Big Love 3/20 (Series Finale - Open Spoilers)

[jsc1953]

Well, well, well.

Of all the people who'd want to take a shot at Bill, it figures that it would be the neighbor. I guess the moral is: don't resod your neighbor's lawn.

I guess it's typical of the last two wildly erratic seasons that this would wind up so suddenly and dramatically and unsatisfyingly. Like, why would Bill's Polygamy Amendment cause all of the polygamists to come out of hiding and show up at his church? What was the suppressed Mormon doctrine that Barb was referring to -- something like "queen of heaven" (which sounded practically Catholic).

Still no Teenie or Joey, although at least Sarah makes a cameo.

A sad and touching farewell for Grandma, though.

[billfish678]

You reap what you sod.

Though given his wives, I think he might be better off dead. Everything is crumbling down around them and each wife insists on starting their own personal drama/life exploration RIGHT NOW. Geez, wymen, when the shits hitting the fan can't you put that crap on hold for a bit?

[Omar Little]

So, it's finally over. The last few episodes of this final season were great. But that was to be expected as they attempted to wrap up several story lines.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I was not surprised by the ending. I thought a bit too much time was spent with dealing with Lois.

What was up with the black dresses for the infant blessing ceremony at the end? Was that to try and throw us off and make us think it was a funeral? A few seconds after the opening of that scene, they put up the "11 months later" tag, so it was a bit confusing.

I'm guessing that Bill's life insurance was substantial enough to provide for all of them.

So what unanswered questions about the series and the characters do you have?

[UncleRojelio]

Kind of a wimpy way to go out but I'm just glad it's over.

[LVBoPeep]

That finale was torture to sit through. Just horrible. The writers from this and the last season should be blackballed from the industry for taking an compelling, emotional and edgy (at times) drama and turning it into a joke.

I really loved this show for the first three seasons. Roman and Alby Grant made for good drama. The compound was full of criminal characters as well as some innocents caught in the crossfire. Nicki, Lois and Frank were characters I loved to hate. There were real issues acted out, such as the pre-marriage between Rhonda and Roman Grant and Bill's history as a boy kicked out of the compound. All of this made compelling drama and in my opinion there was more than enough mileage to make it through five good seasons instead of three great ones and two downright embarrassing ones.

[twickster]

Merged duplicate threads.

[billfish678]

I thought that when Frank "helped" Lois, it would have been better if he had "helped" himself at the same time. Maybe show him finish giving himself an injection, with it being obvious that he's given her a good head start so he can comfort her.

That would work on several fronts. First, deep down he REALLY loved her. Second, as much as they fought, when push comes to shove, he can't survive without her. And finally, being a rather cowardly sort, I don't think he would like the idea of a trial/imprisonment for "murder". Plus, it would be just a bit more sad yet at the same time uplifting.

[Ann Hedonia]

I'm going to have to rewatch this and I'll have more to say after I do.

I kind of "called it" in a way, because I thought either Don or Karl might kill him. I felt Bill's biggest flaw was that he was so centered on himself and his relationship with his God that he failed to fully understand how his personal dramas were hurting those that he dragged along for the ride and I didn't want him to make a clean getaway from this.

The Margene storyline was the one I found the most satisfying this season. I think the Cara Lynn - Greg Ivey subplot set this up nicely and that no matter how hard everyone claimed that the situations were COMPLETELY DIFFERENT that they all (Margene included) hit the slow realization that the situations were EXACTLY THE SAME and that no matter how much they denied it that Margene had been wronged by the family by being pulled into adulthood and motherhood at such a young age.
When Bill found Margene's brochere's and accused her of planning to "run away" I flashed on Elizabeth Smart and kidnapped teenaged girls and I think maybe Bill did, too......the second after the words left his mouth.
The he reminded Nicki that they all have free agency and Nicki acts like this is a new and unwelcome developement.
I liked the fact that in "Barb's Reformed Church of Bill" Margene was recast as teenaged daughter instead of a young mother and given her childhood back.

I think Nicki hit her own fatal flaw on the head when she realized that she was basically an unkind person but I have trouble believing that this realization would've cured her. I'm sure that at least once during the unseen 11 months she blamed Margene and her need to befriend the neighbors and "sell that juice" for Bill's death.

I most certainly didn't buy the final plot point of Barb becoming the family's spiritual leader. What the F did Don have to say about this, I can't imagine how dissed he must've felt. And I don't for a second believe that Nicki would accept Barb as her priesthood holder, she has been deeply indoctrinated and I think she would believe herself doomed for eternity if she didn't have a male priesthood holder.

[Dogzilla]

Okay, so what became of Alby again?

[jsc1953]

I think Nicki hit her own fatal flaw on the head when she realized that she was basically an unkind person but I have trouble believing that this realization would've cured her. I'm sure that at least once during the unseen 11 months she blamed Margene and her need to befriend the neighbors and "sell that juice" for Bill's death.

I most certainly didn't buy the final plot point of Barb becoming the family's spiritual leader. What the F did Don have to say about this, I can't imagine how dissed he must've felt. And I don't for a second believe that Nicki would accept Barb as her priesthood holder, she has been deeply indoctrinated and I think she would believe herself doomed for eternity if she didn't have a male priesthood holder.

I think Nicki's character got the most writer-induced yank-around this season. Between last week and this, all the hateful things she said to Kara Lynn were "sorry...didn't really mean it".

But she gets all the best lines. LOL'd at "Margene Without Borders".

[jsc1953]

Okay, so what became of Alby again?

Good question -- you'd think the archvillain of the last 2 seasons would make an appearance in the finale.

He's in jail; presumably (although not explicitly mentioned) to be tried for the murder of Rhonda's weasely husband, and maybe the Senate security guard.

[Chefguy]

That finale was torture to sit through. Just horrible. The writers from this and the last season should be blackballed from the industry for taking an compelling, emotional and edgy (at times) drama and turning it into a joke.

I really loved this show for the first three seasons. Roman and Alby Grant made for good drama. The compound was full of criminal characters as well as some innocents caught in the crossfire. Nicki, Lois and Frank were characters I loved to hate. There were real issues acted out, such as the pre-marriage between Rhonda and Roman Grant and Bill's history as a boy kicked out of the compound. All of this made compelling drama and in my opinion there was more than enough mileage to make it through five good seasons instead of three great ones and two downright embarrassing ones.

This is why we quit watching the show, unfortunately. I don't mind unsympathetic characters, but the writing just seemed to be taking a nosedive. We liked the series, but didn't feel it was worth re-subscribing to HBO to watch this last season. Maybe we'll rent it someday.

[DoctorJ]

I can't imagine how they could have wrapped it up much better. Bill's death was probably the only shot the family had at any kind of happy ending, leaving the wives with a nice insurance settlement and without Bill's neverending maelstrom of bullshit.

The one character from this season that I thought deserved a better wrapup was Don. I'm curious to know where his life would have gone without Bill and Home Plus, considering how tight he held on even though he probably suffered more than anybody from Bill's bad decisions.

[kath94]

Despite Bill's shooting, I felt that the finale was rather anticlimactic. What of Rhonda? She's widowed & presumably moving back to Nevada. Cara Lynn? Does she just give up on Greg? What happened to Greg? Is he just continuing to teach high school? And what about Joey & Wanda? Alby? The rest of Juniper Creek? Poor invisible Teeny!

I'm greatly disappointed.

[longhair75]

Teeny made it to the finale. I am pretty sure Sarah said that Teeny was in the bathroom putting on mascara.

[kath94]

Teeny made it to the finale. I am pretty sure Sarah said that Teeny was in the bathroom putting on mascara.

Yeah, a mention of Teeny made it to the finale. But she's still invisible. Poor Teeny. ;)

[DiosaBellissima]

I just read an interesting quote from the show's creators. I talked to a friend about it and we have completely opposite opinions, but I'm wondering what you all think about it:

‎"The big secret of the show is that it's always been a feminist show," he says. "And even though it was dramatizing this very patriarchal system in some ways, the opportunities that women found — particularly in this very abusive system — to support each other was what drew us to the material in the first place, and gave us reason to want to explore it. ... We felt that there were opportunities for women to find support in one another."

[Omar Little]

I just read an interesting quote from the show's creators. I talked to a friend about it and we have completely opposite opinions, but I'm wondering what you all think about it:

I always thought the show was more about the wives than about Bill.

And in the end, it showed that the wives would continue to grow and develop without Bill.

[Rainbowthief]

Teeny made it to the finale. I am pretty sure Sarah said that Teeny was in the bathroom putting on mascara.
She was applying it to Wayne! :D

I was horrified at the BS copout ending. To think that Bill overcame so much and survived Roman, Hollis Green and Alby only to be shot by his idiot neighbor is just too much. How did the women support themselves without Home Plus? That's a huge family with a very expensive life! Three houses, three women and seven kids (give or take)! And everyone is cool with Margene ditching her sons to go on the medical ship because she never got out much when she was younger? Why would she even want to leave her small children for weeks or months like that?

I liked Frank being so loving and caring to Louis in the last few episodes and I liked how Nikki figured out the real reason for Cara Lynn's relationship with the teacher, but other than that they blew it. It's amazing that they had five seasons to tell their story and they knew entering this season that it would be their last and this crap is what they came up with while Caprica was cancelled early in its second season and somehow the writers managed to wrap everything up in a stunning finale that felt satisfying and genuine. I think Big Love's writers stopped caring since they have to get new jobs while the writers of Caprica really loved the material.

[Argent Towers]

This last season has been some of the absolute worst television writing I have ever seen in my life. This horrible, sloppy finale doesn't even begin to wrap up the show; it was a cop out. But the whole last two seasons have been a cop out. I don't know how the writers managed to fuck the show up so bad, but they did. They took a compelling, high-tension drama and turned it into a complete unfocused haphazard mess of a show with a million loose ends. I am so goddamn disappointed in this show.

[John Mace]

Yeah, a mention of Teeny made it to the finale. But she's still invisible. Poor Teeny. ;)

Teeny is now a 250 pound, Black linebacker playing for the Rams.

But she gets all the best lines. LOL'd at "Margene Without Borders".
Dammit. Too late to the thread, as usual. I wanted to post that!

[DiosaBellissima]

Interview with the creators (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/03/big-love-creators-on-the-series-finale-we-never-felt-oh-now-the-women-could-finally-be-free-of-that-.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef014e6004e5a1970c) that addresses a lot of the questions folks were wondering.

Joey and Wanda:
MO: I think it was addressed at the end of last season, that Joey, on the heels of Bill leading him in Mexico, wandered off in Mexico and kind of never came back. We actually had an episode, I think it was Episode 3, our Christmas episode, where we had a scene with Wanda at the house, [but] we were so over budget on that episode, so overextended, we had to lose two or three scenes, and that’s one of those, unfortunately, that we had to lose. So we lost that little bit of narration as well. Those are some of the regrets that you do have.

[Sampiro]

I haven't watched the episode yet but I kind of guessed what happened from the "Shocking BIG LOVE finale: Bill gets killed by neighbor!" tag on Facebook so I went ahead and read the synopses and this one. It'll still be interesting to see it acted out.

So, with the caveat of "haven't seen it", I still have to say this is lamer than Governor George Wallace on his bathroom floor in an earthquake. Of all conceivable ways they could have ended it short of Bill coming out and running off with Alby this is one of the stupidest. Have they actually had writers for the last couple of seasons or have they just been making it up as they went along?

Lois and Frank are a prime example: I love complicated long term love-hate relationships on TV- hell, I grew up in one in the real world- but this one is just hollow. You don't go from Lois living in mortal fear of Frank (remember that?) and even digging his grave in her basement while he looked on bound and gagged and terrified to the On Golden Pond of the last season. Frank would never have looked after Lois- he didn't look after anybody. He robbed her of the money her brother gave her from some scam or other, then he tried to kill her when she sued him for divorce and spousal support (a plotline that was just dropped) and she tried to kill him and still hated him for the way he treated their children.
Where the hell were his other wives? In reality the most Frank would have done is toss her to them and say "hose her off once in a while". Okay, they said something about how they all freaked when they learned he had herpes and left him- that doesn't make any kind of sense. I can see maybe the young one, who's in her 20s and has no kids and can still have some kind of life, saying "Fuck it" and leaving, but the others ranged from middle aged to old. Frank had abused most of them for decades: he'd expelled their teenaged sons from the compound (at least two- Bill and Frankie), arranged marriages for underaged daughters to middle aged polygamists (at least one- Bill's full sister who died mysteriously, not that this was ever resolved), he was cheap and mean and greedy and treated them all like shit- but after decades they find out he has herpes (actually it was never even proven he did) and that makes them say "Okay Buster, you've crossed a ding-dang line!" and all of them leave--- to go where and do what? They don't have any money, any skills, most were over 50 with no education beyond maybe junior high in a cult run school and have been taught literally since the cradle to be submissive and when they got kicked off the compound in the first (or second) season they had to crash in a cheap motel (i.e. no non compound relations or friends), so it's not like they could just say "Screw Frank and Juniper Creek, let's learn to smoke and drink and take a place on the beach!"

Lois repeatedly told Barb and Bill early in the series "You seem to think of Frank as some harmless cranky old man- he's not, he's a monster!" pretty much in those words. In the first season he killed her dog (off camera) and sat outside her house with a shotgun for a while. She was terrified of him and for good reason. So now Lois is helpless and has the fear and confusion of those descending into dementia and doesn't know what she's doing (she takes the kids through a fast food drive through to see Santa for Heavenly Father's sake) and requires full term care on a good day and is only going to get worse until she's incapable of doing anything for herself. So Bill and Barb and crew decide "Let's give her to Frank! Underneath the murderous, physically-and-sexually-and-mentally abusive, uncaring husband/uncaring father/uncaring grandfather sociopathic exterior that you wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn has committed anything from armed robbery to infanticide if it'd get him something he wanted- however minor- he's an old softy! And just because he's in his 70s and not in great health himself and has never been a caregiver doesn't mean he isn't more than capable of lovingly seeing after the escalating needs of a woman who tried to kill him less than two years ago. Sounds like a plan! (I know, Lois had a fit when they tried to look after her at the Henricksen compound and when they put her in a home- but what independent person in decline wouldn't?)

Made no frigging sense at all. And that's just the "Teeny"iest piece of it.

[Argent Towers]

Interview with the creators (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/03/big-love-creators-on-the-series-finale-we-never-felt-oh-now-the-women-could-finally-be-free-of-that-.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef014e6004e5a1970c) that addresses a lot of the questions folks were wondering.

Joey and Wanda:

HAHAHAHA.

Creators fail.

The fucking gall of them to say something like this. Un-fucking-believable. Joey and Wanda were some of the most compelling characters on the whole show. They didn't have room for them - they couldn't even squeeze their storyline into one scene - they couldn't even have other characters mention them - but they had time for:

The herpes incident - totally pointless
CaraLynn's saga - a totally non-plausible character
Lois dementia - completely trite, tired plot device
Margene and Goji juice - an utterly stupid and pointless storyline
Barb's new church - another utterly stupid and pointless storyline

Wow. I hate the fucking writers on this show SO MUCH. So, so, SO much.

[Sampiro]

The only thing I can figure about the Goji Juice waste of time is that they saw it as symbolism for Margie's marriage and polygamy etc.. If so, total fail: you've got 13 hours to tell a story, you don't have time for symbolism- say it!

[AuntiePam]

Just popping in to thank Dopers who bitched about the fourth season. The first three seasons were so good, I'd been thinking of resubbing to HBO but didn't. Thought about it again for this final season but again, Dopers were there to warn me off.

Did they have different writers for these past two seasons? You gotta wonder what happened.

[Sampiro]

It all went to hell when they changed opening sequences. The first one was classic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9c2Sfo1hM) and very rich in symbolism (mimicking the endowments and ending with them ascending and having their own planet).

[Sampiro]

Much better writing and more realistic:


Big Bad Love 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jt8GtTWWU)

Big Bad Love 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DyD3hZZR6w&feature=fvwrel)

[tarragon918]

I really need to see this finale at least one more time to be able to commentate and make any sense. Off the top of my head, though, from just one viewing, it was only a partially satisfying ending to the series, at least for me. For me, the show was pretty much all about Barb, who was led into the polygamy as she (actually all of them) thought she was dying from cancer. When she didn't die, there she was, in a marriage with another wife. She was the character that it was easiest for me to identify with, even though I abhor the LDS tenets. I must admit that I have learned way more about the LDS faith than I ever thought I would (and way more than I ever want to know too!); not that it makes it any easier to understand, mind you, and I still have an intense dislike for much of the tenets. At any rate, I was rooting for her to make the break, so to speak, even though I knew that she probably wouldn't be able to do it. The most satisfaction of the finale came in Barb's being the priesthood holder in the polygamist church at the end. Bill did come to that realization or revelation would be more accurate (LOL), at the very end. I was glad to hear him request a blessing from BARB.

Here's the thing, though - there was just -so much- that was just glossed over! So much that went totally unexplained, like where were Joey and Wanda? How come we didn't even see Teensy? What happened with Don? Why hadn't baby Nell aged? (LOL) And what's even worse is that the creators thought that they did a great job!! I guess they weren't spending much time reading what was being written about the show on the Internet. They had a great premise and so many different directions the storylines could have gone in, and the first three seasons, as so many others have noted already, were great, but the last two have been crap.

I do need to re-view the finale. And yes, I did shed a tear or two when Carl shot Bill. But there was a smile on my lips at the epilogue, when Barb had named the baby, as the priesthood holder.

[Sampiro]

More likely 11 months later scenario: Margie gets an invitation to Barb's wedding to widowed mainstream LDS insurance agent and golfing enthusiast Heber "Bub" Woodruff. The Plus One says "Not Nikki". Margie is so happy at Barb inviting her after not speaking to her for 10 months and 3 weeks that her giggling and excitement knocks Ben out of bed. Cut to Nikki giving her testimony only to be interrupted by the nurse as it's medication time.

[Eyebrows 0f Doom]

What a crap ending. This is the best they could come up with?

[singular1]

You reap what you sod.

Though given his wives, I think he might be better off dead. Everything is crumbling down around them and each wife insists on starting their own personal drama/life exploration RIGHT NOW. Geez, wymen, when the shits hitting the fan can't you put that crap on hold for a bit?

Well, why the hell is everything crumbling? Because Bill doesn't give a shit about anything that's not happening in his pants and doesn't care whose life is destroyed in the pursuit of his happiness. Perfect time for the the wives to wake the hell up and get away from that selfish bastard.

[Ann Hedonia]

More likely 11 months later scenario: Margie gets an invitation to Barb's wedding to widowed mainstream LDS insurance agent and golfing enthusiast Heber "Bub" Woodruff. The Plus One says "Not Nikki". Margie is so happy at Barb inviting her after not speaking to her for 10 months and 3 weeks that her giggling and excitement knocks Ben out of bed. Cut to Nikki giving her testimony only to be interrupted by the nurse as it's medication time.

Good one !!!!

Another idea for the finale

At some point when investigating Margene's rape, the police call Sarah only to find that Sarah hasn't seen Teeny since she moved from Utah, sending the police and Feds into a tailspin as they investigate Teeny's unreported disappearance. Barb and Billl finally confess that Teeny was murdered on Christmas Eve in the package wrapping room of one of the houses and that they buried her in the backyard to avoid calling attention to their lifestyle and the skeevy characters that are in and out of the houses. The whole family goes to prison for life.

[Ann Hedonia]

I think Nicki's character got the most writer-induced yank-around this season. Between last week and this, all the hateful things she said to Kara Lynn were "sorry...didn't really mean it".

But she gets all the best lines. LOL'd at "Margene Without Borders".

You may have a point, wasn't there a big controversy when Chloe Sevigny made negative comments about the writing of season 4 in an interview?

So in season 5, the writers start in on her by making her hit a small child. Then she kidnaps compound women, gets generally vicious and competitive with her daughter and is a general all around bitch the whole season without any real softening.

And I think her stylist was in on it, too. Remember when she used to be pretty on occasion? And her "modern" haircut was really unflattering.

[DoctorJ]

Teeny is off living happily ever after with Chuck Cunningham.

[alphaboi867]

More likely 11 months later scenario: Margie gets an invitation to Barb's wedding to widowed mainstream LDS insurance agent and golfing enthusiast Heber "Bub" Woodruff. The Plus One says "Not Nikki". Margie is so happy at Barb inviting her after not speaking to her for 10 months and 3 weeks that her giggling and excitement knocks Ben out of bed. Cut to Nikki giving her testimony only to be interrupted by the nurse as it's medication time.

That would've been much better. This episode makes last season start looking good. Also I'd ad an actual appearance by Teeny; who's now either a very butch lesbian or transman. In either even she'd be played by a male actor.

[jsc1953]

I don't get all the Bill hate. He always seemed to me to be sincerely motivated by The Principle, and genuinely loved his wives and just wanted what was best for his family. (Yes, The Principle is inherently misogynistic....I get that.)

ETA: and I give the producers a lot of slack about Teeny. Child actors disappear from shows all the time.

[Sampiro]

Speaking of the Principle being misogynistic, there's no way in hell a group of polygamists would allow women to hold the priesthood. Even if Bill did the others would shew her out of the church or found their own first.

[alphaboi867]

Speaking of the Principle being misogynistic, there's no way in hell a group of polygamists would allow women to hold the priesthood. Even if Bill did the others would shew her out of the church or found their own first.

Which raises the question, did Bill ever get around to formally incorporating "The New Assembly of Mormon Pioneers" and giving it a seperate legal identity from "Bill Henrickson"? :dubious: Because if he didn't then the church's assests (like the building it was in) would've passed to his wives (or at least Nikki). And it is possible that Barb simply founded her own church. I can just, barely, almost buy Nikki accepting Barb as her priesthood holder for no other reason that her current priestholder bascially told her too on his deathbed, and she has no other alternatives. She has no family she's willing to turn too, and she's not going to join the mainstream LDS church.

[Sampiro]

Maybe Nikki will give permission for Cara Lynn to marry Mr. Ivey if he takes her on too.

[Dogzilla]

Speaking of the Principle being misogynistic, there's no way in hell a group of polygamists would allow women to hold the priesthood. Even if Bill did the others would shew her out of the church or found their own first.

Word.

I have to say, I think that it may seem out of character for Nikki to accept Barb's authority as priesthood holder, it actually makes sense in the end. I think both Margene and Nikki -- through the course of their various meltdowns in the last three episodes -- came to realize that Barb is the stabilizing force in the family, not Bill, despite her Controlly McControlster tendencies. I think Nikki especially realized she needed Barb for balance. She also knows she is meaner than a snake and would probably end up like Frank or Lois: lonely, bitter, angry, and not a single family member wanting to have anything to do with her. Barb and Margene had already accepted her; where else would she have to go? Not back to the compound -- you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The three of them banding together as a family to raise the kids (even the invisible ones!) was really the only thing that makes sense. And without a man in the midst, fucking things up, it looked like they pretty much had harmony, flowers, and rainbows after that without him.

I think the moral of Big Love was "See? We didn't need you stinkin' patriarchs anyway! So there!" :p

[Sampiro]

I've heard it's going to come back in a couple of seasons as a new show: Big Lesbo Love. Or as an HBO fake-reality show as the women look for a new husband.

[alphaboi867]

An alternate interpretation of the ending just occured to me. The whole thing is just a dying hallucination of Bills; how he'd want things to end up. In reality Barb went back her church and is raising Teeny as a single Mom, Margene sold her house and (ghost)wrote a book (& probally remarried), Nikki's on welfare/in prison/or in an institution and her kids are in foster care (or worse with Adaleen), CaraLynn went back to her birth family, Rhonda turned out to be pregnant and Ben, after a DNA test, married her out of guilt (actually this is a very happy ending for Rhonda), Scott & Sarah are happily enjoying the DINK life in Portland, Heather finally comes to terms with lesbianism (possibly joining Scott & Sarah for the occasional threesome), and SafetyNet is forgoten about and some new "Prophet" takes over Juniper Creek.

[Argent Towers]

There was never any actual evidence that Heather was a lesbian. It was just something Rhonda used to say to threaten her; a false allegation.

[Sampiro]

Or, Margene and Ben run off together. Finding out that Bill cancelled the insurance policies shortly before his death Nikki and Barb are left penniless, but help comes in an unlikely sort when they're offered a highly paid headlining act based on their sudden notoriety as the Poly-Gams. They open at the Chicago Theatre (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHiUwgdXIj8&feature=related) to rave reviews.

[CrazyCatLady]

I don't get all the Bill hate. He always seemed to me to be sincerely motivated by The Principle, and genuinely loved his wives and just wanted what was best for his family. (Yes, The Principle is inherently misogynistic....I get that.)

The Bill hate is because doesn't want what's best for his family, but rather what is best/most pleasant for Bill and it never enters his pointy fucking head that maybe, just maybe, the things he wants come at a really steep personal price for his wives and kids. And because even after the rest of the family raises eminently reasonable objections to some harebrained plan of his, he's always shocked and confused when things go predictably badly and the family is unhappy.

[Argent Towers]

Margene would never in a million years want to be with Ben or a guy like him. Ben is a classic "beta" male, or maybe even omega. He is totally passive, whiny, non-assertive, and generally impotent in personality. Everything about him, from his poor posture to the drooping countenance of his face, makes him look like a beaten dog. He has the physical affect of someone who's perpetually flinching in anticipation of a blow.

No way in hell would Margene elope with this guy. She needs a strong, commanding, do-as-I-say guy to dominate her; this is why she was with Bill.

[Cyberhwk]

Someone help me here. Why did Carl off Bill?

I don't have HBO so I've have been following along as fast as Netflix will allow, which puts me a season behind, but from this prospective, a minor and nearly invisible character just offed the shows protagonist. Can someone give me some context?

[Sampiro]

Someone help me here. Why did Carl off Bill?

I don't have HBO so I've have been following along as fast as Netflix will allow, which puts me a season behind, but from this prospective, a minor and nearly invisible character just offed the shows protagonist. Can someone give me some context?

He blames Bill for the breakup of his marriage. Their marriage had been having problems for years due to her inability to have kids, and Margene became his wife's shoulder-to-cry on. It got worse when Carl lost his job. Margene also convinced her to get into the Goji Juice (a pyramid sales product) which hurt them financially when they were already having major problems due to Carl's layoff. Margene gave his wife the strength to leave her husband.

So really I guess the question is why if he just had to shoot someone why he didn't shoot Margene. Chivalry?

[CrazyCatLady]

Someone help me here. Why did Carl off Bill?

I don't have HBO so I've have been following along as fast as Netflix will allow, which puts me a season behind, but from this prospective, a minor and nearly invisible character just offed the shows protagonist. Can someone give me some context?

He pretty much blamed Bill for a lot of his problems, and the resodding of the lawn added insult to injury and he just snapped.

Carl lost his job back around Christmas, so Pam got deeply involved in Margie's MLM scheme which of course only compounded their financial problems. Things got so bad they couldn't pay tithing to the church and thus were about to lose their temple recommend, and they were separating. He was becoming unstable under the strain, and then when he came home and Bill had resodded his lawn he took it as further indication that he couldn't take care of his wife and home on his own.

[Cyberhwk]

Dang. That's some level crazy.

[Argent Towers]

About the tithing: if a Mormon or his family is unable to pay the tithe, will another Mormon help them out and pay it for them?

[Marley23]

And so farewell to an often entertaining but flawed and very erratic show. I guess people feel the cracks didn't start showing until later, but I thought Big Love veered off course early. It got worse later and culminated in parrot smuggling. Remember how Nicki's shopping addiction was a big deal for a few episodes in season one? Nicki thought her dishonesty threatened her marriage. And they were afraid of being outed as polygamists. Compare that to how zany things got the last two seasons.

As far as Bill's shooting... they wrote themselves into a corner. It's really that simple. I don't know how else they were supposed to resolve all this stuff. I don't know if they could have made a better finale considering what's happened this season and the season before, but the murder came out of nowhere and it wasn't a satisfying conclusion. Carl went through a lot of crap, but how much did we see him this season?

It wasn't bad as far as that goes: I thought it was moving that he had Barb gave him a blessing. There were other scenes in the finale that worked, too. You knew Frank was going to do Lois in eventually (and I don't think for a moment that he ever considered "joining her" - that's like asking a rat to go down with a sinking ship). Sampiro's point about Frank's cruelty being toned down is well taken, but I could at least see this as an outcome for their relationship. So it made sense dramatically, to me.

I think I liked the scene with all three wives in the new car and I also bought Bill's response to Barb trading in the car without giving it another thought. That was what the show used to be like, I think. Early on Big Love was a domestic drama about a polygamous family, not Bill vs. The World. That was a more believable show. I think some of the complaints about Bill are overblown in that we're supposed to see him as a guy trying to hold onto the faith of his fathers. He didn't always know how to do that and until the end he never had the divine guidance he wanted. (Much as I didn't like Emma Smith showing up out of nowhere again.) It's definitely true he never thought about how his decisions were going to affect other people.

I didn't like Bill introducing the polygamy legislation. I don't know Robert's Rules of Order, but I had trouble believing he would have ever gotten that far. I felt the characters were speaking on behalf of the show in defense of polygamy and I thought that was didactic, condescending, and unnecessary. I think Big Love was probably successful in making a case that poylgamy is not necessarily anti-woman, for example. They didn't need this scene demonstrate that, and by the finale, they've either made their point or not and they weren't going to change anyone's mind with some yelling on the state senate floor. That was a waste. I think there should be a rule against putting your protagonist on trial in the finale of your TV show.

I thought Bill appearing as a ghost was similarly heavy-handed. It's not enough that killing your protagonist in the last episode makes people think of the Sopranos; you have to have him show up as a ghost a la Six Feet Under? I'll grant that having him appear in the background for a second was more subtle than some of the directions they could have taken.

HBO ran a special after the finale - we didn't watch because we were done with this show at some point in season four - and I saw they pitched it by saying the finale answered every single question left in the series. It kinda goes without saying that killing your main character wraps everything up, but as this thread demonstrates, that was not true at all. And of course the whole scene in the state senate was supposed to show, I thought, that they were kicking off a new debate about polygamy, and we never find out what happens to that debate. They couldn't ask us to believe that polygamy was legalized or that anything really changed, so they punted. We also don't know about Ben and Heather, Cara Lynn and Nicki or Greg... I know those points were listed already and there are probably others.

[quixotic78]

We also don't know about Ben and Heather, Cara Lynn and Nicki or Greg... I know those points were listed already and there are probably others.
You read my mind with most of your post, but the last scene showed that Ben and Heather were married -- they both had on wedding rings and they were touching each other fondly.

My most burning question out of all the unresolved ones is -- was Nicki lying about Greg being someone who had done this before? Thoughts?

[Eyebrows 0f Doom]

My most burning question out of all the unresolved ones is -- was Nicki lying about Greg being someone who had done this before? Thoughts?

I don't think he had done that before, or that he really was a predator. Nikki was just being her typical bitchy self. I think that storyline was just added in as a counterpoint to the Bill/Margene drama, i.e. it's all holy and righteous for Bill to fall in love with an underage (and willing) girl, but it's awful and criminal for anyone else to do the exact same thing.

[billfish678]

And so farewell to an often entertaining but flawed and very erratic show. I guess people feel the cracks didn't start showing until later, but I thought Big Love veered off course early. It got worse later and culminated in parrot smuggling. .

I think thats the Utah version of jumping the shark.

[alphaboi867]

...it's all holy and righteous for Bill to fall in love with an underage (and willing) girl, but it's awful and criminal for anyone else to do the exact same thing.

I'm no fan of Bill, but it isn't quite the "exact same thing". Bill did not know Margene was underage. His entire defence was based on that. I genuinely believe Bill would not have pursued a relationship with Margene if he know her real age (or at least he'd wait). Greg knew damn well how old CaraLynn is. He knew she's underage. He had sex with her anyway.

[Sampiro]

Another major shark jump to me was when we saw Selma Green on the next to last episode. She has breath in her body and is willing to let bygones be bygones with Bill. The first time they met she tried to brand his ass with a cattle branding iron over a business deal. Lois hacks off her husband's boneless arm with a solar plasma machete and Hollis dies soon after- it's not clear if it was a direct result of the disarmament but that certainly didn't help- but Selma and the rest of the Greens (based on a very psycho very real cult called the LeBaron clan who murdered several other polygamist leaders) just lets bygones be bygones.

If somehow miraculously Bill and Lois and group had made it back to Salt Lake and Juniper Creek, they'd have been barricading their house and filling punch bowls with ammo and homeschooling the kids because they wouldn't be safe at school. (Selma and Hollis kidnapped Barb's adopted niece!) There is no way in hell they wouldn't live in daily terror of the Greens, and they not only didn't seem to be concerned but even included a member of the Green compound in the polygamy round table (which never would have happened- these people were basically the Mansons with a better stock portfolio).

[CrazyCatLady]

I genuinely believe Bill would not have pursued a relationship with Margene if he know her real age (or at least he'd wait).

I'm not sure I agree with you there. I genuinely believe that Bill believes he would have acted differently if he had known the truth, yes. But Bill being the "any little thing I want is automatically God's will" kind of guy that he is, I have pretty serious doubts that him knowing would have made any actual difference. What seems more likely to me is that he would have had a relationship with her and hidden it from Barb and Nikki, just like he did the pre-marital sex.

[Ann Hedonia]

I'm no fan of Bill, but it isn't quite the "exact same thing". Bill did not know Margene was underage. His entire defence was based on that. I genuinely believe Bill would not have pursued a relationship with Margene if he know her real age (or at least he'd wait). Greg knew damn well how old CaraLynn is. He knew she's underage. He had sex with her anyway.

I disagree. I believe Bill would've overlooked any evidence of Margene's age....she was hired at Home Plus which is a big employer, certainly she would've had to show a valid SS#. Plus, Don's rememberance was that Bill was so hot for Margene that he would've overlooked anything.

It's very easy for Bill to claim after the fact, after he's had his fill of sex with her and knocked her up 3 times, that he wouldn't have looked twice at her had he known her real age. I don't believe it for one second.........at best he would've brought her into the cult/family to keep her close without sleeping with her until about 5 seconds after her eighteenth birthday.

Heck, at least Greg Ivey was single and unattached.

And I'm a little confused about the whole Margene timeline.......I thought I
remembered her saying she was 17 when she and Bill "married" but if her SECOND child was a product of rape that can't be true.....what is the age spread between her two youngest, are they less than a year apart?

[Marley23]

You read my mind with most of your post, but the last scene showed that Ben and Heather were married -- they both had on wedding rings and they were touching each other fondly.
I saw that she was there and I figured they were probably together, but I didn't notice the rings. Too bad for Heather, I guess.

My most burning question out of all the unresolved ones is -- was Nicki lying about Greg being someone who had done this before?
Probably. I don't remember much of what he said about his life, but it's hard to reconcile him saying "I love her" with his admitting to Nicki that he'd slept with other students. Her whole "you don't deserve love" tirade proves she was willing to say absolutely anything to keep Cara Lynn away from him. Nicki was always like Roman and Alby and her mother in that she never had a problem with lying to get what she wanted. I sort of came to admire their ruthlessness. They could be very slimy and also didn't hesitate to violate God's laws (murder, gay sex, birth control) if they wanted to. They could always find a justification for it but they were just totally committed to their own self-preservation in a way a lot of people aren't. I don't think even Bill's frustrating selfishness really stacked up (although he cheated with both Margene and Ana). He did make an effort to play by the rules. Some of the best moments in the series were when we thought Bill might be moving in that direction. In terms of the show, it's still hard to believe a law-bound guy like Bill was supposed to triumph against those people. I guess he was finally able to do it when he made it personal, had the resources of the state of Utah, and when Roman had died and Alby got crazier, and the Greens disappeared.

Oh, and I guess the Henricksons could still be getting money from the casino in addition to whatever life insurance Bill had. Barb probably would have inherited Bill's stake, and we can assume the casino was financially successful because they haven't had anything to do with it for a couple of years.

[Dogzilla]

Greg knew damn well how old CaraLynn is. He knew she's underage. He had sex with her anyway.


You know what bothered me about that entire plotline?

I was taught in the mormon church that premarital (or extramarital) sex is a sin next to murder in severity. The only thing you could do that's worse is kill someone.

But nobody -- not one single person -- addressed the loss of virtue/virginity with Cara Lynn. Hell, I was put through a bishop's court and disciplined for letting myself be sexually abused and not one single mormon in that entire show addressed the fact that Cara Lynn committed what to mormons is considered a mortal grievous sin. She wasn't called to repentance or given steps to repentance or required to seek forgiveness or anything. I can't even believe Nikki didn't trot out the old mormon trope of nobody will ever want you for a wife now because you're a damaged, dirty, licked cupcake*.

* The licked cupcake is a reference to a Young Women's object lesson I had once. The teacher brought in a platter of beautifully decorated cupcakes and set it down on the table. She chose one, picked it up, and licked it, then set it back down on the platter. She then instructed each of us to come up and choose a cupcake. Of course, nobody took the licked cupcake. As we sat munching on our cupcakes, we were told that the cupcakes represented sexual sin. If we indulged in sex before we were properly married, we would be like licked cupcakes. No righteous, kind, decent, mormon priesthood holder would ever want a licked cupcake. Fool around with boys at your own peril because if someone licks your cupcake, you might not ever get married, and then you cannot get to the Celestial Kingdom.

These lessons were pounded into our heads constantly. That was probably the message that was most emphasized, second only to the commandment to strive to be a wife and mother in Zion (and nothing else, thankyouverymuch). So I could see Nikki giving Cara Lynn a pass on wearing a pair of modest shorts, but I cannot see a mormon child having sex and simply getting away with it. I suspect the exmormon writers on the Big Love staff are all men and missed the constant reiteration of sexual purity that was inflicted on the girls. Perhaps they didn't have that same experience so they don't realize how it's always the woman's (or girl's) fault when two people have sex out of wedlock. In my experience, priesthood holders managed to get away with more like a slap on the hand while females tended to be sanctioned more, in the cases of sexual sins.

[Sampiro]

* The licked cupcake is a reference to a Young Women's object lesson I had once. The teacher brought in a platter of beautifully decorated cupcakes and set it down on the table. She chose one, picked it up, and licked it, then set it back down on the platter. She then instructed each of us to come up and choose a cupcake. Of course, nobody took the licked cupcake. As we sat munching on our cupcakes, we were told that the cupcakes represented sexual sin. If we indulged in sex before we were properly married, we would be like licked cupcakes. No righteous, kind, decent, mormon priesthood holder would ever want a licked cupcake. Fool around with boys at your own peril because if someone licks your cupcake, you might not ever get married, and then you cannot get to the Celestial Kingdom.

I would so love to see the class lesbian make a beeline for that one and lick the icing off in one swoop of the tongue just to see if the teacher could improvise.

[Dogzilla]

I would so love to see the class lesbian make a beeline for that one and lick the icing off in one swoop of the tongue just to see if the teacher could improvise.

There was no such thing at the time. If anyone in the class was gay, they were so far in the closet, they didn't even know it themselves.

I stood up to a teacher once and got quite snotty with her about the lesson where in we were instructed that "the sole purpose of a woman is to be a wife and mother." So what if you don't want to do that? What if you want to do other things in addition to 'wife and mother'? She would not back down. She would not deviate from the party line. She read the lesson straight from the manual and did not budge one hair from her stance. There was no improvisation. I finally stalked out in a huff and refused to return to class. She did what she was supposed to do and held the line. I did not; I was supposed to just swallow that, accept it, internalize it, and be happy about it.

Mormon sunday school is like plugging into the Borg. You will be assimilated and there is no place for independent or critical thinking.

[ZipperJJ]

Another major shark jump to me was when we saw Selma Green on the next to last episode. She has breath in her body and is willing to let bygones be bygones with Bill. The first time they met she tried to brand his ass with a cattle branding iron over a business deal. Lois hacks off her husband's boneless arm with a solar plasma machete and Hollis dies soon after- it's not clear if it was a direct result of the disarmament but that certainly didn't help- but Selma and the rest of the Greens (based on a very psycho very real cult called the LeBaron clan who murdered several other polygamist leaders) just lets bygones be bygones.

If somehow miraculously Bill and Lois and group had made it back to Salt Lake and Juniper Creek, they'd have been barricading their house and filling punch bowls with ammo and homeschooling the kids because they wouldn't be safe at school. (Selma and Hollis kidnapped Barb's adopted niece!) There is no way in hell they wouldn't live in daily terror of the Greens, and they not only didn't seem to be concerned but even included a member of the Green compound in the polygamy round table (which never would have happened- these people were basically the Mansons with a better stock portfolio).

I wonder if the writers were trying to do a "the women won out in the end" thing, and also "Mormon women do it a bit differently when not under control of the men" for those of us not familiar with the LeBarons.

[Marley23]

Not that we really know anything about Hollis and Selma's personal relationship. I think that's something to be thankful for.

[quixotic78]

Probably. I don't remember much of what he said about his life, but it's hard to reconcile him saying "I love her" with his admitting to Nicki that he'd slept with other students.
I don't think it's that hard to reconcile at all. What else would he say to (or about) a 16-year-old girl he wants to molest?

Personally, I think he had indeed done it before. He's single, in his 30s, attractive... why isn't he married, especially in the Mormony environment of Utah? Because he's got a thing for teenage girls and doesn't want to be married. I find it easier to believe that he's a repeat offender than I do that he's just a single guy in his 30s who, out of the blue, decides to fall for a 16-year-old. As far as how Nicki found out, she said that she had Bill's help finding stuff out. Maybe he used his PI, or maybe his Home Plus HR contacts to do some digging (although if it was that easy to find, I don't know how he'd be a teacher). Maybe Ivey said something like, "Don't turn me in, it'll be my third strike" or something like that.

I guess we can't know either way (unless the producers just come out and say so one way or the other). But for me, he was always a weird character -- even before we found out that he was screwing a 16-year-old. So he's guilty, sez I.