The Moth Chase

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? Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey K,

I am genuinely confused. I thought this Bill-Niki wedding was “just a paper wedding” with us all knowing Niki had ulterior motives, but motives that weren’t seen as acceptable. How we got from there to the whole family – including Barb and, even, Ben – supporting a “real wedding” is kind of beyond me. Like, I really am confused. Did it seem strange to you too? Even stranger, Barb officiating! Read the rest of this entry »

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! Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 9: The End of Days

Let’s just cut to the chase and to the poignant last image of a roller coaster fast and furious season: the Henricksons, arrayed in red, white, and blue coming out on the steps of the state capitol as a new public incarnation of the American family. There is a lot that is over the top about this show, and there are some plot choices I could do without. But at heart, this is what I have always loved most about Big Love: the idea that the Henricksons, far from being some bizarre outsiders, are really one take on the nuclear family with all its commitments to marriage and children and values and hard work, stretched to its breaking point, but maybe not breaking. For all its unsavory, creepy, and downright destructive aspects, the show reveals just how much we expect of monogamous marriages by showing us the creaking and straining of this polygamous one. The same for family values in general or living the suburban dream. So seeing the Henricksons take that stage felt like a culmination of all four seasons so far. Read the rest of this entry »

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: Read the rest of this entry »

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!). Read the rest of this entry »