Big Love mousings: S1E9 and 10

To pick up where we left off:


E9:  The wives go round and round, trying to decide whom to name as guardians of their own children in the event they and Bill both die.  Turns out neither Barb nor Margene want Nikki to be guardian for their kids and Nikki wants her boys to be raised back on the compound. Barbara is also getting excited about her nomination for Utah’s Mother of the Year, but Nikki thinks she is being prideful – awesomely, when Nikki complains to Bill, he points out that what she really has a problem with is the fact that she’s Second Wife under Barb. Roman's child bride-to-be Rhonda comes to stay with the Henricksons while trying for a drama contest; Sara introduces her soon-to-be-step-grandmother to straight-laced LDS Heather, who is both fascinated and repelled, and wants to rescue Rhonda from the compound. During all this domestic turmoil, Bill has been asked to join a local business leaders group – he wants to do it, but ultimately turns it down because he’s worried about outing himself as a polygamist.

E10: Margene catches pregnant. Bill buys Old Whatsisname’s shares of stock and takes his seat on Roman’s board, then helps him and his elderly wives run away to Arizona. While Bill and Joey crash the board meeting, Albee pays Wanda an intimidation visit – and when he threatens her baby, she poisons him with antifreeze. Turns out she’s done this before: she’s the one who poisoned Bill and Joey’s dad with arsenic. After failing out of the drama competition (and awesomely bedazzling her jean jacket) Rhonda gets dragged back to the compound where, pouting, she tells Roman about Barb being up for Utah’s Mother of the Year.  So during the awards ceremony (which Nikki and Margene can’t attend because Barb was not allotted enough tickets), Roman calls in an anonymous tip that Barb is a polygamist. She is escorted out of the Governor’s Mansion in front of everyone, while Bill and their three kids scuttle away ashamedly. When they get home and are joined by Nikki (who is nearly hysterical, screaming that they’ll be taken away from each other until Bill tells her, “They don’t do that anymore”) and Margene who rally around their stricken sister-wife. The Henricksons’ lives are crumbling around them – who knows what the social repercussions will be? Not me, anyway: I’m not picking up S2 anytime soon.

More Big Love mousings: S1E3-5

Episode 3 is largely concerned with the completely inappropriate birthday party Nicki throws for one of her sons.  First she tries to have it at a fancy hotel with a guest list of 150+ people; when Bill shoots her down on that, she invites enough of her relatives in "prairie garb" to raise eyebrows in the neighborhood, plus her little son Wayne is sad that she didn't invite any children for him to play with, just adults.  The show has failed as far as the houses go - the street looks like Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives, all pretty colors and clapboards and trim - and the houses around here are stucco and stone and brick.

Episode 4 sees tensions rising among the three wives when Barb wants to take a long-term substitute teaching job.  Nicki's credit card debt is staggering (nearly $60,000) but she continues to try to hide it from her family.  She is an extremely unlikeable character - sneaky, sullen and manipulative - but you can understand her struggle to fit in: she no longer belongs up at the compound, having embraced the material life outside of it; but she's so very different from Barb and Margene.  Bill, meanwhile, decides to stand up to Roman's extortion. 

Episode 5 is the first time that I actually like some of the main characters as Bill and Barb find their passion for each other reignited and start sneaking around, having sex with each other in the middle of the day ... even when it isn't Barb's day.  They're very sweet and cute with each other.  Margene strikes up a friendship with a neighbor, which makes everyone nervous about Margene's ability to stick with the cover story.  And Nicki is actually likeable when she stands up to [her brother?] Albee when Roman sends him to put a scare into the Henricksons ... but then she immediately chucks my good graces when she tells the family that she wants to have another baby.  She's clever and has figured out Bill and Barb's affair - and knows the one thing she can do that Barb can't is get pregnant.

This show is growing on me (I particularly like Sarah's new friendship with uber-Mormon Heather, played by the awesome Tina Majorino - Veronica Mars would be so pleased that Lily and Mac are friends!) but I cannot for the life of me find Bill Henrickson charismatic enough to make me believe that Barb would allow a plural marriage.  Plus, I miss Bill Paxton as a badass/Hudson in Aliens.  This businessman in tidy whities just doesn't do it for me.

Mousings on Big Love S1E1 and 2

See what I did up there?  That pun?  "Mousings" - like "musings," but with a mouse?  Clever, dontcha think?

Since we're all living out in Utah now, I figured it was important to start watching HBO's series, Big Love, about a modern day family of closeted polygamists living in greater Salt Lake City.  I had been thinking about recapping it but after watching the first two episodes, I don't think I will do full recaps, although I'll collect some random thoughts after each ep and share them here.  (As an aside: I am at a loss as to what show to recap next.  If any of y'all have any requests/suggestions, I'll gladly entertain them - new shows, shows on DVD, what have you.)

Quick summary:  Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) is an upstanding SLC-area businessman - reputedly living in Sandy, but I haven't found proof of that yet - who owns two local home improvement stores.  He is married to Barb (Jeanne Trippelhorn), his first wife with whom he has three kids, two teenagers, Ben and Sarah, and a younger daughter.  Bill married his second wife, Nikki (Chloe Sevigny), when Barb had uterine cancer six years ago and could no longer have kids; Nicki comes from a polygamist sect out in the wilds of Utah somewhere and dresses/acts exceedingly primly ... except that she's a tiger in the sack, is totally passive/aggressive with Barb.  Bill has two (badly behaved) young sons with Nicki.  Bill also married wife #3 a couple of years ago: the young and pretty Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), who has already popped out two baby boys.  In the first two episodes, we get a glimpse into this family as the wives arrange their monthly calendars, divvying up chores and who gets to sleep with Bill when, and see Bill unable to keep up with the carnal demands of his three wives.  We also learn that at some point in the past, Bill borrowed money from Nicki's father, Roman (Harry Dean Stanton), the prophet of the polygamist sect, and Roman thinks Bill's current kickbacks are not quite enough. 

Part of the reason behind my not wanting to recap BL is that I didn't instantly connect with the show.  I have a good track record with HBO: I fell immediately in love with The Sopranos, Deadwood and True Blood, so it would not have been unreasonable for me to click with BL as well.  Except I didn't.  I just don't like any of the characters (yet).  Nicki is insufferable and greedy, Margene is young and unformed, Bill is pretty full of himself and I can't for the life of me figure out why Barb agreed to the plural life after 11+ years of solo marriage.  I did like Roman - he's eeeeeevil - and teenaged Sarah is fairly sympathetic: she does not approve of the polygamist lifestyle her parents have chosen.

There have been a few stock shots of the mountains of the Wasatch Front and Temple Square.  But twice characters have said they live in the "Wasatch Valley" which is wrong - we live in the Salt Lake Valley, along the [mountains of the] Wasatch Front.  I haven't been able to figure out where Roman's crazy polygamists live yet either: in E1, Bill said he'd "drive up" to see them, but in E2, he said he'd "come down." 

Interestingly, the Henrickson families, while polygamists, don't seem to worship at all.  One of Bill's business partners is also a polygamist and he told Bill that he'd love it if they'd join his congregation.  But Bill replies something to the effect that Barb isn't interested and still misses "LDS."  (Barb also hates Roman's polygamist sect - where Bill was raised as a boy but thrown out of when he turned 14 so as not to compete with the elders for the young girls.)

I'm going to stick with Big Love, at the very least through S1.  I'd like to see where it goes and am hoping that some of the characters will grow on me.  If nothing else, it's certainly anachronistic to watch an HBO show with no cussing.