TV Review: East of Eden

I went into East of Eden with zero familiarity of the source material. I’ve never read the book. I never saw Elia Kazan’s 1955 film. But I’m a big fan of his granddaughter Zoe Kazan, so when I saw she was adapting it into a series, I knew that’s what I would start with.

This version plays out across 7 episodes giving Kazan plenty of time to flesh out the characters. I enjoyed the series overall, though I expected a bit more from the ending. Florence Pugh is the absolute stand out and it’s nice to see what Joseph Zada can do ahead of his big turn in the upcoming Hunger Games adaptation. I did decide to look up what big changes Zoe made to the source material, so I thought it might be fun to talk about those.

Cathy Ames is more fleshed out - I can’t say I’m surprised to hear that a male author in the 1950’s didn’t give his female character any agency but this show is good BECAUSE it chooses to follow Cathy so much. It never makes excuses for her, but it explains why she views the world the way she does. I do understand the criticism of just letting “women be evil” without having a tragic back story, and I agree with that take too. But if it meant less Florence in this series, I’m not sure it would’ve worked as well. 

Less Hamiltons - Ciaran Hinds’ Samuel Hamilton and his family apparently play a larger role in the book. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded more of Hinds, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by not knowing more about them. If anything, it was the Bacon family that I wondered if more of their scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. 

Charles’ Ghost - Charles Trask’s, (Mike Faist) story wraps up fairly early but the series decides to make him loom over Cathy far more. I’m not surprised to learn this was not in the book, as it definitely feels like something written to give an actor like Faist more to do.

Lee is also expanded on more - The Trask housekeeper, Lee (Hoon Lee) was left out of the film version, but brought back in by Zoe who wanted to know the character better. I loved Lee, especially the scenes he had with Samuel explaining how he presents himself to white people in a very specific way. He’s a nice contrast to the miserable Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott) and I’m glad we got more of him. Especially if the alternative was more Adam because no offense to Christopher Abbott, who is very good at playing characters who suck…but Adam Trask kind of sucks too. He was pretty frustrating to watch.

What did you think of East of Eden and the changes Zoe made? I imagine we’re going to see this quite a bit at the Globes, SAGS, and Emmys next year. I see Florence getting nominated easily and possibly Lee too. It also feels like an easy lock for a Limited Series nom.