Breaking Down the Ending of ‘The Miniature Wife’

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Miniature Wife.

“What drives a man to such generosity and compassion towards science and yet such selfish heartlessness towards his wife?” ponders a character in the new Peacock show The Miniature Wife, starring Elizabeth Banks and Matthew McFadyen. The line could easily be the thesis statement of Manuel Gonzales’ short story “The Miniature Wife,” on which the series is based. The 2013 story follows a brilliant scientist who tests his miniaturization technology on his wife, who is understandably incensed to be shrunk and thus uses tiny household implements to pay her husband back. But that’s pretty much where her story begins and ends. We don’t get a sense of her personality or desires. We don’t even know her name.

This proved ripe inspiration for the screenwriting duo Jennifer Ames and Steve Turner, who previously worked together on shows like Boardwalk Empire and Goliath.

“What really got me interested was that [Gonzales has] written it only from the husband’s perspective. The wife that he miniaturizes has no name. He knows nothing about her [even though they’re] married,” says Ames.

Here, The Miniature Wife showrunners break down what happens in the series.

When Banks was cast as the titular miniature wife, Ames and Turner knew they had to write a character worthy of the actor. They came up with Lindy Littlejohn, an author who won the Pulitzer Prize with her autofiction debut several decades earlier and hasn’t really done much since. She and her husband, scientist Les Littlejohn (McFadyen), have an agreement that they take turns chasing career success. It just so happens that Lindy reached the pinnacle of her field early in their relationship while Les has been toiling away for the past twenty years at a miniaturization formula that has the potential to change agriculture and food systems.