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Starring two of its executive producers in the lead roles, Little Fires Everywhere immediately establishes itself as a drama in which the female voice is central, entirely complex, and at times deliberately misleading for the viewer. The main draw of its typically American advertising strategy is the face-off between Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) and Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon). However, the show and its vastly capable producers bring new life to the typical woman-vs-woman televisual showdowns of the past, offering tension and introspection in equal measure.
The two lead women, both mothers, are introduced when a black woman Mia, and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood), move into a small town in Ohio. The precedence that race will end up playing in the dynamic between the lead women is established instantly as Elena’s introduction to Mia, who is ‘suspiciously’ dormant in her car, prompts her to call the police. Throughout the series, an unravelling narrative is established where, as we learn more about the lives, pasts and hidden agendas of the two women, an intricate web of stories about motherhood, race and wealth unfold with effortless dramatic pull.
This narrative is supported by the series’ overall structure, which opens with the scene of Elena standing outside her burnt home with her youngest daughter Izzy (Megan Stott) missing. The show then flashes back to the date Mia and Pearl move in a few months earlier, with the first couple of episodes generally playing to tropes of suburban normality and establishing the dynamics between the central cast of mothers and family. The series has an unusually large leading set of eight focal characters, a consequence of such being that the show is initially a slow burn, finding its feet mid-season after the burden of exposition. Teenage romances, sexuality, bullying, and racial dynamics all establish the parameters of typical high-school experience expected of a show set in the late-90s. The figures of Pearl and Brian (SteVonté Hart), the latter dating Elena’s eldest daughter, Lexi, present the realities of high-school experiences with racism, and the inherent ‘normalities’ which the white people of the school and the gentrified neighbourhood are happy to ignore. The show is unflinching in its approach to race. Unsubtle comments from the wealthy Richardson family serve to undercut the family’s incessant desire to appear accepting, moments of ignorance becoming more brazen as the show fully embraces the realities of casual racism and a lack of understanding about white privilege. Both themes help prefigure the political moment of its release and understandably suits its dated setting.
Both Pearl’s desire to fit in with her white, wealthy suburban peers and her mother’s adamant resistance to such play out in the depiction of their nuclear relationship. Mia’s self-controlled, steely exterior matches explosively against Elena’s over-friendly, interfering nature. Elena’s introduction as Mia’s landlord, a dynamic in which wealth and privilege are seen to constantly be exploitative of the lives and narratives of people of colour, exists right from the beginning of the story. Little Fires Everywhere cleanly establishes its turbulent dynamics and with its intricate plot details come together enough tension to feel as combustible as the title predicts.
The tempestuous dynamic between Mia and Elena is deservedly the series’ central draw. The behind-the-curtain influence of the two lead actresses as producers bolsters the way in which the women feel in full control of this narrative. The apprehensiveness with which the two characters regard and approach one another, both as people and as mothers, is carefully structured with sharp dialogue and camerawork to mirror their hesitancy. The two veteran actresses are a formidable leading pair; Washington’s performance is marked by its almost withholding, cold sensibility and its simultaneous compassionate complexity, for those she values and vows to help. Conversely, Elena is almost a figure of over-performance, Witherspoon managing to balance the neurotic perfection of past characters which she is known to do so well, with the subtleties of Elena’s own lack of understanding as she attempts to moralise herself, and others, as secrets emerge and rivalries are entrenched. The vicissitudes of the idea of ‘a mother’s love’ are at the core of this show which so readily exposes female desperation and a maternal desire to understand children, as well as the implications of such on one’s identity.
For a drama which seems to take complex narrative arcs and subjects of discourse in its stride, Little Fires Everywhere will suit the tastes of those invested in suburban dramas such as Big Little Lies (also a product of Hello Sunshine, Witherspoon’s production company). Comparatively, where it steps up is in its offering of scrutiny towards these environments from within, instrumentalising the warring perspectives of two intense, resilient but vastly different women. Strong performances from the leading cast are bolstered with a refreshing amount of diversity, which is approached in a way that is neither hamfisted nor understated.
Little Fires Everywhere has been available to stream on Amazon Prime since May 22.
