Badly misses the mark...
Just finished on Amazon Prime. I watched it on the strength of Reese Witherspoon as one of the executive producers and stars.
This a very DRAMATIC! drama... one of those shows where characters instantly ramp up the emotion and conflict over the course of one line of conversation. This is especially noticeable in the last two eps as they try to wrap things up.
I wasn't sure who I was supposed to cheer for... or at least find sympathetic. Every character in this series is unlikable.
The series also throws up a smorgasbord of issues trying to find one that sticks.. racism, gay acceptance, peer pressure, the privilege of wealth... It all kind of blurs into an unfocused story.
Witherspoon's Elena is the tightly wound suburban Mom trying to create this cocoon of family and community perfectionism around herself. Her 'enlightenment' seems more like a cloak she wears to raise her community status.
Joshua Jackson's Bill is the passive husband who provides financial support but little else. He is otherwise disengaged from his wife and kids.
Washington's Mia is the intruder with a big chip on her shoulder and a 'holier-than-thou' attitude. (I didn't notice this myself, but IMDB comments are almost unanimous about Kerry Washington's overacting.)
Each of the four children are emotionally stunted and/or manipulative little s**ts. In the last episode all the conflict between them is instantly put aside as they suddenly realize that the person responsible for everything wrong in their lives is their MOTHER!!! They take their revenge in the stupidest way possible.
Lexi Underwood's Pearl seems the most level-headed, but in the second last episode seemingly loses her mind completely over her mother's well intentioned lies. Suddenly she's an angry, mopey teenager shrieking at her mother.
(Seriously, all the kids in this movie need a slap up side their head...)
Lu Huang's Bebe who is trying to get back her baby from a white family is also manipulative and irresponsible (to the point of criminal behaviour). She comes across more as bipolar than a grieving mom.
A couple of secondary characters such as one the daughter's black bf also come off as douchey. During their break up scene he gas lights her by trying to re-frame their relationship as one tainted by her (non-existent) racism. Apparently, by not seeing or acknowledging that he is black and just accepting him at face value, she is... racist?!
The only couple who seem worth rooting for are the secondary characters of the McCulloughs who adopt Bebe's abandoned baby. A courtroom scene attempts to paint them as tone deaf white people guilty of some sort of weird 'reverse racism' by not making a bigger deal(!) of their daughter's Asian heritage. How dare they NOT see that she's different from them!!! That had my wife and I scratching our heads. (See above...)
FWIW I haven't read the book, which apparently does a much better job of explaining the motivations of the characters.
I'm not sure what the intent of Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington -- also an executive producer -- was when they put this together.