended as they meet Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon), their soon-to-be landlord.
In this alluring limited series, Mia finds hers and Pearl’s life inevitably entangled in a power struggle with the Richardsons, as it becomes clear the inevitable power struggle that is to succeed between these two strong-willed women from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
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Elena Richardson’s dialogue in the series serves to convey a certain school of thought still prevalent in the United States, mainly the idea that as long as a person follows the rules, they will succeed. Richardson, like most Shaker Heights natives, does not “see color.” Elena’s ideas about human advancement are written with such conviction that you are moved to believe Reese in her performance. The writing itself accurately depicts confrontation, the awkwardness of teenage development, racial divide, racial insensitivity and blindness, resentment of both families and the secrets that lie waiting beneath the surface.
In comparison to the novel, the series takes on the burden of being more confrontational in its dialogue between characters, which is likely a more accurate reflection of the class tensions of that era. The series definitely does not seem to shy away from the ugly insidiousness of class and race conflict in America today.