With such a seemingly calm and docile title, FireFly Lane, definitely blew that concept out of the water. Touching on some powerful and dark themes, just in the first moments of the first episode ironically titled, “Hello Yellow Brick Road”. Never even knowing about the book series it was based on written by Kristin Hannah, all that I needed was for the trailer on Netflix top ten most watched items to play, and instantly I was intrigued. The show’s story revolves around two totally opposite women who come together as best friends, since they were children, and remain that way for a couple decades. From the outside summary so far the show sounds like any corny novel that a mom would pick up at the store to read while drinking herbal tea with Ellen playing in the background.
Yet, watching it, is a completely different experience. Opening the first scene, the camera zooms in on a solemn faced woman named Tully, played by Katherine Heigl, deep in thought.Then, right away the camera cuts to multiple scenes of girls of different ages, seemingly to be Tully when she was younger, just laying down crying. While all this is going on, the now adult Tully is walking on stage to be the host of a well-known talk show. Then instantly the show cuts to the scene back when Tully was young, and her free-spirited mother of the 70’s named Cloud, decides to take her to a protest for peace.
Ultimately she was too preoccupied with the cause to take care of her daughter, leaving her abandoned on a bench, crying. Swiftly time is then moved forward in the show and Tully, or Tulula as her mother Cloud calls her, is now a teenager and wants to take her again. This time she wants to take care of her permanently and they both move to a place known as FireFly Lane in Seattle, Washington. Scenes then cut back and forth in time to show Tully’s best friend Kate, played by Sarah Chalke. In the mirror the camera goes back and forth to her former and present self putting her glasses on.
Going back and forth through time happens frequently all throughout the episode. For the storyline, I feel this is necessary to show the roots and complexities of this friendship. Though the time that the show travels through consists of the 1970’s to 2003, which is the present time in the series. In the present time of 2003 these best friends are still opposing ends in life. Kate is shown as the meek, good-hearted woman living a family life with her daughter, Marah, to fill her days. Yet Tully is an outgoing, famous talk-show host who lives alone in the city, except for a hookup with a sexy bearded man she spontaneously meets at a bar and the two part ways with an endearing anecdote about Krispy Kreme donuts.
This parallels to when they are young. As children Kate is shown as more innocent and has a seemingly happy traditional family, but has no friends.While Tully seems rebellious, free-spirited girl who many want to be around, but doesn’t have much of a family around.We even see these two besties/working girls in the 1980’s where Kate gets an interview, through Tully for an editor position at a T.V. station, where Tully is a producer. This is when Kate meets the boss, Johnny, and instantly the slo-mo classic love song plays. Right away it seems Kate has a little crush on him, which really makes sense. Besides the fact that Johnny is wickedly handsome, it seems he has a lot of experience with life under his belt, and possibly a darker past when it’s casually mentioned that he used to be a war correspondent.
It shows another clip of the whole T.V. station crew going out for drinks and Tully picks up on the fact that Kate has a crush on Johnny,but then as they all go dance, Johnny and Tully do their own twosome tango.This seems that maybe a possible love triangle will form. The episode then flips back to 2003 where Kate’s relationship with her daughter is fairly tense all throughout the episode, and she starts acting out by skipping school. Though Tully attempts to save the day and be ‘the cool aunt’ with Marah and take her out to lunch. Tully lets her sip champagne and the two end up talking about how Marah wants to be on birth control, but needs an adult to sign off. Only being fourteen Tully is hesitant,but eventually gives in and signs the papers.
Though toward the end of the episode Kate is home and sees the papers that Tully signed in Marah’s backpack poking out. Yikes, this definitely isn’t good for Tully. The real shocker is at the end of the episode in the present time of 2003, when Tully’s at her apartment eating Krispy Kreme donuts that Max sent, and suddenly someone knocks on her door and, surprise, it’s Johnny. Ultimately this episode just makes me want to know more about these characters. There’s so much history that you can sense as an audience. All these unanswered questions, flashbacks, and attraction of opposites in this series makes me say, “Bring on episode two!” and so should you.