Following its 2022 release, “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus almost immediately reached bestseller status, per The New York Times. Now, it’s been turned into a miniseries on Apple TV+ starring Academy Award-winning actress Brie Larson.
“Lessons in Chemistry” is a feminist story “that defies easy categorization” and “struck a chord with a wide swath of readers,” per The New York Times.
Fans of the book undoubtedly have high expectations for the series. So far, in the series’ first two episodes, the adaptation has made only minor changes here and there to the book’s plot.
I’ve read “Lessons in Chemistry” and watched the first two episodes of the new Apple TV+ series. Let me walk you through the biggest differences between the “Lessons in Chemistry” book and TV adaptation.
‘Lessons in Chemistry’ book vs. TV series
So far, the Apple TV+ adaptation of “Lessons in Chemistry” has remained mostly true to the bestselling book. There are a few changes here and there but the heart of the story remains the same.
Warning: There are spoilers from both the book and TV series, “Lessons in Chemistry,” ahead.
Calvin Evans has a handsome, Hollywood look
One difference between the book and TV series is that the actor Lewis Pullman is too handsome to play the character of Calvin Evans as he’s described in the book.
The novel describes Evans, a Nobel Prize hopeful, as having “the kind of face that some might call forgettable.”
“Part of the problem was Calvin’s posture. He was six feet four inches tall, lanky and long, but he slouched to the right,” the novel says. “But the bigger issue was his face. He had a lonesome look about him, like a child who’d had to raise himself, with large grey eyes and messy blondish hair and purplish lips, the latter of which were almost always swollen because he tended to chew on them.”
Let’s not forget Pullman had a role in “Top Gun: Maverick” — the movie with a viral scene of handsome guys playing football on the beach, Pullman among them.
The series attempts to give Calvin a nerdy vibe, but his posture is textbook, his hair is neatly styled and he doesn’t appear to have damaged his lips.
The Little Miss Hastings Pageant is made up
There is no Little Miss Hastings Pageant in the book. In the show, Elizabeth (Brie Larson) reluctantly participates in a companywide beauty pageant as “Miss Aminos” following a critical review of her unorthodox behavior at work — but this only happens in the TV adaptation.
Halfway through the pageant, Elizabeth feels frustrated and leaves. On her way out, she has a second encounter with Calvin, who is also leaving prematurely after suffering an allergic reaction to Mrs. Donatti’s perfume.
In the novel, Calvin and Elizabeth’s second encounter occurs at a local opera performance. The pair are coincidentally both in the audience and run into each other after Calvin gets sick from his date’s perfume.
Harriet is a young woman with small children
Harriet Sloane (Aja Naomi King), the older woman who lives across the street from Calvin, gets an expanded role in the TV adaptation. In the novel, Harriet’s children are grown-ups whom she rarely sees and her husband is an abusive alcoholic, whom she describes as “revolting.”
Her character is not introduced in the book until after Elizabeth moves in with Calvin. In the TV series, Harriet appears in the first episode as a young woman with a respectable husband and two young children.
The series also creates a deeper relationship between Harriet and Calvin. He is seen babysitting for her and and chatting with her like a close friend. The book never refers to a close relationship between the pair.
Harriet is also given an activist side in the TV series. The neighborhood she and Calvin live in is at risk of being demolished to create space for a new highway — and Harriet is at the front of the protest.
Six-Thirty is a trendy goldendoodle
Six-Thirty is a scrappy former canine bomb sniffer trainee. In the book, he is described as being “tall, gray, thin and covered with barbed-wire-like fur that made him look as if he’d barely survived electrocution.”
In the Apple TV+ adaptation, Six-Thirty is a trendy goldendoodle — a popular breed that didn’t actually emerge until the 1990s, per the Goldendoodle Association of America.
Despite changes in appearance, the dog’s storyline is mostly kept the same.
In the series, Elizabeth claims she gave him the quirky name “after the time he wakes me up in the morning. It’s like clockwork.” But in the novel, he earns his name when Elizabeth mishears someone asking what her dog is called, she looks at her watch and reads the time: 6:30.
Cal’s ill-fated ending happens differently
In the book, Calvin is tripped by the dog’s leash and a series of unfortunate circumstances occurs during an early morning run with Six-Thirty. Calvin hits his head on the concrete, cracking his skull and the injury leaves him immobile. As he bleeds on the ground, a cop car runs over him.
It does not unfold quite the same way in the TV series. Calvin is hit by a bus in the adaptation, and the death scene provides more of a shock factor.
When did ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ come out?
The first three episodes of “Lessons in Chemistry” are currently available on Apple TV+. New episodes come out every Friday. The release dates are as follows:
Episode 1: “Little Miss Hastings” (Oct. 13).
Episode 2: “Her and Him” (Oct. 13).
Episode 3: “Living Dead Things” (Oct. 20).
Episode 4: “Primitive Instinct” (Oct. 27).
Episode 5: “CH3COOH” (Nov. 3).
Episode 6: “Poirot” (Nov. 10).
Episode 7: “Book of Calvin” (Nov. 17).
Episode 8: “Introduction to Chemistry” (Nov. 24).