Take Three: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 3 “Seventy Cents” (B+)

It’s incredibly uncomfortable watching the casual racism expressed by all members of the Richardson family. The only ones who aren’t offensive are going through their own crises: Izzy as she deals with everyone at school bullying her and Moody trying way too hard to watch a movie with Pearl when she just wants to experience her new world. We hadn’t seen much of Lexie before this, and this was our first opportunity to meet her boyfriend Brian. The context in which she read him her essay was highly inappropriate, but it got so much worse when he understood that she had completed stolen Pearl’s story and repurposed it as her own. There’s little doubt in my mind that she’ll get pregnant from the sex they decided to have as a way of not dealing with the situation. Even more unbearable than that and Elena’s condescending tone was Mia’s decision to come photograph the party when she realized that Linda’s daughter might actually be the same baby that Bebe had given up, and Bebe showing up after she left was pretty tough to watch. Elena may not be the smartest person in the world, but it shouldn’t take much for her to figure out the connection between Mia and Bebe. I did appreciate Elena’s sound advice to Izzy that everything can be seen as a story to be told or rewritten if you approach it the right way. I’m not sure that will land with Izzy in the way she meant it, but at least it’s one positive element of their relationship she can refer back to when things get much worse down the line.