The Beginning of the End

OK, Natalie, I know you are out of town and won’t get to watch this penultimate episode, but wow, do you have some drama in store! This episode was a bit more chaotic, setting up the various plot lines that are going to come to a massive collision next week.I know some people are going to object that the episode was a bit talky, and I suppose that is right. It was full of speeches that are just a little too explicit and expository, but you know, after five seasons of incredible characters and non-stop melodrama, I’m OK with a few long speeches. Can we please start, though, with the audible gasp and clenching of my stomach when Margie said she was going to the bathroom?

We will always be this way

Dear Natalie,

I have completely fallen in love with Big Love all over again! Last night blew my socks off and I cannot believe our time with the Henricksons is finally coming to an end. As the show hones in on its conclusion, it is striping away the distractions and taking us right to the heart of the characters we love. We all know some climax is building and they seem to know it too – as the noose tightens, who are the Henricksons and what life have they built? This episode centers on Margie, but really, the revelation of her age is the perfect way to get at what all these characters face.

Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Dear Kathryn,

What was it about Lois and Frank’s storyline that got me so emotional tonight? There was something beautiful to those beach scenes. I noted last week how everything seems to have this ominous tinge to it right now (heightened by the Deadwood-reminiscent music!). And Frank’s bread-cutting scene began it for these two. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to tell a spouse, “don’t worry – I’m not going to kill you!” and then have conversation continue. In a strange way, it felt like these two have the most vulnerable, honest relationship on the show. Losing the safety-net of the sister-wives puts them back square in the middle of painful, aging monogamy. And I think that’s what got me. After it all, when all other communities have failed them, there’s an odd image of hope in the possibility that there will be somebody – no matter how broken – there for you at the end of it all. Who’d have ever though Lois and Frank could leave me feeling grateful for my own marriage not because of their failure, but because of their example!

A Special Relationship

Dear Natalie,

Well, you are absolutely right to cotton on to Barb and track her through this season. All signs point to her being the linchpin of whatever is to come in the finale and her journey to self-discovery is definitely the heart and soul of the show right now. Now that we are here, five episodes from the final goodbye, it seems that really, maybe she has always been the heart and the soul. Nicki may have been hysterical and overwrought when she dragged Barb to the Senate floor to force her to tell Bill that she believes she holds the Priesthood, but she was not mistaken that this little doctrinal point and all that it represents about the dynamic of that “special relationship” between Barb and Bill might be the making or breaking of the family as we know it. So let’s cut to the chase and talk about divorce.

Not one of us is holy

In a packed, busy episode, there are two images from last night that seem to capture so much of what this season is about. The first is the couple’s skate at the holiday ice rink. As the Henricksons performed their pas de quatre on shaky limbs, it was the first time their public revelation seemed so stark to me. Skating four abreast into the romantic fog, they seemed more like an awkward beast lumbering toward the oh so simple, oh so innocent two-person relationships, which as if sensing the threat, cleared the ice as fast as their skates would take them. In some twisted way, Alby was right: all the complicated intricacies of relationship, all the finely spun threads that unite the four of them, could not survive in the glaring light, or the dim light of a couples skate. They looked every bit like a patriarchical harem, the preening man with smile plastered to his face, flanked by three attractive, submissive women. I kept waiting for them to all join hands in a circle, but they didn’t, and that simple move spoke volumes about how they are perceived and in a sense, how they ultimately might function.

I’ve got eternity covered in spades – Big Love returns!

Dear Natalie,

It is so good to be back in the throes of polygamy! After a roller coaster 4th season whose twists and turns and wild corkscrews threatened to give us whiplash, the premier of season 5 was paired down, back to the family where it always thrives best. The camera opens on a wide pan of the Utah outback, open land, vast horizons, stubborn scraggly bushes pushing out of dessert dust. I loved that the show did not directly show us any of the media circus that followed Bill’s big revelation, but left us to discern its extent in the scattered debris of newspaper headlines and the psychological, physical, and emotional impact on the family.

Next ticket out – but where to?

Episode 8: Next Ticket Out

I am sorry that this post is getting up so late in the day. I wish I could say it was because I was trying to sort out an international evangelical extortionist ring or devoting myself to my newly found lover/husband in between creepy fertility injections. Sadly, nothing of the sort. Though it did take me most of the morning to get my head around the many different plot lines that are brewing to collide next week during the season finale:

Is the grand gesture enough?

In an episode where Ben, Lois, Frank, and Jodeen are almost shot by the demented Green clan and Joey goes off on a holy vendetta and a bomb is found outside the casino and Margene marries Ana’s fiance (“in comparison with eternity, Barb, it is just a blink of the eye”), it seems silly to say that this seemed like a calmer episode. Maybe it just means that the story lines were fewer and tighter, though there were still plenty of them. Or maybe it is a sign of just how little I love the return of the Green’s and the outlandish prospect of watching Bill once again swoop in and outsmart them, though not without some bloody help from Lois, who levels Hollis single-handedly (sorry, I couldn’t resist!).

Fixing Something Broken…But For Us or For You?

Last night’s episode of Big Love dealt head on with a question I’ve had since this show first started: are the Hendricksons creating a family unit that truly benefits the hopes and desires of all players, or are they performing some twisted version of Bill’s own confused desire?  Each time my anger at this patriarchal form of polygamy reared up in the first three seasons, it was quickly challenged by the beautiful love shared by the sister-wives and the strong network of female support they bore to one another.  Sure, it’s not a life I would choose for myself, but I could see how it worked and how it brought satisfaction and joy – even blessing – to each member.  But as this season has delved deeper and deeper into the ugly side of this patriarchal practice, the sympathetic picture of polygamy Big Love initially worked so hard to create has crumbled more and more.  And as Bill treads further and further down his own path of destruction,

The sins of the father…can be redeemed?

I’m aware, even as I upload this photo, how much of this season and my commentary on it have revolved around Bill. Bill the megalomaniacal father, husband, businessman, prophet, potential senator. Bill, who runs roughshod over his entire family, his friends, his business partners to get what he wants, believing all the while that such calloused behavior is part of the lord’s plan to elevate his priesthood over an increasing circle of loyal followers (as though he is doing such a good job with those whose priesthood he supposedly already holds). This episode was no different – Bill continues to clutch at straws of control even as his family continues to implode, his son leaves home, his political scheming with Marilyn backfires – except that perhaps, finally, we, along with Bill are going to see some consequences to his actions.