As someone familiar with the book, my perspective here is strongly influenced by Steinbeck's source material. There were some ups and downs for me…
The good:
- Looked beautiful
- Acting was nails. Almost all the characters were spot-on. Much will be said about Florence Pugh, but the others did well too. The actor who played Adam hit the right note of blind idealism followed by gloomy despondency, and back again. Sam and Lee were also both awesome, especially Lee.
- The show stuck to Steinbeck's plot pretty faithfully, with the exception of some small tweaks that drastically altered the narrative (more on that next).
The bad:
- In the source material, Cathy Ames is an unrepentant monster, absolutely heinous, manipulative, and evil. Steinbeck intentionally omits any trauma or victimization in the character, as she serves the overall narrative as a caricature of pure evil, unjustified in her twisted worldview, essentially the serpent in the garden. Zoe Kazan's Cathy is something altogether different. She is a victim. Perhaps this is not surprising, and I won't get too anti-woke here, but in today's environment I guess we can't just have a female antagonist whose evil wasn't the result of some trauma set on by a patriarchal father or abusive man. For someone unfamiliar with the book it probably won't come across as smack-you-in-the-face feminism, but the few small details they added to Cathy's story entirely remade the character in my opinion.
- Sam Hamilton is an awesome character, and he could have received a lot more airtime. In fact the whole Hamilton family arc is pretty much omitted. I know there is a lot of material to cover from an epic novel, but it's really a shame to give that character the short shrift, because he is terrific in the novel. He serves as the virtuous mainstay who anchors the Trasks with his wisdom. In the show he just gets a few minor appearances.
