Florence Pugh's Cathy Ames: 'We Have Been Waiting for It'

Netflix's East of Eden landed at No. 1 on the platform's global English-language television chart in its first four days of availability, pulling 45.5 million hours watched and 6.5 million views. It opened with an 89 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. The seven-episode limited series, written and executive produced by Zoe Kazan, has been in development since 2022. The reason critics and audiences responded this way is not complicated: Florence Pugh.

Pugh plays Cathy Ames, Steinbeck's most reviled character, a woman who commits crimes ranging from arson to murder and ends the novel running a brothel in Salinas. The Daily Beast's review of the finale says her performance "could earn her an Emmy next year." The finale centers on Cathy's twin sons confronting her at the brothel she runs after murdering its previous owner, Faye. Cathy laughs, then cries, then dies by morphine overdose as she hallucinates a conversation with a man named Charles and sees a vision of her younger self.

Not the Easy Version

The debate around the show has circled one question: did Kazan soften Cathy into a girlboss antihero? Pugh has addressed it directly. She said she wanted to "get underneath all of the decisions that she makes" and not do the "easy, cheap version of making her a villain." Her line about the finale rage scene: the audience has been waiting for it. The show has been building to that moment, and so has the performance.

The softening argument is worth examining on its own terms. Kazan's version does not excuse Cathy. She still burns her parents' house down, she still shoots Adam Trask, she still kills Faye with slow poisoning, she still runs the brothel to its grim conclusion. What the show adds is backstory, the kind Steinbeck acknowledges he withheld. In his posthumously published letters, he wrote that he became more sympathetic toward Cathy as he wrote the novel. He anticipated readers would react to that sympathy. Kazan followed that thread. Pugh made it land.

A Cast That Earns the Material

Christopher Abbott plays Adam Trask. Mike Faist plays Charles. Hoon Lee plays Lee, the Trask family's Chinese American cook and the show's moral compass. Multiple reviews single out Lee's expanded role as one of the series' strongest elements. Kazan is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, who directed the 1955 James Dean film adaptation. The lineage is not lost on anyone covering the show.

The show also had an effect beyond the streaming chart. What's on Netflix reported that East of Eden's debut triggered a spike in sales of Steinbeck's novel, a pattern that has repeated with literary adaptations on the platform. The book has been in print for 74 years. Pugh's performance is sending people back to it.

What the Performance Signals

Pugh has built a career on roles that resist easy categorization. Lady Macbeth, Midsommar, Little Women, Oppenheimer, and now Cathy Ames: a run of complex, difficult women who are not designed to be liked on first contact. The Valentino brand partnership, which began in 2023, was built on exactly that quality. Valentino's creative director framed the collaboration as a real partnership based on trust and the idea of different values. A performer who insists on the hard version of a villain is consistent with that framing.

The Emmy eligibility window for East of Eden runs through May 2027. Whether the performance makes that ballot depends on factors beyond the quality of the work. What is already decided: Florence Pugh delivered the role that the show needed, and the audience found it.

Ad Watch News is an independent commentary site with no affiliation with Florence Pugh, Netflix, Zoe Kazan, or any person or brand mentioned here. We cover celebrity news and entertainment.

Florence Pugh's Cathy Ames: 'We Have Been Waiting for It'

Not the Easy Version

A Cast That Earns the Material

What the Performance Signals

Sources & further reading

Florence Pugh Returns to Sheer: 'Why Are You So Scared of Breasts?'

Sydney Sweeney Wears SYRN Sweatshirt in Selfie: 'Our Campus Crush'

Harry Styles Makes 30 Nights at MSG the New Rock Star Move