Netflix released the first full trailer for its adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden on Wednesday, September 2, with Florence Pugh front and center as Cathy Ames, one of American literature's most enduring villains. The seven-episode limited series premieres October 1.
The trailer opens with Pugh's narration over footage of her character bloodied and crawling through grass before being discovered by the Trask family. "I believe there are monsters born in this world to human parents. A monster is a variation from the accepted normal," Pugh's Cathy says at the start of the clip. The trailer goes on to show Cathy and Adam Trask falling in love and eventually marrying, while her voiceover grows more ominous. "Evil is not always apparent at first glance," Pugh says. "It can come cloaked in goodness or beauty or love. The heart of our oldest stories."
Christopher Abbott plays Adam Trask, who tells Cathy she warms the entire house even without leaving her room. His brother Charles, played by Mike Faist, is far more suspicious. "A girl like that doesn't just fall out of the sky," Faist's Charles warns. "She's going to tear you to pieces, and I don't want to watch it," he later tells his brother. Cathy ultimately abandons Adam and their twin boys, and the trailer later shows her working at a brothel, dressed in early twentieth century lingerie.
Steinbeck published the novel in 1952. It spans from the American Civil War to the end of World War I and is set in California's Salinas Valley, where Steinbeck was born and raised. According to IndieWire, the book runs 600 pages and is considered his most ambitious work. It traces two intertwined families, the Trasks and the Irish immigrant Hamiltons, with the Cain and Abel story from the Bible serving as its structural backbone.
The 1955 film adaptation, directed by Elia Kazan, is best known as James Dean's leading debut. Jo Van Fleet won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Cathy in that version. Because of the novel's length, the film only covered the final portion of the book, a cut that Steinbeck himself approved of. A three-part television adaptation aired in 1981. The Netflix series is the first screen version to adapt the entire novel.
Zoe Kazan wrote the full series and serves as co-showrunner alongside Jeb Stuart. Her connection to the material runs deep. "In the process of bringing this family saga to life, the resonance of my own familial connection to the material has not been lost on me," Kazan said in a statement when the series was first announced. "But it is Steinbeck's writing — personal, shocking, profound and free — that has kept me enthralled to East of Eden since I first read the book as a young teen." Elia Kazan, the director of the 1955 film, was her grandfather.
The cast also includes Ciarán Hinds as Samuel Hamilton, Hoon Lee as Lee, Martha Plimpton as Faye, Tracy Letts as Cyrus Trask, Joseph Zada as Cal Trask, and Joe Anders as Aron Trask. Garth Davis directs episodes one through four, and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre directs episodes five through seven. The series was filmed in New Zealand. Fifth Season and Anonymous Content are co-producing.
According to Deadline, Netflix first unveiled the trailer during its upfront presentation in May, nearly four years after the limited series was first announced. All seven episodes will be available on Netflix starting October 1.
