Zoe Kazan's seven-episode Netflix adaptation of *East of Eden* draws simultaneous reviews calling Florence Pugh's performance both "terrifying" and the series' gravitational centre.
The Hollywood Reporter and IndieWire published their assessments on 1 October 2026, and the convergence is worth noting: two outlets with very different critical temperatures arrived at the same structural observation. Pugh plays Cathy Ames, the villain whose capacity for violence and manipulation drives the Trask family toward ruin across generations, and both reviews position her not as a supporting threat but as the load-bearing element of the whole adaptation.
The Hollywood Reporter notes the miniseries is truer to Steinbeck's novel than the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan — Zoe Kazan's grandfather — which famously compressed the book's scope and largely sidelined Cathy. That the granddaughter's version restores the character her grandfather erased, and builds the series around her, is the kind of generational correction that tends to define how an adaptation gets remembered. IndieWire calls the series "magnificent" and "richly provocative," with particular attention to Cathy as the figure who sends the family "reeling."
Mike Faist and Christopher Abbott co-star. Whether the series holds its nerve across all seven episodes, or whether Pugh's dominance eventually unbalances it, is the question the reviews leave open.
Ryan C 
Harvey Specter Jr. 
Marcus Azzopardi