Olive Kitteridge is the eponymous character of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, which scriptwriter Jane Anderson and filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko adapted into a television miniseries. The personal input of actress Frances McDormand not only strengthens the miniseries’s appeal, but her presence also intertextually helps construct the character of Olive. Through a narrative analysis that highlights the choices undergirding the adaptation of Olive Kitteridge into a miniseries, this article sheds light on the critical power of an adaptation that draws on the conventions of the woman’s film in order to challenge social and cultural constructs of gender and age.