Given that itâs marketed to women and not aiming for critical acclaim, the genre is often unfairly maligned or underestimated. But even by Netflix soap standards, Firefly Lane is underwhelming, leaning too heavily on the saccharine, asking too much of its capable leads, and whizzing too often through hazily connected timelines to land an emotional punch.
The show contains all the requisite parts for a mass crowd-pleaser: two proven network stars in Heigl (Greyâs Anatomy) and Chalke (Scrubs) as a textbook yin-yang pair â Tully the magnetic cool girl with an icebox heart and bruised past of family abandonment, Kate the awkward, perennially overshadowed nerd with a stable family in childhood and middle-age. Their 30 years of best friendship is relayed through a This Is Us-style mash of skipping timelines that drop in and out of notable memories and loosely sketched life phases.
Firefly Lane
Cast Katherine Heigl as Tully Hart; Ali Skovbye as Young Tully; Sarah Chalke as Kate Mularkey; Roan Curtis as Young Kate; Ben Lawson as Ryan; Beau Garrett as Cloud; Yael Yurman as Marah; Patrick Sabongui as Chad Wiley; Chelah Horsdal as Margie Mularkey; Brendan Taylor as Mutt; Jon Ecker as Max Brody; Brandon Jay McLaren as Travis; Jenna Rosenow as Kimber Watts
Network
Tully was famous before she was famous.
That’s what her best friend, Kate Mularkey, has always said. Even when they were both just 14, Tully would turn heads and draw crowds and wow just by walking into a room. Kate? When she was with Tully, she wasn’t just a wallflower: She might’ve been a wall.
Share The star of Netflix s
Firefly Lane opens up about life in quarantine, rom-coms, and early 2000s fashion don ts. By Mia Galuppo Oh god, I love a good vision board.
When Katherine Heigl says this she is sitting in what she describes as her art room, flanked by jars of paint brushes, sponges, pens, and pencils, and wearing a chunky turtleneck with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. One or two of her five dogs is barking in the distance, and a cat materializes in front of the computer camera origins: unknown. Within this Zoom tableau, it is easy to imagine Heigl collaging poster boards with magazine cut out stand-ins of wants and desires. With what appears to be a Blick s aisle worth of art supplies, she is certainly equipped for it.