Spoiler warning: This review discusses the entire series and the novel’s ending.
East of Eden broke my heart more often through its supposedly good father than its murderous mother. That’s where this uneven adaptation finds its strongest drama.
Zoe Kazan’s departure from John Steinbeck’s treatment of Cathy is welcome, but the series spends too much time explaining cruelty that Florence Pugh makes compelling enough.
It’s more affecting when it follows the damage parents pass to their children. Those family conflicts give its ideas about choice a force the explanations often lack. Let’s dive in.
Cathy Deserves Sympathy, but Her Choices Still Matter
John Steinbeck, who wrote the novel, introduces Cathy with the idea that someone can be born with a “malformed soul.” We’re asked to judge her before we really know her.
That feels like an awkward fit with the novel’s belief in choice. Cal can resist his worst impulses, so why should his mother’s nature seem settled?
Steinbeck complicates that impression later, but the introduction hangs over her. Giving us more reason to question it is one of the adaptation’s better decisions.
Cathy wants to teach. But someone else has already decided she’d make a lovely wife. Her own teacher exploits her, making male attention something to fear and loathe.
The show doesn’t need to agree with Steinbeck here. Cathy deserves all the sympathy given to predatory men whose childhoods help explain their behavior.
Pugh makes that attention worthwhile. When Cathy reaches the Trasks’ house, she looks barely capable of surviving, and I never entirely forgot that vulnerability.
Her past only explains so much. Faye (Martha Plimpton) loves her and even calls her daughter. She plans to leave her everything. Cathy poisons her anyway to hasten her rise.
She even makes herself ill to escape suspicion. All the planning is especially disturbing because she has so many opportunities to reconsider.
Cathy’s distrust of affection doesn’t make killing Faye inevitable. The show is more interesting when it leaves that contradiction unresolved.
Her conversations with the dead Charles (Mike Faist), Adam’s brother and the man she slept with on her wedding night, work less well. He gives her fears a voice when Pugh could leave us guessing.
Adam’s Good Intentions Don’t Make Him a Good Father
Adam’s failure to understand Cathy is more revealing because she makes herself clear. She doesn’t want California; he insists she’ll be happy there.
Christopher Abbott makes Adam’s sincerity believable. He seems to think promising Cathy happiness excuses him from listening to her.
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The novel also shows Adam loving an imagined wife. Spending more time with Cathy makes his blindness harder to excuse on screen.
By the time he locks her in a room, I was furious. Her shooting him is horrifying, but he has decided her departure requires his permission.
His refusal to see the family he actually has continues after she leaves. The babies remain unnamed while Lee raises them and Adam retreats into grief.
His depression is believable. Repeatedly returning to his despair is less effective once its cost to the children is clear.
Samuel Hamilton (Ciarán Hinds) brings welcome impatience, insisting that Adam notice his sons. It’s a relief to hear someone challenge his neglect so directly.
But Samuel’s role also exposes what the adaptation loses by narrowing its focus. Hinds gives him warmth, while his family’s own story gets less attention.
Samuel too often seems summoned to help Adam. Steinbeck’s valley has more room for people whose problems don’t concern the Trasks.
Some of the novel inevitably had to go. Still, the repeated attention to Cathy’s schemes makes the reduced space for the Hamiltons harder to accept.
The series can feel relentless within this family crisis. More ordinary life elsewhere would make the valley feel inhabited beyond the people caught in it.
Lee shows how rewarding that wider focus can be. Hoon Lee excels when confronting Adam for never asking about his family. His is my favorite performance.
Adam depends on Lee every day without showing basic curiosity about him. The complaint is so reasonable that Adam has nowhere to hide from it.
Lee’s pidgin speech comes from Steinbeck, too. He speaks as white people expect, concealing part of himself to put them at ease.
The bookshop story changes emphasis. In the novel, loneliness brings him back. The series shows racism obstructing his plans, making his return feel less freely chosen.
That change makes the reunion harder to celebrate. Lee misses the boys, but he hasn’t had a fair chance to build something elsewhere.
At least Lee returns with conditions. His demand that Adam listen is satisfying, even as the family continues expecting him to solve its problems.
That inability to listen resurfaces with Cal (Joseph Zada). He hopes replacing Adam’s business losses will finally earn the approval his father so reluctantly gives.
Adam’s objection to wartime profiteering is valid. His response still hurts to watch, because he barely acknowledges the effort or affection behind his son’s gift.
Cal Repeats the Cruelty He Knows Too Well
The story repeats the novel’s pattern of fathers damaging their sons. Adam knows what favoritism did to Charles, yet shows little awareness of his own behavior.
The rejection helps explain Cal’s anger, but it cannot excuse what follows. Taking Aron (Joe Anders) to Cathy is cruel, and Cal knows his brother’s vulnerability.
Zada makes Cal’s pain convincing without excusing his revenge. He knows how rejection feels, yet chooses to hurt someone he loves.
It also makes Cal more interesting than someone who’s simply jealous. He can want Aron to succeed and still resent how easily their father seems to prefer him.
Aron gets less room to be complicated. His death devastates the family, but their feelings about him are better developed than his own.
The novel gives Aron’s idealization of Abra more force. Like Adam, he struggles to love a woman without imposing his own needs on her.
Abra can admit her flaws with Cal. Her feelings about Aron deserve similar attention, rather than mattering mostly for what they contribute to Cal’s recovery.
The Finale Finds the Hope the Family Needs
Cathy’s death pushes too hard for sympathy through its childhood imagery. I could feel for the girl without forgetting what she did to Faye.
Her will adds another painful rejection for Cal. He’s the son who has actually confronted her, but Aron receives everything. Even here, Cal comes second.
That repeated exclusion makes Lee’s plea at Adam’s bedside especially moving. He has raised Cal, and Hoon Lee makes his fear for the boy feel urgent.
“Timshel” has been explained often enough by then. But, as in the novel, its final use offers Cal a future without pretending he hasn’t hurt anyone.
He can acknowledge what he did without believing it determines the rest of his life. That matters more than an assurance that everything has been forgiven.
The ending also clarifies why the explanations around Cathy are frustrating. Her suffering deserves attention, but her choices afterward deserve just as much.
East of Eden works best in scenes that need no explanation. Cal’s long wait for his father’s approval makes the finale painfully overdue.
I’ve had my say; now I want to hear yours! Were you angry with Adam for rejecting Cal’s gift, or did you understand his decision? Meet me in the comments!
All seven episodes were watched for this review. East of Eden is streaming on Netflix.
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