LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY
they figured it out, it would bother them.”
In that case, the script proves its worth, because Elizabeth draws closer to Harriet over time and cannot whitewash her conviction for civil rights, even when her TV advertisers want her to shut up and bake a cake.
Bell, who served as a cultural historian on the program and was responsible for setting up the Sugar Hill location storyline, agreed with Silberman’s insight. “I have a 12-year-old autistic son,” she said. “I get it.”
But she knew the characters had to be realistically portrayed every inch of the way.
“I did a cultural mapping of Los Angeles starting in the 1930s, 1940s, up to 1950s, to examine the influences that might form an authentic connection between a Black and white family,” she explained. “Calvin needed to be the Black community, he needed to have a real relationship with his neighbors. There’s no way Harriet was going to be a caretaker, a nanny, an ‘instant best friend.’ ”
To that end, Bell worked extensively with King.
“We wanted Harriet to be the embodiment of the Black women who were the heartbeat of the civil rights movements in the 1950s and ’60s,” she said. “The story question was: How would we illuminate Elizabeth’s character as an outlier? Why would a Black woman trust a white woman so quickly? What is the role of Elizabeth’s feminism? It can’t be the white-savior complex. She has to be a listener.
Where to see it: First three episodes streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes released Fridays through Nov. 24.
She has to be someone that’s action-oriented. She has to put herself on the line, but she also has to know how to step back.”
When it came to the script, Eisenberg said he didn’t think in terms of neurodiversity (nor did Garmus use that description in her novel).
Eisenberg credited Bell’s contribution, with examples such as when Elizabeth comes home glowing from her show, confiding to Harriet that she has worn pants instead of a dress on TV. Harriet, weary of speaking at yet another Los Angeles council meeting where the white city officials act like her neighborhood is a blighted piece of nothing, courteously clocks Elizabeth with a few choice facts about the differing degrees of their struggles.
Elizabeth reels for a moment, but her intelligence persists. The unfairness is obvious. Yes, she’s going to wear pants on TV, and take up a broader fight.
The beauty of “Lessons in Chemistry” comes from these details, the writing and the ensemble work of every character. It could have been just another Cinderella, but the miniseries is a work of promise that happens to be about women’s integrity.