Florence Pugh and Hoon Lee Form the Beating Heart of Netflix’s Rich ‘East of Eden’ Adaptation: TV Review

Netflix’s *East of Eden* adaptation reshapes John Steinbeck’s multigenerational story by opening with Cathy Ames, played by Florence Pugh, and gradually giving greater weight to Lee, the Chinese American cook played by Hoon Lee. The review says the series remains faithful to the novel while shifting its point of view, using these portraits and a lavish production to bring its themes of free will, original sin and recurring family tragedy into the present.

Pugh’s Cathy is portrayed as instinctively driven and fiercely protective of her independence as her circumstances change from vulnerable teenager to wife and later madam. The story begins with the Trask brothers, Adam and Charles, already shaped by their father Cyrus’s opposing ambitions for them; Cathy enters their lives after arriving battered at their Connecticut home. The adaptation covers the full epic, unlike Elia Kazan’s 1955 film, which focused on its final phase, and the review finds its character work uneven but compelling.