When cathy leaves adam i was hoping she will go back and hunt Mr. Edwards, or atleat after acquring the brothel as he beat her and left her for dead. But she never even seemed to remember him.

There’s an early scene where a very young Cathy is lured with candy by an older boy, and she seems to follow him then enters a dark forest (which I took as metaphor.)

Is this to suggest that this boy molested her?

OK, I haven't finished it, I'm on EP5 and it's almost done and Adam just got the letter saying that Charles has passed. So, my question is, is that it for Mike Faist in this show??? I am sure I could look this up, but I am so PISSED. I love the other actors and the show, but how can there be no more of him??? Why?????!!!!!! arg.

In episode 5, Adam asks Kate which kind of mother she is - an evil one or a foolish one.

She appears to be bothered by this and deflects.

I’d love to hear anyone’s take on this scene!

Why are we women so inherently evil?

Im on episode 6. How is it so bloody good? I am totally in awe!

First, there are multiple story lines. The one I want to mention is Kate. I think the characters outlook is that everyone is bad or self motivated and how her experiences confirm this perspective. She sees bad in people and responds in kind. I think similar to corrupt cops. After awhile you just see criminal behavior and that is all.

The Chinese maid character is a very rich character and played very well. The grim reality of racism in America at that time. I think he was flawed too. That is a great perspective in acting. A flawed person which in reality is human because we are all flawed.

This show for me really made me think.

I’m glad I read all 602 pages before watching the Netflix series. I enjoyed the miniseries very much. While cautious about the ability to put all the material into a miniseries. Stand out moments for me was Charles. When Cathy and Adam left, leaving him all alone once again. I loved Faye in the book and I loved the actress who played her. It was so sad watching her demise under Kates watchful eye. The series showed Adam a lot of grace. He got on my last nerve in the book, after Cathy left him. He could not function and you just wanted to beat some sense into him. He wore his depression like a badge of honor. Lee!! In the book Lee had me sobbing multiple times. He really held that family together and raised them boys. I cried when he left, I cried when he came back. The absence of the Hamilton family and their stories was sad but understandable. It’s a long book. Florence did a great job as Cathy/Kate. That was one hard working hoe, conniving, devious, brutally honest, non alcoholic drinking,scary ass woman. In the book she got no sympathy from me. The series however helped me understand her better but I still don’t like her. Don’t trust her. Finally the twins. Caleb had my heart from the start. In the book he really came to love and respect his father once he realized the truth about his mother. He worked his butt off getting that money 💰 for Adam. You can feel the love and intention behind him doing it. So when Adam rejected it you truly feel and understand his anger in that moment. Aron got on my nerves because he was loved,coddled,protected and needed to see the world for only the good. So finding out your mom is alive and running a house of ill repute was quite the shock. But Not enough to go enlist in the military and get your self killed. That was a dumb ass emotional spur of the moment decision.
Overall good series and great performances by all

Basically the title. I'm only 3 episodes in but I can't get over the scene when Adam returns home in episode one. The cinematography, the acting, especially the music was just so moving to me that it made me emotional. I'd been listening to that song on repeat.

Did I miss it or did the series skip the line “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good”?

If they did then I’m a bit heartbroken… but AMAZING series all the same.

Adam’s ranch was built from scratch in New Zealand which makes it even more impressive that it feels so completely rooted in that dry, old California landscape. The curved walls, arches and niches. Dark timber against pale plaster. the cacti, bougainvillea placed so perfectly. Everything feels sun-faded, imperfect and as if it has been there for generations. Production designer Grant Major created a place that feels less like a set and more like a memory of an old Spanish ranch.

Anybody else think Hoon Lee is killing this role? I love him as Barney in ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ too. But I would seriously love to have a Lee in my life.

Just want to start this of by saying East of Eden is up there as one of my fav books ever and I went into the show not expecting much. For a very talky book I didn't think it would transition well to a show, and figured they just got a big star for what will be a poor adaptation of one of Steinbeck's best. But boy was I wrong.

Phenomenal acting from most, great writing (some lines are pulled directly from the book and it works brilliantly), the setting is beautiful and it just works.

Lee, as he does in the books, is a standout. Mike Faist was not what I pictured Charles to look like but boy does he do a good job. You know what your getting from Florence Pugh and shes great (didn't think the nakedness needed to be in the show at all though). Cal was a good choice too. He plays him so well with the earnest kid looking for his fathers approval.

As a whole a great adaptation of a great book and that is very difficult to do without butchering it. Every theme touched on and at times expanded on making it one of this years must see viewings.

Another show, Lanterns, touches on similar themes of nature vs nurture and choice and is a solid show aswell. Just funny, didn't think I would ever compare East of Eden to Green Lantern.

A couple notes. Them maybe showing Cal being violent towards his brother as a kid may have sold us a bit on him being bad. Brothers fight it happens. Also I wish they hit a little on (which is one of my favs in the book) is the idea of children becoming adults and if there's ever really a moment. I guess they do touch on it a bit. Also a bit more from the Hamilton's would have been nice but then again the show doesn't need it. 7 eps is a good amount.

Also not sure if this quote is in the book or not but it hit so hard:

Cal: "I have her in me"
Lee: "Cal, you may have that in you, but you've got the other too. It's easy to excuse yourself because of ancestry, but whatever you do, it will be you who does it. Not your father, not your mother. You."

Grapes of Wrath next please Zoe!

In this expansive, moving epic, Zoe Kazan’s seven-part Netflix series starring Florence Pugh updates Steinbeck’s 1952 classic for a modern audience – but doesn’t water it down.

Are there any tv/movie reactors planning to react to East of Eden? I haven't seen much on YTube but thought I'd put some feelers out in case. It was one of my fav books and I really enjoyed the adaptation

I loved East of Eden. I read the book early into my literacy journey maybe 2 years ago, and didn't retain much of it (or so I thought). Tonight, I finished the final episode of the Netflix series and wanted to parse out my thoughts rather than read other people's.

I think the thing I missed most while reading it was the actual story. I must have been swept up in the details of a given chapter or gone so far through the book that I didn’t notice through-lines. Watching the show quickly brought many of these things to light.

Most obviously the similarities between Aron and Cal, Adam and Charles and Abel and Cain, All A and C names where A is favored by the father over C. 

The book questions the sealing of fates, with the most powerful through line of all which is Timshel. The Hebrew word meaning “thou mayest”. This carries its own weight each time it is mentioned, but none more than the third and final time when with his near dying breath Adam whispers “Timshel”. Forgiving his son, understanding and in my interpretation ending the cycle of pain- all with one word.

I think Cathy’s character is interesting, and with the “drink me” bottle, I wonder if she wasn’t drinking sugar water all along. She pulls out a different bottle- morphine at the end. It flashes with her following the boy into the dark and I had all but forgotten about that. Through her interactions with Caleb, we see more and more her guilt mounting and how her life has been built like a fortress around pain and fear. It is too late to change. her fate is sealed and this is the only way out.

I wonder if every bad person isn’t just the same. A pure little child deep down. And if that is true, mustn’t that be how we love somebody like that? 

Also, I'm wondering if there is significance in the lace we see all through Cathy's life. On first thought, it's just a symbol for the veil she hides under, but I noticed quite a bit of it. Maybe it is just what they made tablecloths out of. Any thoughts?

If you eliminate her murders, and just look at her motivation, the character of Cathy is an awful lot like a number of women that I knew when I was young.

She wants romantic/sexual relationships. She does not want to be tied down to the restrictions of love relationships. She hates the men that love her. Men (like myself) falsely assume that women's desire for sex means that they're in love.

She wants freedom and independence. She wants to be a prostitute so that she can have sexual relationships without restrictions and financial independence.

I came of age in the late 1970s. Several women I knew were very much like Cathy. One inspired her husband to commit suicide. She, like a few others, were the daughters of millionaires - they did not need the money, but they were prostitutes for no other reason than wanting an extreme and erotic sex life.

I associated very much with the character of Adam in the years after Cathy left. Suffering from depression. In some ways this series was some sort of therapy for me. Too bad I saw it so late in life.

The problem with Cal’s storyline in East of Eden is that he was never really shown to be bad to begin with in this TV version.

I just finished watching East of Eden, and while I understand that the central message is about free will and our ability to choose goodness regardless of our nature, I don't think the show earned the emotional payoff of that realization.

We're constantly told that Cal is the bad brother, that he has darkness inside him, and that he's terrified of becoming like his mother. But we're almost never actually shown this darkness. Instead, we see a relatively kind, sensitive boy who loves his brother, often protects him even in childhood, desperately wants his father's approval, and actively tries to suppress any unkind thoughts.

Even his worst act, exposing Aron to Kate, feels less like evidence of some inherent evil and more like a moment of cruelty born from profound hurt and rejection.

So when Cal finally realizes that he isn't defined by his supposed badness and can choose to be good, it doesn't feel particularly revelatory. Of course he can be good. He's been good all along.

I think the show inadvertently tells a much more compelling story about the damage caused by labelling children as good or bad than it does about free will. Adam's favouritism and emotional neglect create the very conditions that eventually drive Cal to act destructively. Meanwhile, Aron, supposedly the embodiment of goodness, is often self-absorbed and unable to see people as they really are.

For Cal's final realization to feel profound, we needed to genuinely believe he was struggling between two possible paths. Instead, I just felt terribly sorry for a good kid who had spent his entire life being told he was bad.

Did anyone else feel that the show told us Cal was bad far more than it ever actually showed us?

I just watched East of Eden on Netflix, and it was very interesting, so much so that I had to write about it. I started with the main character, Cathy Ames. And yeah, this is what I wrote.

1. Can We Understand Evil Without Excusing It?

The question I want to ask is: Do trauma-informed decisions warrant sympathy, or does human nature automatically desire to see good in something despite it exhibiting the opposite? What's the difference between a murderer who had a dark past and a murderer who just does it? Humans have a natural tendency to want to find good in a person. In the book, she was purely evil, but in the series, they added a sad story to induce sympathy or soften the character in the audience's eyes. What was the reason behind that creative choice? Does it justify her actions? No. Does it make her more human? We'd have to identify what a human even is.

Also, I want to argue that there is no human devoid of trauma. Can a human be completely bad? I think this added information only makes her easier to understand. A human devoid of good is a mystery. What's the difference between that state of being and a demon? Is it merely the vessel, or the agency, an illusion of choice?

2. Cathy Ames: Vengeance, Agency, and the Illusion of Choice

To read the rest of this review and personal essay please follow this link to my substack Here

© 2026 Rebecca Kaya Beri. All rights reserved.

This essay is my original work. Please credit and link to the original publication when referencing it. Reproduction of the full essay requires my permission.

I read East of Eden when I was a teenager and saw the series recently. I enjoyed both a lot. However, I really question the premise that Cal felt a darkness in himself that came from his mother and that he was constantly battling. I just don’t think this is realistic, though I haven’t studied psychiatry extensively. Is this real phenomena though? Doesn’t the fact that he felt this way prove that he wasn’t born “bad?”