Series: East of Eden
Episode: 2, “Cathy”
Based on:East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Setting: Massachusetts and Connecticut in the 1890s
Main characters: Cathy Ames, Adam Trask, Charles Trask and Thomas Edwards
Spoilers ahead
Episode 2 reveals the past of the wounded woman Adam has taken into his home. Moving between Cathy’s recovery and her earlier life, it shows her escaping controlling men through deception and violence. Adam believes he can protect her, while Charles suspects his brother is being manipulated.
Cathy conceals her identity
The doctor believes Cathy will survive, but her skull is cracked and she needs constant care. He prescribes morphine and warns the brothers to administer it cautiously. Sheriff Giles asks her to write answers because she can barely speak. She appears unable to remember her identity or the attack and remains at the farmhouse, where Adam nurses her devotedly.
Charles questions how she can be certain they have never met if she has lost her memory. Later, Cathy privately admits to Adam that her memory is intact. She suggests she is protecting someone she loves, allowing him to imagine her father might have hurt her. She asks him to keep her confidence, particularly from Charles, and tells him he may call her Cathy.
Her teacher and her father
Brief childhood flashbacks suggest sexual abuse. The indistinct memories provide context for Cathy’s distrust of men and determination to control her life. As a teenager in Massachusetts, she hopes to become a teacher, although neighbours dismiss her education as an indulgence and assume she will marry.
Behind her dutiful behaviour, Cathy learns to use male attention. A young man gives her jewellery, which she claims to have found. Her teacher, James Grew, pursues an inappropriate relationship with his pupil, writing frequently and imagining marriage. Cathy ends their arrangement and threatens to expose him through his letters. He visits her home at midnight, but her father sends him away. The next day, Grew has killed himself.
Bill Ames suspects something happened. Declaring Cathy his property, he assaults her while demanding answers. Outwardly, she becomes obedient again, and he congratulates himself on imposing authority. Privately, she plans her escape. His reading of Cain and Abel ominously echoes the series’ violence and rejection. Cathy burns down the house, killing her parents, and stages signs of a struggle in the carriage house to suggest she too was a victim.
Edwards becomes another trap
Cathy asks a sex worker in Lowell to teach her the trade, agreeing to surrender half her earnings. Later, calling herself Catherine Amesbury, she approaches brothel owner Thomas Edwards with an invented story about a dead father, a struggling mother and a mortgaged farm.
Edwards becomes her lover and provides an apartment in her name. His attachment grows possessive. Cathy keeps him insecure about his sexual performance; missing money and jewellery deepen his suspicions, and he has her followed. On their anniversary, he forces her to drink despite her refusal. She insults him, reveals her sexual experience and exposes her knowledge of his surveillance.
The next morning, she claims to remember little. Edwards later catches her preparing to leave and insists on taking her to Connecticut. He reveals that he knows about the Amesbury fire and the missing daughter. He gives her a savage beating and leaves her for dead, explaining her arrival at the Trask farmhouse.
Marriage and betrayal
Back at the farm, Charles wants Cathy gone. He tells her that a suitcase containing money and jewellery was found nearby and hints that she spoke revealingly while drugged. When she asks why he distrusts her, he suggests they recognise something of themselves in each other.
Cathy tells Adam she must leave because Charles rejects her. Adam instead proposes marriage, promising happiness and protection. Their wedding provokes a furious confrontation between the brothers. Charles warns that Cathy will tear Adam apart, then embraces him, his anger entangled with fear for his brother. Adam decides they will move to California, ignoring Cathy’s objections.
On their wedding night, Cathy says she is not well enough to be a wife to him. Adam agrees to wait and sleep nearby because she claims to fear Charles. She drugs his tea, pretends he accidentally drank her medicine and settles him as he becomes drowsy. With her husband asleep, she gets into bed with Charles.
Historical and literary details
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, quoted in the episode, first appeared in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. Source: The Lewis Carroll Society
Where to watch
East of Eden is streaming on Netflix.
