Great. So what do you think about Outcome and Judgement? I’m not quite sure of the illustration of the Goal (though I agree now that it should probably be Conceptualizing). But it feels like Failure.
As for Judgement, I want to say Bad, although it’s not the same for all the characters. Things appear much better for Mia and Pearl. But for Elena and family, it feels pretty tragic. Is this because there’s a substory (like you said?)
I remember being pretty sure that Judgment was Good actually! For some reason, in that scene which actually starts episode 1 (after the house burned down) and then is shown again at the end, everyone sort of seems okay with it? And I thought there was something good that happened with Izzy at the end … she was trying to follow Mia & Pearl but didn’t catch them, but wasn’t there some reminder of Mia that made her happy on the bus?
For Elena, I got the sense that when she saw that model of the town in Mia’s apartment, that she finally understood Izzy and was kind of like “whoa” instead of regretful. That was when she finally called her Izzy instead of Isabelle.
And for Elena’s kids, the fact that they worked together to set the fires almost feels like they resolved something … that they don’t regret setting the fires.
Certainly Mia & Pearl seem to have a Good Judgment, like you said.
The only characters who seem to suffer a Bad ending (angst, regret) are Elena’s friends who lost the baby.
EDIT: Totally on board with Failure. I think Success would’ve looked like, Mia & Pearl stay in town and find a way to get along without conflict with everyone, and the issue with the adoption is somehow resolved fairly.
Oh, that’s interesting. I read that as a sad moment – she wants to catch up with Mia and Pearl, she even dreams of it, but she wakes up on the bus alone.
I agree, though we don’t really see their emotional state at the end…
The main reason I thought it was Judgement Bad was Elena’s reaction at the end – she looks haunted, having realized too late that she’s lost her daughter. That seems tragic, not Good at all. The movie leaves it a little open ended whether she will.
This quote from a Vulture article on the ending compares it to the book:
The book explains that Izzy plans to track down the Wrights, the family who hired Mia as their surrogate, as well as Anita, Mia’s agent, in the hope of finding Mia again, but the series doesn’t offer that information. It doesn’t tell us whether Izzy will ever see her mother or family again, whereas the novel strongly hints she will not. “[Elena] would spend months, years, the rest of her life looking for her daughter, searching the face of every young woman she met for as long as it took, searching for a spark of familiarity in the faces of strangers,” writes Ng in the novel’s poignant last line.
Like the book, Little Fires Everywhere ends by showing us a regretful Elena and Izzy out on her own. But the series doesn’t fill in the rest. There’s a sense that the rest of their story, and the stories of the other characters, have yet to be fully written. Unlike Ng’s book, the Hulu drama seems to want to leave a little room for a season two.
Of course we shouldn’t rely on the book-- it’s clear that they are different stories, so it makes sense to keep them separate, but I wonder if problems with the adaptation are causing structural incongruities.
I also am not sure what a Steadfast/Judgement/Good premise would look like – “Vindication awaits those who…” I don’t know that anyone is vindicated – except maybe Mia? Or maybe it makes more sense as a Holistic premise?
That said, it’s clear that Mia and Pearl have a good resolution!
I’m actually not sure what to make of this.