Tear Jerker / Little Fires Everywhere

• Reese Witherspoon's significant performance where she's Playing Against Type. Those familiar with her former acting work see her playing funny, kind-hearted, or positive characters. Here, she delivers a raw and convincing performance as a bigoted, manipulative Control Freak who openly views the youngest of her children as an unwanted accident who derailed her life.
• The treatment of Izzy by her family; her mother Elena in particular. Izzy earnestly tells Mia that her mother hates her and genuinely believes it to be true because Elena is far harder on her in comparison to her siblings. Lexie and Trip (especially Lexie) are quite callous towards their younger sister, with Lexi even gloating how their mother would believe her word over Izzy's easily. Her father Bill, while genuinely well-meaning, is useless in defending her. Moody is the only person to notice how Izzy is basically the family's scapegoat, but he doesn't have the emotional maturity or authority to address the situation aside from trying to reign in Izzy's worst impulses and stand up for her when he can. Is it any wonder the poor kid turns to Mia when her own family seems to prefer the demure, amenable Pearl to her?
  • When Elena forces the family to retake the Christmas photos, she forces Izzy to wear shoes she hates. Izzy retaliates by subtly flipping the bird in the photo. Elena, instead of simply using the first set they had initially done, chooses to outright chop Izzy from all the family photos. Then Izzy finds the discarded photo pieces of her in the trash.
  • Izzy running away in tears to find the Warrens, on her own and in the middle of the freezing night, after Elena screams that she never wanted her. A distraught Moody begs her not to go, but Izzy cries that she has to. All the while Lexie and Trip, who are stunned at their mother's cruel words, desperately demand she "fix it". Elena coldly says Izzy and Mia deserve each other and she doesn't care if she runs after them.
  • After this, at the very end of the series, we finally get solid confirmation that Elena does love Izzy. By the time Elena chooses to search for Izzy, the young girl has already fled Shaker Heights, with very little chance of ever returning. To go further into detail, Elena thinks Izzy has fled to the rental property and runs there; she goes from room to room while calling for her daughter. She then enters what was Mia's gallery, finds a lily-white model of Shaker Heights (meant to symbolize its hidden racism) and a birdcage containing a feather from the little bird Izzy brought home as a child. All a sobbing Elena can do is pick up the feather and muse that this could very well be the last thing she has to remember her youngest child by; whom she's driven away by her own cruelty. And just to drive home that the gravity of the situation is finally sinking in, she utters Izzy's nickname for the first and only time in the entire series.
• Bebe Chow's situation - you try to provide for your child and have to admit you just can't do that and leave her somewhere where you believe she'll be cared for. At least until you can get back on your feet and be able to give her a good life. What happens? Total strangers choose to "adopt" her and refuse to give her back to you. Yes, abandoning May Ling was a bad idea. But she didn't really have a choice in the grave situation she was dealing with.