Kindred

A review of the new FX on Hulu show, Kindred, based on the novel by Octavia Butler.

This version of "Kindred" is without a past, a present, or a future. The plantation, the clothes, and the period detail lack a lived-in quality. Why adapt a work as rich and unflinching as Butler's Kindred without developing the racial, political, and cultural topics that make the source material so profound? Instead, the supposed arresting tension that should command our attention is merely a bundle of teases that carry very little meaningful weight. Moreover, Butler's Kindred isn't a bold reimagining of 1970s racial politics (the decade of the novel's publication) through a present-day lens. As a result, you're never quite sure what visual tone this series wants to set or the rhythm we should feel. And yet, nothing in the set dressing tells us that. While Butler's work was published over 40 years old, in itself upholding the mantle of these narratives, you can't help but notice how far short the televised version of Butler's novel—a work as rich and dense as Colson Whitehead's narrative—falls short of Jenkins' miniseries. We learn the identity of the distraught woman at the center of the drama, Dana (Mallori Johnson). And it appears to all be a terrible nightmare, a figment of her imagination, until she transports herself and Kevin back to Antebellum America. It's a glaring weakness that will haunt the FX miniseries " The camera is distant, the jagged editing as methodical as her foraging.

By the time Octavia Estelle Butler published Kindred in 1979, she had begun to solidify her place in the science-fiction genre—no small feat for a Black ...

[pulled from libraries and schools](https://time.com/6211350/public-libraries-book-bans/) across the country, history continues to live on in our cells. Then, she turned her attention to the visceral past and placed a Black woman at the center of her own story. We also know that a variety of ailments affect Black women [at disproportionate rates](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020496/). [intergenerational trauma,](https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fvio0000212) particularly for the descendants of slavery (both enslaved and enslavers), is a biological and psychological fact. Dana stands at the junction between the monstrous past and the alien world of post-racial America—a perpetually elusive dream since the assassination of Dr. In it, Butler merged history with the present, and a contemporary Black woman’s body became a time machine—a device to fold time back on itself. It was a hard lesson to digest, and it was an idea that she instilled in her teaching: We are a flawed species and in order to convey that in our stories, we had to study our surroundings and say something big about the world with close details. [many others](https://time.com/5225461/octavia-butler-janelle-monae/), became a fan long before the T-shirts and the Butler-tried-to-tell-us social media posts. She was a lover of science, an inquisitive writer, and a keen observer of society. While Butler’s novels are [certainly cautionary tales,](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/17/arts/octavia-butler-vision-kindred.html) she was not a fortune teller. Having grown up with a healthy diet of science-fiction movies and TV shows as a child of the ‘80s, reading about Black girls and women in the future was validating. She had achieved moderate success with her first three books, Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind, and Survivor—a series set in a far future world of telepathic humans and highlighting the power dynamics between masters and the enslaved.

Newcomer Mallori Johnson gives a career-making performance in Hulu's adaptation of 'Kindred,' Octavia Butler's celebrated novel. Read our review.

Hulu has yet to renew the series for a second season, which means for now we must wait in anxious limbo like Dana, deeply enmeshed in a story we don't fully understand and yet desperately want to see through to the end. "Yeah," Dana replies with a bit of a shrug. ), but Kindred's compelling themes remain intact, as Dana and Kevin are immersed in an awful new reality that forces each of them to reckon with America's history in real time. Though she has no control over her sudden trips back and forth through time, Dana determines that figuring out her family's connection to Rufus — the spoiled, obnoxious child of Margaret ( In 2016, Dana James (Mallori Johnson) sells her late mother's brownstone in Brooklyn and moves to Los Angeles with a vague plan to break into TV writing. [Kindred](https://ew.com/creative-work/kindred-tv-series/) "addictive."

A woman sits at a table lit by candlelight looking startled. Mallori Johnson as Dana in “Kindred.” (Tina Rowden/FX).

But Butler’s novel is also an investigation of character within context and “how easily people could be trained to accept slavery,” as Dana observes — written, Butler told interviewer Randall Kenan, “as a reaction to some of the things going on during the ‘60s, when people were feeling ashamed of, or more strongly, angry with their parents for not having improved things faster.” And the series, which invests in the sort of drama believed necessary to power a television show through one season and onto the next, does not catch this subtler aspect. (For that matter, few of the Black characters, including Austin Smith as slave-in-charge Luke; Sophina Brown as Sarah, who runs the cookhouse; Lindsey Blackwell as her mute daughter, Carrie; and Christopher Farrar as Rufus’ playmate Nigel, are much developed either.) Tom is a lout and a schemer, quick to violence, who has been made something of a homophobe for good measure (he is keen to any sort of “feminine” behavior in men), and though he believes he’s giving his slaves “safety, protection,” he treats them as disposable when it suits him. This may work for the business plan, but it does the story, and the viewer, a disservice. But because we see him this season only as a child, and Kaplan represents the character without really inhabiting it, the question of change, or the lack of it, will be punted to next season. Dana coincidentally finds Kevin again on a dating app, and after they have slept together and watched an episode of “Dynasty” in her still-unfurnished new home — the clip has a thematic resonance with things to come — Dana suddenly disappears from 21st century L.A. It turns out that whatever is touching Dana when she slips through time makes the trip with her, and so at one juncture Kevin finds himself in the antebellum past as well. (Butler’s original Dana is an aspiring author of novels and short stories.) Jacobs-Jenkins has given her an uncle (Charles Parnell), an ex-cop, and aunt (Eisa Davis), a nurse, who will be involved in Dana’s much-expanded contemporary adventures. In the book, Dana and Kevin are married and know each other well; here they are starting up a romance under strange and stressful conditions in a world that treats them as differently as might be imagined. (With the upshot that she is also less contemplative.) So while “Kindred” works fairly well as a righteous historical melodrama, much of what makes the novel interesting — its psychological insights, its thoughtfulness — is dissipated or obscured by the adaptation’s length and busyness. Though she might be in the past for days or months, she is never gone from her own world for more than seconds, minutes or hours. (If you’re interested in the series and haven’t read the book, you’ll be better off watching first, reading later.) Whatever its merits, it runs too far afield of the original text to qualify as a successful translation. It remains a story about a Black woman from the 21st century who finds herself on a plantation in the 19th.

Meet the Weylins. A recap of “Sabina,” episode two of FX's 'Kindred.' An adaptation of Octavia Butler's science-fiction novel.

At the end of the day, Kevin and Dana retire to a guest bedroom and debrief in their moment alone, trying to piece together the mechanics of time travel. This process of normalization is something Dana and Kevin are forced to acclimate to quickly in order to survive on the plantation. There are some poignant moments between Dana and Rufus — his dependency on Dana is apparent, and he reveals how he’s able to see her in the future as he pulls her into his present — but most of the episode builds on the white characters. from the point of view of the enslaved. I want to see more of that and less of Kevin and his white guilt. In Butler’s writing, the Black people on the plantation have a complex and nuanced society separate from their captors, which makes the book more compelling. But Rufus’s attachment to her and her relationship with Kevin spares her from real punishment. What’s interesting about this episode is that, though most of it is spent on the plantation, we learn more about the Weylins and Kevin than we do about Dana or the rest of the Black community. Dana and Kevin are quickly separated — Kevin is invited inside and Dana sent to the cookhouse with the other Black people. I thought about how those who were enslaved made sense of their situation — especially those generations who never set foot on African soil (like many of the people Dana encounters) — and how the torture required to “break in” a slave aids in the normalization of their position in the world. Strangely, what inspires this line of thought is watching Margaret Weylin and Kevin outside once Kevin joins Dana in the past. Kindred uses the genre of science fiction to manipulate reality and close the emotional gap between the descendants of slavery and those who experienced it.

Kindred premieres Dec. 13 on FX. Octavia E. Butler's 1979 novel Kindred is an original story that has maddeningly withstood live-action adaptation.

But, there are definitely a few things you should consider - especially if you want to make exploring the most rewarding and fun it can be. There’s also a tacked-on mystery to the show that doesn’t work that well. In the series, their new attraction begs the question of why this guy would believe her and not just peace out? His contemporary take on Dana, as a single woman who is implied to be relatively aimless up to now, is a relatable one to late-age Millennials and Gen Zers who are struggling to get a foothold on their futures. Using the money from the sale of the Brownstone her grandmother left her, Dana has splurged on a small home and the equipment needed to pursue her new career. Adding plots, character points of view, and non-linear storytelling to the mix, Kindred the series is creative but it loses the focus and grace of Butler’s prose and intentions.

Why does it feel like Olivia is hiding something? A recap of “Furniture,” episode three of FX's 'Kindred.' An adaptation of Octavia Butler's science-fiction ...

I understand that a couple of decades have passed since she left, but what Black woman would prefer that time in history to whatever the future holds? I have a theory, but it’s based on the book and maybe a bit spoiler-y, so I’ll refrain for now. But her interaction with Dana in the cookhouse after the Weylin Christmas party confirms that her situation is a lot more complex than she’s letting on. From the first moment Dana enters the cookhouse to the final moments of this episode, Sheria Irving does a great job of exuding the feeling that Olivia is hiding something. She and Margaret have a contentious relationship as Margaret says Olivia is a witch who has “brought the devil” upon Rufus twice. For the kids, I’m sure the dance and oranges were a highlight of their day — a moment to be children, a moment to be adored instead of neglected. The belief that Temperance, a child, has an inherent right to have power over Dana is not just something that she was taught but is the role she’s been assigned as a white woman, designed to perpetuate white supremacy. Her initial conversations with Dana in the first episode didn’t convey a mother reuniting with her daughter after so many years but I wrote it off as the residuals of the constant state of fight or flight in that period. I don’t believe that Kevin’s interest in Black music is in any way malicious or racist, but it falls in line with a long history of Black culture being merely a toy for white people to play with when they feel like it without respect or true advocacy for the people who create it. Kevin, specifically, fumbles when it comes to adhering to the expectations of being a white man while he socializes at the Weylins. Dana and Kevin struggle to adjust to their new roles in this different time. Kevin is disgusted with their actions, but I don’t know if he realizes that what he just witnessed is a predecessor for the greedy consumption of Black culture as entertainment that still exists today.

Here are some of the biggest differences between the novel "Kindred" and the new FX on Hulu TV show based on the book.

In the book, Kevin is a writer, and he is hired by Tom to tutor Rufus, who had been pulled from school. In television, it’s sound and picture, and I wanted to create like a really rich sound world as much as I could.” Dana realizes she is being pulled back to the past to help protect a young boy, Rufus Weylin. They are just meeting in the first episode as opposed to moving into their new home when the novel kicks off. In both the TV and book versions of “Kindred,” Dana, played by Mallori Johnson, time travels between the present and antebellum Maryland in the early 1800s. The bestselling novel explores time travel, history, family and themes of race and gender, and the new show will do the same.

FX's adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's celebrated novel Kindred has finally arrived on Hulu. But before you dive into all eight episodes, TV Insider caught ...

But before you dive into all eight episodes, TV Insider caught up with the cast at [New York Comic Con](https://www.tvinsider.com/category/comic-con/). Don’t miss the full conversation, and catch FX’s Kindred anytime on Hulu. The series centers around Dana (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles to claim a future that finally feels like her own. Before Dana can get settled into her new home, she finds herself pulled back and forth in time to a nineteenth-century plantation with which she and her family are surprisingly and intimately linked. Butler’s celebrated novel [Kindred](https://www.tvinsider.com/show/kindred/) has finally arrived on [Hulu](https://www.tvinsider.com/network/hulu/). [FX](https://www.tvinsider.com/network/fx/)‘s adaptation of Octavia E.

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Octavia E. Butler, the new limited series stars Mallori Johnson in a breakout role as Dana, a young writer ...

And the way that she reacts is not that far removed from the way her ancestors had to react and deal with that trauma. And I felt that way, I honestly think the show was kind of playing on me internally. To me, that's the only way that you can go forward, is to go back. She was always trying to find a way to figure out what was going on with her to get through what was happening to her. I was one of the only people on set to never really have had experience on a set. I really admired the way she was always determined. Told "from an historical perspective" that offers a "fresh look at slavery," one of the things that stood out to Johnson were the similarities between present-day and the past: "The way that [Dana] reacts is not that far removed from the way her ancestors had to react and deal with that trauma." I do now through putting myself through the wringer of that. "To me, the only way that you can go forward, is to go back." I think the only way that we're able to reconcile with ourselves and our place on this land is if we go back and we have those conversations and we look at what brought us here, what brought us to this point. Though difficult, it's the "only way that we're able to reconcile with ourselves and our place on this land...have those conversations and look at what brought us here, what brought us to this point." To Johnson, the "show poses something that's really beautiful, which is that we all have this kindred connection in a way."

Regardless of the Karen energy she exudes, I have to cut Hermione some slack. In her defense, there's some suspicious activity coming from Dana's house. The ...

If that’s the case, Johnson is doing a great job of conveying the multitude of emotions through her facial expressions and delivery of lines. He cracks me up as the Black man who, after decades of work, just wants to kick back and enjoy his pension and retirement in peace. However, I’m not going to be mad at that quite yet because I like it when full-season streaming drops get wild in the second half, and I can’t stop watching. In a moment of trust, or maybe desperation, Dana tells Denise that her mother is alive and got pulled back in time, and she saw her with her own eyes. But Dana insists the bruise wasn’t from Kevin, and Allen gets Dana to talk to Denise on the phone. While Dana is at the hospital, Kevin finds Olivia’s wedding ring and rushes to the hospital to show Dana the evidence of their time-traveling. She admits to having the same time-traveling experience and asks Denise to help. Denise talks to Dana like she’s fragile, believing her niece is on the verge of a mental breakdown similar to Olivia’s. Denise is already worried about her niece’s behavior and asks her husband Allen to check on her after receiving an erratic phone call from Dana with questions about her mother. We get to explore more of the world the pair experience in the present. Kevin telling Dana he didn’t want to go back to the plantation with her is a moment that started to intrigue me but left much to be desired. Dana is against the idea of playing with her mortality as a means to time travel, so the only solution is to figure out what’s happening to stop it.

The new FX series, the first of several planned adaptations of the author's work, aims to introduce her ideas to a new generation of fans—and prove their ...

The series feels less volatile than the novel, partly as a result of this legacy and partly because of its own decisions. (In the sequel, published in 1998, a presidential candidate vows to “make America great again.”) HBO has commissioned a [pilot script](https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/hbo-orders-pilot-based-on-octavia-butlers-fledgling-issa-rae-and-j-j-abrams-executive-producing-1235029655/) based on vampire novel Fledgling, executive-produced by J.J. In 2019, Amazon announced it would [develop](https://deadline.com/2019/03/wild-seed-drama-series-based-on-sci-fi-book-in-works-at-amazon-from-viola-davis-julius-tennons-juvee-productions-1202583070/) Wild Seed, the first novel in the Patternist series. [bought the rights](https://deadline.com/2021/07/a24-octavia-e-butler-parable-of-the-sower-garrett-bradley-1234800003/) to Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a postapocalypse story marked by creeping fascism and ecological collapse. As the first Butler adaptation of its scale and prestige, Kindred faces pressure that makes such early growing pains easy to judge. To the trained eye, traces of her work are everywhere, from the films of Jordan Peele to the [career](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/27/nk-jemisins-dream-worlds) of author N. (The first volume is available now, with three more forthcoming.) And starting this week, her stories will make the long-overdue transition from the page to the screen. Kindred, the namesake and source text of a new FX drama now streaming on Hulu, is a logical entry point to Butler’s oeuvre for readers and Hollywood alike. But these changes also have the effect of putting off the ethical quandaries that make the book so unsettling, and they make Kindred more of a generic alternate history. Butler was the first Black woman to win a Hugo or a Nebula, two of her field’s highest honors. She was the first science fiction author of any gender or race to win a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The past few years have seen a boom in adaptations of genre fiction

Craving seasonal sweets? Try out Kindred's milkbread cinnamon roll recipe · Ingredients: · Tanzhong (water roux for dough). 1/3 cup bread flour · Dough. Tanzhong.

In Kindred, an epic new series from Hulu, Dana (Mallori Johnson) inadvertently travels back and forth in time between 2016 and 1800s Maryland.

She also noted that the book follows a narrative pattern typical of the slave narrative genre. Kindred, the novel, has multiple accolades, and in 2003 it was named Rochester's Book of the Year. She wanted to ensure the facts of the story were as accurate as possible, traveling to Maryland for research for the book. For good or for ill, time travel is not a possibility yet, so that aspect of the story is decidedly based in science fiction. Despite time travel currently regarded as impossible, the show has crafted such a compelling story that it's prompted some viewers to wonder if Kindred is based on a true story. If you were trying to run away, where would you go?"

It was one day before the premiere of her show “Kindred,” and the young actress — bundled up in cold-weather Coach — was back where it all began. Posing for ...

“There’s a lot more story to tell,” she says. “My mom always encouraged me and my brother to do whatever we wanted to do — no matter how unlikely it was that we might succeed in it.” “My entire family — my grandma, all of my friends — came to see the premiere and I was so nervous. “It was something that was very natural to me, and thank god I had a family that was really supportive of it,” she says. It was one day before the premiere of her show “Kindred,” and the young actress — bundled up in cold-weather Coach — was back where it all began. No one was injured, and she refused to dwell on the loss of material belongings, instead turning her focus on the task ahead: bringing her all to her portrayal of Dana.

Dana's body becomes a vessel for collective memory as she contends with the twisted roots of her family tree in the adaptation of Octavia Butler's Kindred.

[wrote](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/23/so-be-it-see-to-it-from-the-archives-of-octavia-butler/) in one of her many notebooks. Dana is repeatedly ripped from her existence in 2016 to a Maryland plantation in 1815, where her enslaved ancestors are subjected to the mercurial cruelty of the white plantation owner Thomas Weylin (Ryan Kwanten) and his overbearing, shrewlike wife Margaret (Gayle Rankin). Although Dana doesn’t understand how it happens, she discovers that her trips are connected to Tom and Margaret’s only son, 12-year-old Rufus (David Alexander Kaplan), who can summon Dana when he’s in pain or danger.

Mallori Johnson lands lead role in FX series 'Kindred' now streaming on Hulu shortly after her graduation from Juilliard.

Her character moves to LA but then finds herself traveling back in time to meet her ancestors who are slaves in the South. "Like having no idea what it meant to lead a show." Her demanding role in "Kindred" made the task all the more difficult.

Kindred follows Dana (Mallori Johnson), a Black woman living in present day who begins settling in her new home. Suddenly, Dana is pulled back in time to the ...

Jerry Fleming, production designer, continues that he especially liked the nature of the area where they shot the plantation, especially the water elements available to the team. With the show's release, FX is giving viewers a closer look at the series, including the decision to film in Georgia. FX and Hulu's Kindred has finally released, taking viewers on a tense journey through the past and present in a series adaptation of Octavia E.

Mallori Johnson lands lead role in FX series 'Kindred' now streaming on Hulu shortly after her graduation from Juilliard.

Her character moves to LA but then finds herself traveling back in time to meet her ancestors who are slaves in the South. "Like having no idea what it meant to lead a show." Her demanding role in "Kindred" made the task all the more difficult.

One of the most complicated novels written was penned by Octavia E. Butler and that novel is “Kindred.” Although wrapped in science-fiction, sort of, ...

The mistress (Gayle Rankin) is usually hysterical. In the novel, Dana is married to a white man, Kevin Franklin (Micah Stock), but in the limited series, they are just beginning to date. And there are also the two neighbors (Brooke Bloom and Louis Cancelmi) who represent white privilege and growing paranoia. The year is 2016 and the location is Los Angeles. It’s been 43 years since the book was published and the mini-series (eight-episode season) was made for FX and is available on Hulu. Part of the story takes place in the antebellum South and involves the miserable lives of enslaved Africans and the twisted world of white slaveholders.