Tristine Okonye

Oversimplified, ham-fisted social commentary, no character development to speak of and a forced plot line make watching this show cringy, at best. I found Little Fires Everywhere to be a show that had the potential to actually say something, but played out like an overdone teenage drama (I’m looking at you, Pretty Little Liars)... with adults. If this show were a student, it would be the kid that uses paragraph-long quotations from one side of an argument to produce a thoughtless paper under the guise of “analysis”. The social commentary was deep... for a 5th grader being introduced to the addresses topics for the first time. The writers clearly don’t trust the audience to have the capacity to draw conclusions about, well, anything- yet somehow manages to gloss over complex issues just enough to avoid nuance. All of the characters essentially spend their time having a ridiculously strong opinion when faced with a new, challenging topic, only to double down on it when forced to face the reality that “ALWAYS” and “NEVER” rarely exist in the world. Overall, the show’s plots were poorly executed and featured borderline disrespectful attempts to approach race, class and sexuality. We could’ve done without it altogether- I’ve heard the book was better, anyway.