SPOILER ALERT: This piece spoils Ransom Canyon on Netflix.
Netflix’s new contemporary Western romance and drama series Ransom Canyon is based on the first book in a ten-book series by Jodi Thomas.
Showrunner and creator April Blair (Jane By Design, All American) stuck to the first book, which shares its title with the show while also expanding the world and ensemble to include more for certain characters only briefly mentioned in the book.
“We only used the first book, and it’s really the foundation of the series, a very important one, and we have retained, a lot of easter eggs for fans of the book series, but we definitely made it our own,” Blair told Deadline in an interview ahead of the series launch on Netflix. “In Jodi’s series, each novel introduces a whole new cast of characters. It’s almost kind of anthology like, and some characters reappear from time to time, but it really is like a whole new group of people. That wasn’t really an achievable thing for us in series. We wanted to stick with one cast, so we stuck to the single book as this jumping off point.”
Blair’s expansion is most notable in what she described to Deadline as the “mystery spine” of the show’s first season, and she wants to keep the stories that she started going “for hopefully several seasons.”
Below find a list of some of the major differences between Netflix’s Ransom Canyon show and the book by Jodi Thomas:
Staten & Quinn Love Story
L-R: Josh Duhamel as Staten and Minka Kelly as Quinn in ‘Ransom Canyon’ on Netflix
Anna Kooris/Netflix
Staten Kirkland, portrayed in the show by Josh Duhamel, and Quinn O’Grady, portrayed by Minka Kelly in the series, have a bit of a different dynamic in Jodi Thomas’ book. Their friendship is still super strong and the root of their romance, but it takes them a bit to realize what they have after they’ve slept together multiple times. The show paces this out a bit more with Quinn and Staten bickering back and forth before they really get together in Episode 7 during a crazy tornado and storm. The tornado is not in Thomas’ first book.
Midway through Thomas’ novel, Quinn discover’s she’s pregnant, which is a huge difference as that does not happen in the show. When Staten finds out, it sends him reeling for a bit, but they ultimately decide to be together in the end and raise their baby together before it is born.
Lauren Is Not A Cheerleader
Lizzy Greene as Lauren in Netflix’s ‘Ransom Canyon’
Anna Kooris/Netflix
Lauren Brigman (Lizzy Greene in the show) is not a cheerleader in Jodi Thomas’ Ransom Canyon. She is super self-sufficient, and she had to mature quickly because her parents are already split up, meaning she has lived with her single father Sheriff Dan Brigman (portrayed by Philip Winchester in the series).
Lauren still sparks up a romance with Lucas Reyes, not Russell. She never reallyw as romantically linked to Reid Collins (Andrew Liner in the Netflix series).
Lucas Is Headed For College
L to R: Josh Duhamel as Staten and Garrett Wareing as Lucas in ‘Ransom Canyon’ on Netflix
Netflix
Besides his name being different — Lucas Reyes — the ranch hand and ambitious student, who is still focused on college in the show, is headed there sooner than in the TV adaptation. In the book, he decides to go to Texas Tech, and Lauren hopes to follow him after he tells her this coming home from his Freshman orientation there.
In the show, Lucas (Garrett Wareing) has letters of interest from various colleges, but he has time ahead of applying for them.
Yancy Grey’s Storyline
Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher in the show), the drifter who happens upon Ransom Canyon, has maybe the biggest departure second to Quinn and Staten’s storyline in Jodi Thomas’ book.
L to R: Marianly Tejada as Ellie and Jack Schumacher as Yancy in ‘Ransom Canyon’
In the book, he is still a former criminal hoping to have a better life and lay low in Crossroads, or Ransom Canyon, Texas. In the show, he has a few stronger ulterior motives, such as working with Davis Collins (Eoin Macken) to get both Staten and Cap Fuller (Jim Brolin) to sell their ranches to Austin Water and Power — which is nowhere in the novel — and revealing to Cap that he is his grandson.
Yancy’s romance with Ellie (Marianly Tejada) is much more built out in the show and sparks to life much sooner. Ellie’s last name is Estevez in the show, and her fierce protectiveness over Cap is a throughline of both book and series, but Yancy’s rodeo sequences are unique to the show.
Cattle Rustlers Present A Main Conflict Instead of Randall’s Accident
In Jodi Thomas’ book, Staten gets shot intercepting cattle rustlers from stealing 70-80 head of his prized bulls and calves in the thick of night. They drive a pickup truck, which only very slightly echoes the whole mystery crux of Blair’s series. Blair instead zoomed in on Randall’s (Hubert Smielecki) car accident for a big climax in the show.
RELATED: ‘Ransom Canyon’ Stars Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly Talk “Delicate Dance” Of Making Staten And Quinn’s Love Story “Unpredictable And Interesting”
“That mystery spine is not something that’s in the book. I mean, Randalls accident is, the fact that [Staten] lhis son is is definitely a big part of his motivation in in the book,” she said. “But in the books, it happened several years back. And so we wanted to, that’s one of the things we wanted to pull up and, like, see that happen.”
Quinn’s Piano Arc
Quinn still played piano in New York, but this plot point also got a big makeover from Blair. In the books, Quinn’s old piano teacher was a man named Lloyd deBellomme, and he raped Quinn, which ended her time in New York.
Minka Kelly as Quinn in ‘Ransom Canyon’
“I changed the concept of that because I really wanted to focus less on, like the violence against women, and [make it] more about women lifting each other up, a recurring thing in, not just season one, but we’re in the writers room for season two right now, and sort of tackling that in an even bigger way,” Blair told Deadline. “But just focusing on the positivity, a little more of that creative thing. I didn’t want her to be scarred by something that was inflicted on her. I wanted her to kind of have demons that she was contending with herself and have that kind of unfurl in the series, but not have it be something quite so dark and demonic as as what it was in the book. It works great in the book, but you have the gift and a book of having the interior monolog and all of that that we don’t have.”
In the show, Quinn’s mentor Katherine Bullock (portrayed by Kate Burton) comes back to persistently recruit Quinn to play for the New York Philharmonic for six months. Quinn takes a big stand to Lloyd in the book, and she mulls over her mentor’s ask in the show.
