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Mia (Kerry Washington) and Elena (Reese Witherspoon), star in Hulu's adaptation of the best-selling novel
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Tuned In: Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon tussle, burn bridges in ‘Little Fires Everywhere’

Erin Simkin/Hulu

Tuned In: Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon tussle, burn bridges in ‘Little Fires Everywhere’

The Hulu limited series, based on the novel by Pittsburgh native Celeste Ng, is set in suburban Cleveland in the late 1990s.

Reese Witherspoon has cornered the market on wealthy, busybody white ladies, following up HBO hit “Big Little Lies” with this month’s equally soapy Hulu melodrama “Little Fires Everywhere” (streaming March 18). It’s based on the best-selling 2017 novel of the same name by Pittsburgh native Celeste Ng, who serves as a producer on the series.

“Little Fires Everywhere” opens with Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) watching her house burning down from a purposeful fire set using accelerants (“there were little fires everywhere,” a cop says) with suspicions immediately set on daughter Izzy (Megan Stott) with whom Elena has an ongoing power struggle.

But the thrust of the story really revolves around Elena’s relationship with a mysterious town newcomer, Mia Warren (Kerry Washington, “Scandal”).

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Elena first sees Mia and daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) sleeping in their car and reports them to the police. Vagrancy just won’t do in Elena’s picture-perfect Shaker Heights, Ohio, the upscale Cleveland suburb that serves as the show’s 1997 setting. Later, Elena rents an apartment to Mia, offering a discount on rent if she mows the lawn but it must be done every two weeks.

Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler and Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill in AMC's
Rob Owen
Tuned In: AMC ends ‘Saul;’ Hulu sets ‘Little Fires Everywhere’

“The grass in Shaker can’t be over six inches tall,” Elena informs Mia.

Almost every word out of Elena’s mouth is screamingly cringeworthy thanks to both what she says and the well-meaning condescension that drips off of her

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When Elena’s not measuring out her wine, she’s complaining about her children or the book club selection or the cost of youth orchestra. Elena’s a tightly-wound control freak similar to Witherspoon’s Madeline in “Big Little Lies,” a type-A character Witherspoon inhabits believably while still making Elena at least a little sympathetic.

Adding elements of race and class into Elena’s interactions with Mia heightens the dramatic tension. As good as Witherspoon is at not holding back, Washington is just as magnificent at conjuring Mia’s aura of mystery while allowing her true feelings to slip through. There’s a scene in episode two when Mia butters up Elena, assuaging Elena’s liberal white guilt. Just as Elena turns away, Mia’s true feelings flicker across her face in a way that’s both subtle and unmissable.

It also helps that Mia is no saint, and that Elena’s instincts about Mia hiding elements of her past are correct. Mia’s daughter Pearl doesn’t seem to trust Mia and clearly craves the stability rigid Elena has created for the Richardsons, while Izzy is drawn to free spirit Mia.

In a fascinating twist — one that shows Elena and Mia have some similarities neither would care to admit — Mia gives Elena a run for her money in the buttinski department by taking on the cause of a co-worker who abandoned her baby at a fire station, a plot with potentially devastating consequences.

Celeste Ng.
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'Little Fires Everywhere': Celeste Ng's novel of motherly love and other everyday catastrophes

Written by showrunner Liz Tigelaar (“The Astronaut Wives Club,” “Life Unexpected”), “Fires” burns bright in its first episode and beyond, promising an engrossing, fast-moving, character-driven drama that becomes deeper and more disturbing as the story unspools.

Local actor on ‘The Rookie’

Pittsburgh actor and Point Park University grad John Siciliano, who guest starred on CBS’s “FBI” in January, will guest star on the March 15th episode of ABC’s “The Rookie” (10 p.m. Sundays, WTAE-TV) playing an Army veteran with a prosthetic leg who’s had a hard life as a civilian.

Siciliano grew up in Springdale Borough. A car accident in 1993 during his freshman year at Point Park resulted in a leg amputation.

Kept/canceled/revived

NBC renewed all three of producer Dick Wolf’s “Chicago” series and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for three more seasons.

BET Plus renewed “First Wives Club” for season two.

CBS announced “Hawaii Five-0” will end its 10-season run with a two-hour episode on April 3.

Fox canceled “Almost Family” after one season.

Syfy announced the current season of “The Magicians” will be the show’s last with its April 1 season finale serving as a series finale.

Daytime hit “Judge Judy” will end production of new episodes after 25 years at the end of the 2020-21 TV season.

Streamer Disney+ ordered a revival of animated series “The Proud Family.”

Syfy greenlit a series for 2021 based on George A. Romero’s partially Western Pennsylvania-filmed 1985 movie “Day of the Dead.” The Syfy series will film in Canada.

Channel surfing

“Superstore” star America Ferrera will depart the NBC comedy at the end of its fifth season in April; the show was already renewed for a sixth season. … Digital subchannel getTV (Channel 69.2 over the air and Channel 373 on DISH Network) is airing restored episodes of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” at 11 p.m. Saturdays through March. … Netflix’s six-episode docuseries “The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez,” about a Los Angeles boy murdered by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013, features interviews with Allegheny County DHS employees and the Allegheny Family Screening Tool, a predictive risk modeling tool that seeks to help improve child welfare call screening decisions, 25 minutes into its fifth episode. … “Future Jobs: Technology and a Changing Workforce” (8 p.m. March 12, WQED-TV) explores the jobs most in demand in Western Pennsylvania and the challenges in filling them.

Tuned In online

Today's TV Q&A column on the blog responds to questions about “This Is Us,” “Stumptown,” PCNC and Dave Crawley. This week's Tuned In Journal includes posts on “Breeders.” Read online-only TV content at http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in.

TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook for breaking TV news.

First Published: March 5, 2020, 1:00 p.m.

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Mia (Kerry Washington) and Elena (Reese Witherspoon), star in Hulu's adaptation of the best-selling novel "Little Fires Everywhere," by Pittsburgh native Celeste Ng.  (Erin Simkin/Hulu)
Erin Simkin/Hulu
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