Does Reese Witherspoon have some magic spell placed upon her that makes every limited series she touches get a season 2? Fans are hoping that's the case. With the bombshell ending of Little Fires Everywhere deviating from the book, there's now hope that Celeste Ng's novel will get the Big Little Lies treatment and move beyond the source material for season 2. And here's the thing — showrunner Liz Tigelaar isn't necessarily against it.
"Selfishly I want to say yes," she answered when Entertainment Tonight asked about the possibility of a second season. "This has been one of the best experiences of my life. I would be in that writers' room forever, and I would obviously write for Reese [Witherspoon] and Kerry [Washington] and everybody involved for the rest of my life."
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On the other hand, though, she feels like they "told the story."
The Hulu series concluded not with Elena's (Witherspoon) daughter Izzy (Megan Stott) starting the fire at their house, as she does in the book, but rather her three other children, Moody (Gavin Lewis), Lexie (Jade Pettyjohn), and Trip (Jordan Elsass), as Izzy runs away in search of a new life. Elena's future is just as uncertain, with her telling the police she started the fire. Meanwhile, Mia (Washington) and Pearl (Lexi Underwood) have left town and are on their own mysterious adventure. There are certainly unanswered questions, but Tigelaar worries answering them may be even more unsatisfactory.
"I would shudder to think of a contrived way to get Mia and Elena back in each other's orbit that would at all feel real," she continued. "I guess I would never want to say never, but I see this as a story that had its beginning, middle and end. And I love the ending. I wouldn't want to diminish Celeste's book by, I don't know, not cannibalizing it, but I wouldn't want to diminish it by turning it into what it isn't just because people liked it."
But there is one surefire way to make for a successful season 2 beyond a book's original ending: casting Meryl Streep. Now we're talking.