In Celeste Ng’s 2017 novel, readers know from the first page that Izzy, the 14-year-old outcast of the wealthy Richardson family, burned down their house. But when adapting the story, Tigelaar had a feeling that wouldn’t work for television. While the opening scene in the premiere showed the stately home in flames, with hints that Izzy was responsible, the arsonist’s identity had to be an overarching mystery hanging over the next eight episodes.
“I really debated, if it wasn’t Izzy, who would do it?” Tigelaar said in an interview. She wondered if type-A matriarch Elena Richardson could be the culprit, given the havoc she wreaks. But when consulting with her fellow producers, they agreed that would be “too insane.” Tigelaar brought it to the writers. When no other character seemed like a realistic option, they decided that the three oldest Richardson children (Lexie, Trip and Moody) should be the ones to burn down the house.
As viewers saw, toward the end of the final episode, Izzy (Megan Stott) is finally pushed to the brink by her mother, Elena (Reese Witherspoon), who evicts Mia (Kerry Washington) and Pearl (Lexi Underwood) from their rental house, sparked by a misunderstanding when Elena mistakenly thinks her son got Pearl pregnant and Pearl had an abortion. (In reality, Lexie had the abortion, but wrote Pearl’s name on the medical forms to cover her tracks.) Elena and Mia have always despised each other, each thinking the other is a terrible mother, so Mia is more than happy to leave.
Izzy, a rebellious teen frequently ostracized by her own family, had found a beloved mentor in Mia and is devastated that Elena sent her away. So she grabs a garbage bag full of her belongings and a bottle of gasoline and takes them to her bedroom. As she starts to pour gas everywhere, her siblings try to stop her. Then Elena comes into the room, eyes blazing.
“You need professional help! This infatuation with Mia, this crush,” Elena seethes, delivering a particularly low blow, as Izzy is still reeling from the fallout from dating her best friend, April. But Izzy is ready with a comeback: “I just wanted her to be my mom. A mom who actually loved me, a mom who was nothing like you.”
Elena completely loses it, with years of resentment built up from the fact that Izzy was an accidental pregnancy: “Do you think I wanted a daughter like you?” Elena screams. “I never wanted you in the first place!” The siblings are horrified, but it’s too late. Izzy runs out of the house. “Let her chase after Mia. They deserve each other,” Elena says bitterly.
Tigelaar said that Witherspoon, whose production company acquired the book, was insistent that the fight turn that brutal: “She really wanted the daughters and mothers to scream to each other the way daughters and mothers scream at each other, going to places where only their mother or daughter will get them to go,” she said. Then Tigelaar thought about the sibling dynamics, and how none of them every really stood up for Izzy. She imagined what would happen if they finally saw Elena’s disgust and disappointment through Izzy’s eyes.
“What would it mean for Izzy if … they finished something that she started?” Tigelaar said. “It was almost this thing that would unite all four siblings in this destructive act, but the act would have resonance for how their lives would move forward.”
After Izzy runs away, Lexie (Jade Pettyjohn) tearfully confesses that she was the one who had an abortion. But Elena doesn’t want to accept it. At that moment, Tigelaar said, the kids realize their own complicity and the reality of their lives: Lexie, using Pearl’s name at the abortion clinic and blind to her own privilege. Moody (Gavin Lewis), who resented Pearl for not returning his romantic interest. Trip (Jordan Elsass), accepting that Pearl, someone who he truly loved and dated behind his brother’s back, is gone.
Most of all, they realize they don’t want to be anything like their mother, with her insistence on ignoring problems and appearing perfect on the surface, regardless of who it might hurt.
So Lexie grabs the gasoline and announces she is totaling the house. “Do you want to become her?” she asks her brothers. “Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Look at her, what she is, look at what she did to Mia and Pearl. I mean, look at us. Maybe Izzy’s the only one who actually had it right.” Trip and Moody are startled but spring into action. The three of them pour gas everywhere and light the matches in their rooms. They make sure to grab Elena before running out of the burning house.
“They’re so caught up with this heightened state of something crazy happening, everyone is in kind of fight-or-flight mode,” Tigelaar said. “If they stopped and slowed down and thought about it, they wouldn’t do it.”
Similar to the book, the ending is ambiguous: Mia finally tells Pearl about her past, and they go see Mia’s estranged parents. Izzy takes off to chase down Mia. Bebe Chow (Huang Lu), the immigrant mother whose custody battle helped ignite Elena and Mia’s feud, sneaks into her baby’s adoptive parents’ house and takes the child. And the Richardsons watch their house burn down. When a firefighter asks who set the fire, Elena takes the blame. “I did. I did it,” she whispers, as the consequences of her actions finally dawn on her. The last scene shows her in Mia’s apartment, grieving for Izzy’s disappearance.
Tigelaar said there are no plans for a second season, but her goal was to honor the book even with any changes. She loved that in the end, even if Elena didn’t technically start the fire, she finally accepted responsibility for the way she treated her family.
“It didn’t have to be Elena who intended to burn down her house,” Tigelaar said. “It made it almost this collective act: Izzy got the gas, [the siblings] dropped the matches, but Elena was really the spark. In some ways, it’s as if they all started the fire.”
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