Top 20 New Shows of 2020: #17

My annual TV Awards, the AFT Television Awards, are given out during the summer. It’s always nice to check in midway through the television season to reflect back on all the calendar year introduced us to. As 2020 closes out and 2021 begins, here’s a look back at the best new shows of the year.

#17: Little Fires Everywhere

This limited series assembled an extraordinarily talented cast led by Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon to confront racism in a suburban community in the 1990s. It seemed to get lost in the shuffle of other high-profile dramas in the first half of the year, but it was both a riveting watch and a highly thought-provoking one that probed the way people judge each other and feel bound to expectations. Watch it now on Hulu. 

Best Episode: “The Spider Web” 

Pilot Review | Episode Reviews

What I’m Watching: Little Fires Everywhere (Series Finale)

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 8 “Find a Way” (B+)

This was an emotional finale, one that ended in a surprising way. Due in part to the sensational nature of the events, it seems obvious that this isn’t based on real events, but that doesn’t make it any less of a powerful and very worthwhile endeavor. Everything escalated quickly when Elena tried to wield the information she thought she had about Pearl’s abortion as a weapon against Mia, and her eviction notice was swiftly changed to the next morning as a result. This episode, more than any other, highlighted the Richardson children as Elena blurted out that she never wanted Izzy, prompting Lexi to confess what happened and argue that she wasn’t the perfect child Elena always needed her to be. The kids setting the fire Izzy was going to start showed an acknowledgment on their part of their privileged circumstances and the dangerous cycles the mentality they were raised in creates and enables. No one got a particularly happy ending, with Elena taking responsibility for the fire, Izzy daydreaming about riding away with Mia while she was just on a bus headed somewhere, and Bebe perpetually on the run with her daughter. That last plot point was the most unsettling, though it does show that things have a way of working themselves out even if they’re far from permanent. Pearl forgiving her mother and choosing not to go to New York City but instead to meet her grandparents was sweet, and the best possible result they could have achieved. This has been one hell of a ride, and I’m hoping for lots of Emmy love, particularly for the younger talent involved.

Series grade: B+
Series MVP: Kerry Washington as Mia and Lexi Underwood as Pearl

What I’m Watching: Little Fires Everywhere (Penultimate Episode)

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 7 “Picture Perfect” (B+)

This was an intense ordeal of an episode, one that returned to a present that found every member of the Richardson and Warren families grappling with unpleasant revelations and realities. The one flashback was highly informative of much of what we’ve been seeing play out in the background over the course of this entire show, explaining that Izzy was indeed involved in a relationship with another girl at school that came to a crushing end when she panicked and shunned her after it was nearly revealed at a party. Seeing her disown and embarrass Izzy once again after her stunt at school was harsh, but nothing compared to the hurt caused by Elena taking the time to cut Izzy out of every photo because she wouldn’t wear the shoes she wanted. Telling Pearl what Mia did was also unforgivable, and that look in Mia’s eyes at the end of the episode indicates that she won’t just let this go. Testifying on Bebe’s behalf even after Elena threatened her was brave, and Elena was furious that her husband didn’t drop the bombshell he had. His comment that people like Bebe don’t win was cruel, and he’s also undergoing his own metamorphosis as he starts to see what Elena hasn’t been telling him. Lexie’s breakup was an inevitability, and she doesn’t seem to be learning much from each intolerant remark she continues to make. Trip not telling Moody about his relationship with Pearl is surely a mistake, and that parting shot of the four children sitting angrily on the couch was haunting. I really hope some of these young performers, particularly Lexi Underwood, who plays Pearl, can earn awards attention.

What I’m Watching: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Uncanny” (B+)

It’s always a risky decision for shows to feature younger versions of their characters since they can come off as unconvincing or hokey, particularly if they’re played by the same performers. In this case, finding younger actresses to play Mia and Elena was absolutely a success. I’ve been impressed with AnnaSophia Robb since her lead role in “Sleepwalking,” and in addition to the truly uncanny physical similarity between her and Reese Witherspoon, she captured her essence perfectly. Tiffany Boone from “The Following” and “Hunters” was equally excellent as Mia, whose experience in New York during college was quite transformative in ways she didn’t at all expect. This episode was especially thought-provoking because it was Mia who elected to get pregnant so that she could make some desperately-needed money, while Elena felt stifled by another pregnancy she hadn’t planned which was going to set her career aspirations back considerably. It’s always hard to be taken out of the present since we didn’t see any of the other regular characters aside from Bill and Linda, but this background was highly informative and worthwhile. Mia returning home to be told by her mother that she couldn’t even attend her brother’s funeral because her parents didn’t want to have to explain why she was pregnant was heartbreaking, and the transition to the present with Pearl riding first in the backseat and then next to her was powerful. This hour definitely made Elena more sympathetic, and we’ll see how much that remains true when this show returns to the present for its final two installments.

What I’m Watching: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 5 “Duo” (B+)

I was completely right about Lexie being pregnant, but I didn’t see things going down like this. Calling Pearl to ask her to come be with her for the abortion felt like a perfectly acceptable thing to do, until Pearl heard her own name called so that Lexie could protect her reputation and sacrifice that of someone she felt mattered less. Lexie collapsed into Mia’s arms when she arrived at her house, but she got a stern life lesson handed to her when Mia chipped away at her entitled behavior. Lexie walking out of the Warren house came at the worst possible time since the unexplained event served to alienate another member of the Richardson family who was actually interested in the Warrens for who they were, and that’s budding pyromaniac Izzy, who we know will end up hating her own family more than she hates anyone else. The custody case has gotten intense, and Linda was understandably furious at Elena for not sharing the crucial information that Mia was connected to Bebe. Elena driving to New York to learn more about Mia’s past and reconnect with an old flame was a real escape from reality, and it ended much in the same way that her daughter’s stay at Mia’s home did, with a brutal takedown from Jamie about how highly she thought of herself. Getting awoken while asleep in her car and told by the police officer that she wasn’t parked in a very safe area was an emphatic way to once again highlight the difference in how people are treated simply by the color of their skin.

What I’m Watching: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 4 “The Spider Web” (B+)

This show just got a whole lot more intense. To date, Kerry Washington has been the one giving the most intense performance as Mia, but that scene where Elena showed up at the restaurant and saw Bebe was a formidable showcase for Reese Witherspoon, whose death stare was ferocious and piercing. The fact that Mia went back to the house that day and worked as if nothing was wrong was bold, and they both seemed to agree on only one thing, which was that their work arrangement was done. Mia got the money she needed and a lawyer who can actually make things happen, as evidenced by the news coverage that framed the situation in a way that is very sympathetic to Bebe, highlighting Linda and Mark’s trying to pay her off – at Elena’s suggestion – as highly deplorable. It’s complicated, and Pearl has come to a place where she doesn’t even agree with her mother anymore, prompting extraordinary conflict between them that will also surely manifest when Elena and Bill realize that their daughter has been spending almost all her free time working with Mia, whose latest project is quite unsettling. It was difficult to watch Pearl pursue Trip romantically rather than Moody, and he experienced his crisis of conscience a bit too late to be considered noble. No one in either of these families is going to be talking to each other soon, and that fire that opened the show is just going to be the largest manifestation of all this terrible tension.

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.

Round Two: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere: Season 1, Episode 2 “Seeds and All” (B+)

In my review of this show’s pilot, I noted the presence of Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington as its strongest asset. It’s true that this doesn’t seem like a huge stretch for Witherspoon, not quite as much immutable personality as on “Big Little Lies” or as much of a willingness to say it all as on “The Morning Show.” But that also made Elena’s drunken confessions all the more powerful, since she let her guard down and shared much more of herself than she usually does with her defenses down. After “Scandal,” it’s great to see Washington take on something with a bit more depth, and she really impressed in all of her scenes in this episode, particularly when Mia spoke up to defend Elena and then reacted to her unsubtle share about helping Pearl get into the classes she needed. The counselor assuming that Pearl didn’t live in Shaker and that she couldn’t handle the more advanced classes was maddening, and having to ask for the forms he condescendingly offered her at the end was an unfortunate necessity. Actress Lexi Underwood, who plays Pearl, really is terrific, and definitely the standout of this ensemble. I was surprised that Mia decided to confess to having her boss call and pretend to be her former landlord since Elena wasn’t likely to pursue it after the embarrassment of having the criminal record check faxed to her house while Mia was cleaning it, and I’m curious to see how it will affect their relationship going forward.

Pilot Review: Little Fires Everywhere

Check out my one-minute take on every new pilot, which is embedded below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.