Strangely enough, the back two-thirds of the series fare better because there are no winks at modernity at all, there are merely changes to bring the story into the acceptable range of what an audience wants their heroines to do in 2018. But the series doesn't actually have the nerve to really follow through with any of that, because to do so would stray from the heart of the story. That first hour as an adaptation wasn't bad, but it got frustrating at points where it handwaved in the directions of modernization: The odd opening, Jo's very firm line about wanting to be born a boy, vague hints of Beth being autistic in a time when there wasn't a word for it. Last week's episode of Little Women ended right where it should, about one third of the way through the story, with Marmee running to Washington to tend to her ailing husband, leaving the girls alone to cope. Jo: In his pocket Marmee! Isn't that a dreadful state of things!?" PBS puts the back two-thirds of the Little Women miniseries together as a modernized two-hour movie.
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