East Of Eden Review: Florence Pugh Leads Zoe Kazan’s Steinbeck Adaptation
A seven-part adaptation shifts greater focus towards Cathy’s perspective.
Netflix’s new limited series East of Eden offers a fresh interpretation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel, expanding its seven-episode story across generations while giving greater attention to Cathy Ames. Created by Zoe Kazan, the adaptation remains broadly faithful to Steinbeck’s themes of family, morality and free will, while reworking Cathy’s history from a different perspective. Florence Pugh leads the cast as Cathy, with Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, Hoon Lee, Tracy Letts, Martha Plimpton and Ciarán Hinds among the other performers.
The series opens with Cathy arriving at the home of brothers Adam and Charles Trask, injured and seeking refuge. Adam takes her in, while Charles remains suspicious of her presence. Adam soon marries Cathy and leaves with her for the Salinas Valley, but she struggles with the expectations placed on her as a wife and mother. After giving birth to twin sons, Cathy rejects family life and eventually leaves, taking the name Kate and finding shelter in a local brothel.
One of the adaptation’s central changes is its decision to explore Cathy beyond the cruelty and manipulation that define her in Steinbeck’s novel. Kazan does not remove the character’s darker qualities, but places greater emphasis on her efforts to maintain control over her life in a society where women have limited choices. This approach gives the character a more layered backstory and allows the series to examine how her experiences shape her decisions. The result is a version of Cathy that remains morally troubling while receiving considerably more narrative attention.
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Pugh delivers a highly controlled performance, portraying Cathy through subtle expressions, calculated reactions and sudden flashes of anger. Her performance is supported by Kirsty Cameron’s costume design, which helps establish the character’s shifting identities and emotional distance. One particularly intense sequence involving Martha Plimpton’s Faye allows Pugh to move from restraint to explosive anger, adding another dimension to Cathy’s otherwise carefully guarded personality.
The series also retains Steinbeck’s larger philosophical conflict between good and evil and the idea of free will. The concept of timshel, commonly translated as “thou mayest”, remains central to the story, with Lee serving as an important guide to its meaning. Hoon Lee brings warmth and depth to the Chinese-American caretaker, while his interactions with Adam provide some of the series’ more emotionally grounded moments. The adaptation also gives Lee’s journey greater space within the wider family narrative.
Overall, East of Eden combines the scale of a multigenerational family saga with a more intimate examination of its characters. Kazan, working with directors Garth Davis and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, uses the landscapes and homes of the story to contrast the possibilities of the American West with the repeated conflicts within the Trask family. By expanding Cathy’s perspective while retaining Steinbeck’s central themes, the series presents a contemporary interpretation of the classic that gives its characters additional emotional and historical depth.
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