East of Eden

71Worth an evening.

Steinbeck's old question, still the right one: thou mayest.

The review

This is the Trask family: duty, betrayal, and the terrifying permission to choose. Steinbeck named it after the brothers outside Eden, and the series says it is still about trauma and repair, love and betrayal, duty and free will. That is not a costume drama. That is the moral argument a serious household has always been having.

Cathy Ames is the test. She is intelligence without piety, charm without a vow. If the show lets her be a lesson, keep it. If it lets her be a lifestyle, the measure drops. Timshel — thou mayest — is the line worth keeping. You are not doomed to be the worst thing your parents were. Read the novel after, or before. The picture is the invitation. The book is the standard.

Journal

Keep East of Eden in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 71. Yours can differ.

The glance

Temperance is the thin one.

Is appetite shown and then put down, or are you being trained to want the next one?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

When Calls the Heart

83 instead of 71

When Calls the Heart is still a drama show, and it scores 83 instead of 71. What you gain is temperance: Appetite does not get the last word.

The eight

7
Industry
A California household built by labor, not by a mood.
8
Household
Fathers, sons, and the damage a loveless parent can do on purpose.
8
Piety
The book underneath is a Genesis argument. Good and evil are chosen.
7
Courage
Moral courage is the plot: whether a son will refuse the inheritance of spite.
6
Republic
History presses on the family. The town is real, if secondary.
5
Temperance
Cathy's glamour is the risk. Cold appetite can become the star.
8
Truth
Free will is the whole doctrine. A lie in this story is a soul-event.
8
Stewardship
The question is what a father leaves that is not money.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · East of Eden · 71IMDb tt21097264

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Series · NBC · 1959

Pass it on

Bonanza

68Worth an evening.

Number one for years of this decade. The ranch is a household, and that is why it lasted.

The review

For several seasons of this decade it was the number one show in the country, and the reason is plainer than the horses. A widower and three sons live on a ranch, and the episode is a problem that arrives at the door: a stranger, a claim, a son who is wrong, a neighbor who is scared. The father is not a joke and not a tyrant. The sons are different from each other without the difference being the whole character.

It is a western, so a gun is sometimes the answer, and a house should say so. The gun is not the premise. The premise is that these men come back to the same table. I would put an early episode on before a later one that has started to repeat the ride. Ask which son did the hard thing that was not the shooting. The country's Sunday night for years. The number is the table, not the rating.

Journal

Keep Bonanza in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 68. Yours can differ.