![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/b5e67a632323a1aeaa40d92e675ab73184-East-of-Eden-n-S1-E1-00-12-17-08RX.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
East of Eden<\/a><\/p>\n Brothers<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 1\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Zoe Kazan\u2019s adaptation of John Steinbeck\u2019s East of Eden begins with a clear realignment of focus: Florence Pugh\u2019s Cathy Ames front and center. Hello! TV critic Roxana Hadadi here. I\u2019ll be recapping East of Eden for you. It\u2019s a change in format and tone from my usual Top Chef<\/a> and Project Runway<\/a> recap beats, but I\u2019m very excited for this jaunt to the Salinas Valley. And while I carry this John Steinbeck novel in my bones after reading it as a teen and falling for a romanticized, idealistic version of California thanks to Steinbeck\u2019s works, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Francesca Lia Block\u2019s Weetzie Bat series, I\u2019m going to keep most of my \u201cWhat would Steinbeck think about all this?\u201d theorizing to the bottom of these recaps. Whether you\u2019re a reader or a nonreader, we\u2019re going on this ride together.<\/p>\n But as we get started, I think it\u2019s important to establish that East of Eden is a sprawling consideration of myriad themes and concepts, most of which are introduced in the premiere episode \u201cBrothers,\u201d written by series creator and co-showrunner Zoe Kazan<\/a>. (Jeb Stuart is the other co-showrunner, and they\u2019re tackling Lonesome Dove<\/a> together next.) East of Eden is a tome obsessed with guilt, sin, ambition, race, the land as healing and capitalism as putrefying, the nature of fate and the question of free will, and the role money and inheritance play in either our corruption or our cleansing. It\u2019s a lot! In fact, it\u2019s so much that Kazan\u2019s grandfather Elia, when he adapted the novel with writer Paul Osborn into their 1955 film,<\/a> chopped off the first half of the book. Thankfully, getting seven episodes to play with, this limited series is giving us more of the story. Is it a little frustrating that \u201cBrothers\u201d begins with the typical Netflix trick of a shocking situation paired with a flashback? Sure. But centering a nearly dead Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh) is Kazan\u2019s entire intention with this project, and snagging us with the image of her bloody body crawling toward the Trasks\u2019 farmhouse is a tip of the hand toward where East of Eden is going. \u201cEvil is not always apparent at first glance \u2026 It is at the heart of our oldest stories. The sinful woman who eats from the tree. The jealous boy who kills his brother,\u201d Cathy says in a bit of metatextual narration that points to the religious figures Eve, Cain, and Abel, who inspired Steinbeck. \u201cEveryone is normal to himself. And to a monster, the norm must seem \u2026 monstrous.\u201d<\/p>\n Which one of these characters is a monster? How about all of them? Cathy\u2019s narration suggests it\u2019ll be her, and look, that\u2019s why you cast an actress like Pugh; you\u2019re going to get layers. But then there\u2019s also the bickering between brothers Adam (Christopher Abbott) and Charles (Mike Faist), the former of whom carries Cathy into their home and the latter of whom suggests not that they get a doctor but the sheriff. The duo\u2019s combative vibe is there from the jump, with Adam\u2019s softness and protectiveness toward Cathy and Charles\u2019s reflexive suspicion and concern, and it\u2019s a smart move for the episode to then jump back 25 years to show us how the Trasks got this way.<\/p>\n Say \u201chello\u201d to noted physical-media collector<\/a> and Carrie Coon\u2019s husband<\/a> Tracy Letts! In 1874 Connecticut, Union Army war hero Cyrus Trask, who lost his leg in service, treats his sons like they\u2019re rivals, a dynamic that will reverberate for decades. Elder son Adam was born to Cyrus\u2019s first wife (who drowned herself in a puddle of rainwater because Cyrus is that terrible), and younger son Charles is the product of Cyrus\u2019s current marriage to a woman who seems to only exist in the background because Cyrus takes up all the air in every room. I think Letts is a little old to be playing this role, but I understand why the series would go with him. He\u2019s so good at a specific form of pomposity and casual cruelty with which he pits his sons against each other. Which of Cyrus\u2019s sons is actually his favorite? Each thinks it\u2019s the other. As boys, Adam gets some shine because he gives his father a puppy for his birthday, compared with Charles\u2019s knife; as teens, Charles is the better shot and hunter and earns Cyrus\u2019s respect with his willingness to kill to survive. And since the boys have been raised in an environment where they\u2019re never sure of themselves and never doing anything because they want to, they\u2019re restless, listless. Their father is their god, and everything is for him, and as a result, neither Charles nor Adam defines themselves as individuals. They see themselves as not-Adam and not-Charles, and Cyrus has inflicted on them a deep wound.<\/p>\n Another deep wound: The boys get slotted into lives they don\u2019t want because their father decides their futures. Cyrus, who is appointed to Washington, D.C., to work with veterans, insists Adam serve in the cavalry, while Charles stays behind to run the family farm. \u201cIt\u2019s a pity there\u2019s no great war for you to join. But these Indian campaigns will give you ample opportunity to prove yourself,\u201d Cyrus says to Adam in the tone of a man who absolutely does not think non-white people are people, and then he says another awful thing: \u201cTo put Charles in an army would be to lose things which in him must be chained down.\u201d Cyrus senses in Charles the desperate desire of a second son to prove himself, and that proves prescient when Charles, furious about always being second-best, nearly beats Adam to death as they walk home from a brothel. Charles\u2019s drive, ambition, and fury are what Cyrus wants for Adam, and he intends Adam\u2019s time in the military to turn him into the firstborn he yearns for. Letts\u2019s half-amused, half-surprised delivery of \u201cAdam, don\u2019t you see? I love you better \u2026 Why else would I have given myself the trouble of hurting you?\u201d is enough to make me hate Cyrus Trask forever, but the series cements that loathing by giving us the Adam-involved slaughter of a Native village.<\/p>\n Was Adam just following orders, or is following orders in and of itself a choice? East of Eden argues the latter when Adam goes to see Cyrus, now an even more important government official, in 1899. Like on 30 Rock when Jack told Liz that Kenneth has a bright future because he\u2019s a white man with hair<\/a>, Cyrus plans for Adam to follow him into a government position. It doesn\u2019t matter that he doesn\u2019t have any experience: \u201cI can make men and destroy men,\u201d Cyrus brags. But what he doesn\u2019t expect is for Adam to bow out of all this, to return to the army he hates just to get away from his father and opt out of continued competition with Charles, who has turned the farm into a profitable enterprise. Adam is quiet-quitting his family, and he doesn\u2019t return until years later, in 1899, after years spent riding the rails and trying to get over all the killing he engaged in. And here, the episode\u2019s perspective \u2014 which has mostly favored Adam in his adulthood \u2014 shifts. Their separation has hurt Charles all these years, and he writes Adam a confessional letter about how \u201call that remains is a great aching, a great emptiness\u201d in their relationship, one that \u201cfeels like something isn\u2019t finished, like a job left undone \u2026 I fear Father damned us to the wrong fates.\u201d Kudos to Kazan for this gorgeous, evocative dialogue; this is about the point of the episode when I started crying and didn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n In their youth, the boys used to whisper in the bed they shared together about being free, and now, they are: Cyrus Trask is dead. When Adam returns to Connecticut, it\u2019s not because of Charles\u2019s letter asking him to \u201ccome home, brother\u201d (Adam never received it) but something else. The physical Trask farm isn\u2019t home, of course. Neither is Cyrus, who Charles learned was a fraud: He was discharged four months into service after injuring his leg, wasn\u2019t a hero in any battles, and stole the $100,000 he bequeathed to his sons. Somehow he lived a lie that no one caught up with, but his money is now theirs \u2014 and surprisingly, it\u2019s Adam who wants to use it, who doesn\u2019t care where it came from and who believes it will fund his exodus to California. Charles was home, the reason Adam returned. But now there\u2019s money on the line, and Adam can imagine a future for himself across the country and a chance to start again \u2014 something Charles, tethered so much to this land, simply can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n During this conversation, Adam and Charles hear a creaking sound on the porch that ends up being Cathy with her head bashed in and gain another diversion point in their relationship. Charles wants to turn her away. Adam brings her in. And in the episode\u2019s final minutes, Cathy\u2019s narration returns as a sort of affirmation, a promise to herself to grow \u201csmaller and smaller, so small no one can find you\u201d \u2014 but not to disappear. Between these two men, the one thing she\u2019ll never do is disappear.<\/p>\n \u2022 It looks like this adaptation is sloughing off the novel\u2019s parallel story about the Hamilton family and Steinbeck\u2019s self-insertion, which is fine. Please tell me if you disagree!<\/p>\n \u2022 Shout out to actors Gus Turner and Tom Sweet, who play young and teen Charles, and Asher Whitehead and Costa D\u2019Angelo, who play young and teen Adam. Some really solid casting there in evoking, but not mimicking, either Faist or Abbott.<\/p>\n \u2022 Unfortunately, Faist\u2019s pitched-down voice as Charles, and his vulnerability and obvious pain while writing that letter, inspired in me a Faist problem that Challengers<\/a> did not. (He\u2019s solid in The Bikeriders<\/a>, too.)<\/p>\n \u2022 Also, about that letter: In the book, Adam receives it and Steinbeck breaks my heart: \u201cAdam saved it for a time, and whenever he read it again it gave him a chill, and he didn\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 The episode\u2019s most beautiful image, thanks to director Garth Davis and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh: Charles climbing into the grave he dug for his mother.<\/p>\n \u2022 The episode\u2019s best montage, a tool I\u2019m sure this series will rely on to get through chunks of the book: Adam and Charles getting used to each other as brothers by cleaning the house, cooking meals, and dumping water into an outside bathtub for each other. Charles cutting Adam\u2019s hair? Come on!<\/p>\n \u2022 Clock this for later: Adam is the romantic brother, Charles is the more sexually driven brother, and whether they had a biological mom around definitely had something to do with this. Also note what Charles says to Adam about their relationship with their father: \u201cI\u2019m worse than a woman; I\u2019m a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Netflix\n <\/p>\n