Show vs. Novel: Compare and Contrast

[chocolatine]

A few people have been asking in the episode thread whether certain events were in the book, so I thought I'd start this thread with everything that the show has changed so far:

• Masha had not been shot in the book, she had a heart attack from too much work and an unhealthy lifestyle. Both in the book and on the show, Yao was one of the paramedics who saved her life. Delilah was her assistant at her corporate job.
• Yao and Delilah had a romantic/sexual relationship in the book, but neither of them had a relationship with Masha. Yao was really attached to Masha, but their relationship was platonic.
• Lars was a divorce lawyer in the book, not a journalist.
• Tony hadn't killed anyone in the book.
• In the book, Carmel's husband hadn't cheated on her or left her for another woman. He left her because he was no longer attracted to her and met his new girlfriend after the divorce. Carmel struggled with her feelings of anger towards him because he "technically" didn't do anything wrong.
• Masha didn't get any death threats in the book.
• The "feast of the goat" thing didn't happen in the book.
• In the book, it was Ben who wanted to give away the lottery money and go back to their old life. Jessica loved their new lifestyle and didn't want to give it up for anything.

[Haleth]

7 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Tony hadn't killed anyone in the book.

Something happened though, beside his injury?  I think I remember he was a fairly well known soccer player (or was it rugby?) and he was guilting over something?

I remember Masha as being a LOT more intimidating in the book.  Even Frances was scared of her.  Nicole plays her as eccentric, but not terrifying.

[chocolatine]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

Something happened though, beside his injury?  I think I remember he was a fairly well known soccer player (or was it rugby?) and he was guilting over something?

It was Aussie Rules football. Nothing else happened other than him wallowing and feeling sorry for himself for too long after his career, and then marriage, ended.

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

I remember Masha as being a LOT more intimidating in the book.  Even Frances was scared of her.  Nicole plays her as eccentric, but not terrifying.

I didn't find her intimidating, but then I'm also Russian. 😄

[chocolatine]

I hate that the show has made Carmel so unhinged. In the book she was a reasonable, competent woman, who was suffering a temporary loss of self-confidence because her husband left her. But apparently that wasn't dramatic enough for the show, so not only did they turn her into someone who takes psychotropics and attacks her ex-husband with a fork, she's also obsessed with Masha and wants to be like her because Masha was one of the women who had slept with her husband during their marriage. So terribly contrived!

The book also didn't have Frances hallucinate about her scammer so much - there was just one hallucination where he was part of a group of people from her past. I usually enjoy Ben Falcone, but I think he's being over-used here. Just because Melissa McCarthy is an executive producer and has the power to give her husband more screen time doesn't mean she should.

[Haleth]

Is that Melissa's RL husband playing the scammer?  I did laugh out loud when she flushed him.

Carmel finding out Masha had slept with her husband?  That didn't happen in the book, did it?  Did Masha have a dead daughter in the book?  I don't remember any of this.

[chocolatine]

Yes, Ben Falcone is Melissa McCarthy's husband. They were fantastic together in Bridesmaids, but I think there's too much of him on this show.

Carmel's husband hadn't slept with Mash in the book. Like I said in the initial post, he didn't cheat on Carmel at all. He just told her was no longer attracted to her, they divorced, and he moved on with another woman very quickly.

In the book Masha had a son who died as a baby, while she was pregnant with her second son. She blamed herself for her first son's death, so after her second son was born she left him and her husband because she didn't think she was fit to be a mother. I think the reason why the show changed it to a daughter who was a bit older, was to mislead the audience into thinking that the flashbacks were about Masha as a child.

[Sarahsmile416]

2 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Yes, Ben Falcone is Melissa McCarthy's husband. They were fantastic together in Bridesmaids, but I think there's too much of him on this show.

Carmel's husband hadn't slept with Mash in the book. Like I said in the initial post, he didn't cheat on Carmel at all. He just told her was no longer attracted to her, they divorced, and he moved on with another woman very quickly.

In the book Masha had a son who died as a baby, while she was pregnant with her second son. She blamed herself for her first son's death, so after her second son was born she left him and her husband because she didn't think she was fit to be a mother. I think the reason why the show changed it to a daughter who was a bit older, was to mislead the audience into thinking that the flashbacks were about Masha as a child.

I can’t even understand why they would add the whole plot line of Carmel’s ex husband having a past thing with Masha. Honestly though I just finished the book and now all I can see are the things they added into the show that weren’t in the book.  Like Napoleon’s rant to Masha about how he couldn’t stay with Heather after she admitted to knowing about suicidal ideation as a side effect.  In the book, Heather actually had to convince Napoleon to let his anger out about it.   

Edited September 9, 2021 by Sarahsmile416
Because her name isn’t Marsha

[chocolatine]

2 hours ago, Sarahsmile416 said:

I can’t even understand why they would add the whole plot line of Carmel’s ex husband having a past thing with Masha. Honestly though I just finished the book and now all I can see are the things they added into the show that weren’t in the book.  Like Napoleon’s rant to Masha about how he couldn’t stay with Heather after she admitted to knowing about suicidal ideation as a side effect.  In the book, Heather actually had to convince Napoleon to let his anger out about it.   

The book, even if it's not Liane Moriarty's best work, at least has consistent characterization. The show just tries to cram in the full spectrum of behaviors and emotions, whether it's organic to the characters or not.

[gesundheit]

On 9/2/2021 at 7:14 AM, Haleth said:

I remember Masha as being a LOT more intimidating in the book.  Even Frances was scared of her.  Nicole plays her as eccentric, but not terrifying.

I remember her being really captivating and fascinating and drawing them in. Here she just seems like a nutjob, I can't fathom why anyone would trust her. 

I feel sad that the show practically cut Ben and Jessica's story altogether. I can't imagine that the series will give everyone their codas. That was such a lovely part of the book.

[gesundheit]

On 9/9/2021 at 8:10 PM, chocolatine said:

The book, even if it's not Liane Moriarty's best work, at least has consistent characterization. The show just tries to cram in the full spectrum of behaviors and emotions, whether it's organic to the characters or not.

I think one of the reasons the adaptation doesn't work is that someone clearly thought "oh, this story has a small cast and it's all in one location, a perfect pandemic shoot!" but (if I recall correctly, because it's been a while) the spa was the framing device. Yes, the story started there and ended there (except the small codas after), but in the middle we went back in time for each character's back story. They didn't just walk around telling each other all their personal history (hell, they couldn't because they had multiple days they weren't even allowed to talk at all!), but since they decided they were containing all of it and staying in the present, we lost the showing and got only the telling. And there's no way all of these people would be so open right away, and also that they'd be so into running all over the place on some unknown drug protocol that they look forward to every morning.

[gesundheit]

So they pretty much changed everyone's ending except Lars's?

[chocolatine]

31 minutes ago, gesundheit said:

So they pretty much changed everyone's ending except Lars's?

Frances and Tony also ended up together (married, actually) in the book. And with Lars they didn't change his ending, but they did change his storyline quite a bit with the investigative journalism thing. He was a divorce lawyer in the book.

[gesundheit]

10 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

Frances and Tony also ended up together (married, actually) in the book. And with Lars they didn't change his ending, but they did change his storyline quite a bit with the investigative journalism thing. He was a divorce lawyer in the book.

Yeah, but the book was so cute about it with the way she kept making us think they didn't get married, but then they did when they were like 65

[bybrandy]

It has been a hot minute since I read the book and I might be making this up in my head but Ben and Jessica split, right?  And maybe Zoe ended up with Ben?  Because of the little boy at the wedding?

[chocolatine]

9 hours ago, bybrandy said:

It has been a hot minute since I read the book and I might be making this up in my head but Ben and Jessica split, right?  And maybe Zoe ended up with Ben?  Because of the little boy at the wedding?

Yes, yes, and yes.