Brie Larson on Why the ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Finale Changes the Book’s Ending to Honor Its Hero
23.11.2023 - 00:53
/ variety.com
Hunter Ingram SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Introduction to Chemistry,” the series finale of “Lessons in Chemistry,” now streaming on Apple TV+. Elizabeth Zott, hero of the people. It’s not exactly where the scientist and reluctant television star thought she would end up, but Apple TV+’s “Lessons in Chemistry” is all about surrendering the inevitability of change.
The finale of the eight-episode limited series certainly asks fans of Bonnie Garmus’ best-selling book on which it is based to do just that. In the book, Elizabeth (Brie Larson) leaves behind her nationally renowned cooking show “Supper at Six” and returns to the lab to continue her abiogenesis research, fully funded by the generosity of Avery (Rosemarie DeWitt), the mother of her late partner, Calvin (Lewis Pullman) — whom he’d never met, and who Elizabeth didn’t previously know existed.
In the show’s finale, Elizabeth has a similar revelation about what she wants in life after talking to her daughter, Mad (Alice Halsey). But three years later, Elizabeth isn’t seen in a lab with her faithful dog Six-Thirty at her feet.
Instead, she stands at the head of a college classroom, teaching an Introduction to Chemistry course while she finishes her Ph.D. At home, she and Mad are also slowly warming up to Avery (Rosemarie Dewitt), who wants to show up for them like she always tried to with her son.
Evoking Calvin’s love of “Great Expectations,” as well as her own experience with accepting life’s unexpected variables, Larson tells Variety that diverging from the book’s final scene was the show’s way of letting Elizabeth pay it forward. “I think we wanted to acknowledge and honor a profound life that is also a fairly average life,” says Larson, who
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