Shaker Heights should just change its name to Shaken Heights at this point. My friend Everett recommended this to me and for those that don't know, we have incredibly similar tastes. If he said this was good, then I was going to take the time to watch and see for myself. Based on Celeste Ng's novel by the same name, Little Fires Everywhere centers around two families who could not be more different living in Shaker Heights during the 1990s. The Richardsons are led by Elena, played by Reese Witherspoon, who's a smug journalist with an apathetic husband and a brood of four children. This includes popular girl Lexie, athlete Trip, soft-spoken Moody, and the rebel Izzy. Along comes the Warrens, single mom Mia, played by Kerry Washington, and her daughter Pearl. On a whim (or more like guilt), Elena rents out one of the Richardsons' properties to the Warrens when they move to Shaker Heights. As Pearl makes friends with Elena's children and gets close to them, Elena and Mia's differences immediately come to the surface. When a local adoption brings a scandal, it causes little fires everywhere across Shaker Heights. Right away, I was hooked on this. When you have powerhouse leads like Reese and Kerry, there is very little that can go wrong... Until it does for their characters in the show. Life does indeed come at you fast! This show will refuse to let you finish it without feeling uncomfortable: race and class are quite literally at the forefront in every episode. Elena is a classic example of how White women think they're "good." She's so confident in thinking that she is welcoming and open-minded as her daughter is dating a Black athlete and opening up her rental property to Mia and Pearl. In reality, her micro-aggressions just pile up into this mountain of ignorance you can't ignore. Elena asks intrusive questions she really has no right to ask. She gives advice to both Mia and Pearl that's borderline tone-deaf due to her privilege. Her talent of always bringing in race that makes having conversations with her uncomfortable is astounding. It's a hard reminder that I very well could be an Elena now or become her in the future. I could tell that topics we discuss today are no different than this taking place in the 90s. Watching Elena and Mia fight over who was the better parent as they're forced to uncomfortably socialize with each other was so fascinating. Both of their constructed ideas of peace immediately gets dismantled in front of their eyes. Watching them drift from their children was the drama I didn't know I needed in my life. It was, no pun intended, a slow burn waiting to turn into a blaze that I would happily be consumed in. This whole show was like an ode to the 90s, like the Richardson kids gathering around the TV to watch the Real World and grunge outfits galore from Izzy. It showed how far we come in terms of pop culture, but not so much in how we deal with race or class.
Give all the awards for Reese and Kerry immediately!
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