‘Firefly Lane’: 5 Major Ways the Netflix Show Deviates From the Novel
The 2008 novel Firefly Lane was a huge bestseller for Kristin Hannah. It wasn’t until 13 years later that the book was finally turned into a series for Netflix.
In 2021, we finally got to see Kate Mularkey and Tully Hart on-screen, played by Sarah Chalke and Katherine Heigl. The story revolves around these two women and the lifelong friendship between them. Season 1 deviated from the novel slightly, but season 2 had even more changes.
Kate and Tully’s friendship spans three decades. They meet as young teens in the ’70s when Tully and her mom Cloud (Beau Garrett), move onto Firefly Lane, and we follow them into adulthood in the early 2000s.
The road they travel is complicated and sometimes messy. These complications became somewhat different as the book was turned into a series.
[Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Firefly Lane.]
The ‘Firefly Lane’ timeline plays differently
The timeline in the book takes a linear approach. The story is told chronologically, beginning when the girls are teens in the 1970s, and reads straight through until the women are in their 40s in the early 2000s.
On the other hand, the series jumps around the decades. The timeline goes back and forth, and we see the girls at different stages of life throughout the series. We also get to witness the pop culture, hair, and fashion of the decades.
Where were Kate and Johnny’s twin boys?
In Hannah’s novel, Kate and her husband, Johnny Ryan (Ben Lawson), have a daughter, Marah (Yael Yurman). But they also have twin boys, Lucas and William. The series not only left out the twins but also added a struggle with fertility.
During a 1993 visit to Tully in New York, Kate shares her sadness with her best friend. Tully helps by telling her that having a child doesn’t make her less of a woman and that she is a great mom to her daughter. Marah is always an only child in the series.
Kate and Johnny’s divorce
A big change in the series is that Kate and Johnny divorce, while in the book, they do not. It is also a little unclear what caused the breakup. Johnny does mention his wife had an emotional affair, but not much is shown about it.
The novel portrays Kate as a stay-at-home mom to her three kids, but we see her go back to work in the Netflix adaptation.
Tully and Cloud’s relationship
The early years of Tully’s relationship with her mother are similar in the book and the series. Cloud is an irresponsible mother struggling with addiction who really screws up her daughter.
Cloud, in the novel, never really redeems herself. Tully tries time and time again to track her down and get her into rehab, but all Cloud wants is money, and even steals from her daughter.
Netflix’s Firefly Lane shows Cloud getting sober and forming a relationship with Tully. She is with her daughter as she recovers from a miscarriage and even spends Christmas with Kate’s family. The TV series Cloud is redeemable.
What caused the rift between Tully and Kate?
The cause of the rift totally depends if you are reading the book or watching the series. It is probably the biggest difference between the two. The big fight in the novel is because of Tully’s show, The Girlfriend Hour. When Kate and Marah appear on the show in hopes of repairing their relationship, Tully switches things up and changes the episode so that it focuses on overprotective moms.
She practically calls Kate a bad mother on national television. The result is that her best friend stops speaking to her. The story is completely different in the series. In it, Tully gets into a car crash with Marah in the passenger seat after rescuing her from a party she wasn’t supposed to go to.
Unfortunately, she got in the car after she’d had a couple of drinks. Kate would not forgive her friend. Part 2 of Firefly Lane season 2 premieres on Netflix on June 8, 2023. It remains to be seen if the TV version ending will be the same as Hannah’s novel.
