Well now I’m really confused. WTF is going on with that letter? Wouldn’t Bill want a letter like that made public, at least among the faithful? It seems to support what he’s doing. Or does he think Ted or the Church will try to keep the letter a secret?
Remember the scene at the historic site in the last episode? Bill thinks the mainstream LDS church is trying to whitewash its polygamist background. What I’m wondering is whether the documents are even real. Do you remember that scandal from about 15-20 years ago with forged Mormon documents? I think there was a car bombing at one point.
Now that the mainstream LDS church has the letter, it will never see the light of day. They might destroy it, or just deny its existence. Did Alby need money that badly, that he would sell it?
Why isn’t Sarah going to ASU? I’m confused. Bill was really good with her this week, but I’m not sure how her getting the car made her change her mind. I felt bad for her when she said she felt losing her baby was punishment for being bad. That conversation was a touching moment between her and Barb. However, I also felt bad for Heather… her dreams were cast aside in Sarah’s decision.
Is Nicki leaving the family? Is she going to come clean with Ray? Weird that she has a crush on a guy who has the same name as her son. I don’t see how she’s going to avoid legal problems, but the case against Roman could be reopened if her tampering came to light.
Poor Cathy. How awful. Was it previously known that Selma Green was Roman’s little sister. They are a creepy, horrible family. I hope her death is what finally blows Roman out of the water.
I think all the wives are really miserable. Margene is so depressed that she cries when she can’t go to the grocery store. I think they all need to sit down and have a frank conversation about “growing the family” and why it’s not a good idea.
Wow, what an episode! I really can’t say much right now, still digesting things … I’ll definitely have to re-watch but probably not for a few days.
Rubystreak, it had not been previously revealed that Selma Green was Roman’s baby sister, that was definitely something new. :eek: Oh those Greens are a creepy lot! That whole scene was weird, and probably some of the most violent we’ve seen in the series. That hog … omg, shades of Mr. Woo and Deadwood! And there are things wrong with the Greens, physically and mentally wrong, probably caused by decades of inbreeding, unfortunately. 
I’m still reeling from the Selma Grant Green revelation … will have to make more comments later.
That scene had me thinking of Wu’s hogs in Deadwood as well…
There is so more story lines going all the the same time, it’s almost a blur.
As for the letter, the fear is that the buyer is doing so to forever keep it from being made public.
I’m so glad Hollis Green is back!
I may have missed a little bit – did it ever get explained why Selma was always dressed in men’s clothing and then changed into a dress?
I wonder if Selma is a hermaphrodite or something. Or maybe just trans-gendered. It seems likely that she must have some physical defect for them to tolerate that sort of behavior. Or perhaps they tolerate it because she was the baby of the family, Roman made a reference to the last child being the dearest, or something like that. I assumed he meant her.
Good episode, although I was sad for Heather when Sarah changed her mind. I like questioning Sarah, hoping she won’t turn into converted Sarah.
Poor, poor Kathy- and Wanda needs to be permanently committed before people start drinking Draino around her again.
The real-life Mormon forger I was thinking of is Mark Hofmann. I’m wondering if we’ll learn that the historic documents that Alby is selling are forgeries. (The writers have referenced real-life incidents previously, such as the raids on polygamist compounds by the authorities.)
I’m not sure if this was clear to everyone, but I was already under the impression that Selma Green was a transsexual. Despite being referred to as Hollis’ “brother”, the character is played by a woman (Sandy Martin), and in the episode where Bill ratted out the Greens to Roman and they were attacked, the attackers covered Selma’s face in some sort of gunk (Hollis’ line: “They humiliated by brother Selma”) which I thought was their way of mocking him/her for being a biological woman living as a man.
The surprise of this episode was that Selma was Roman’s sister, and Hollis’ first wife. Until this point, I’d assumed Selma was Hollis’ actual sister-turned-brother.
ETA: I also assumed Selma was female from the name. The only other Selma I know of is Homer Simpson’s sister-in-law.
It was revealed that Selma was Roman’s sister and, if I understood right, Hollis’s first wife – before she started living as a man. Presumably Selma had to act in the capacity of Hollis’s wife in order to bring a new wife into the family (as they intended to do with Kathy), hence the dress.
I was confused about Sarah, too.
First, Barb makes the observation that “we don’t get to have control over our own bodies.” Then Bill offers the car and, although he says it could take her to ASU, he says it’s never too late to change your mind or your direction (good advice, methinks). So I thought maybe it was a bribe/manipulation attempt to keep her in Utah. Now it looks like she will make the choice to stay in the polygamy life, and choose not to have control over her body. WTF? I think I’ve missed something or that we will learn more about what Sarah’s thinking in the next couple episodes.
One thing I can tell you is this: in mormon doctrine, there is only one sin considered worse than sex outside of marriage and that is murder. While not every mormon parent would react the same way mine would, I am really surprised that Sarah isn’t in more trouble with Bill and Barb. A lot of mormon parents I know would still be railing, would make her go confess to the bishop, who would then impose some sort of sanctions or punishment until repentance was proven. I can tell you, if I’d miscarried at 17, before finishing high school or being married, I would still be grounded today and I’ll be 40 this summer. 
It may seem like, to some of you, that Barb’s reactions have been completely over the top, especially when she thought the BC pills were Sarah’s. IME, that reaction is dead-on. As a mormon teenager, you can get past getting caught drinking a latte or something, but getting caught screwing? Like I said, the only thing worse would be if you were a serial killer. She’s not in nearly enough trouble, so the car thing makes no sense to me.
Regarding this:
I agree with you, but that shouldn’t ever/probably won’t happen. God’s plan (to them, not to me) is to grow the family and make as many bodies for souls as possible. (They believe there are souls in heaven awaiting their earthly bodies and it is their personal responsibility to provide those bodies as the souls are anxious to do their time on the temporal earth.) This is any mormon woman’s mission in life. That’s what you’re taught from about age 2 onward. Clearly, Nikki and Margene are miserable and this life is not working for them… but they don’t have any choice. They gave up their choice when they agreed to be polygamous wives. (And Nikkie, moreso than Margene, knew she was consigned to being a brood mare until menopause. She understood what she was signing up for. Margene maybe not so much.) This is why Bill reacted so strongly when he found out about Nikki’s birth control. Not making babies when you are able to is considered tantamount to slapping god in the face and telling him to f*** off. It’s just not done. So having a nice sit-down to talk about putting the brakes on the indiscriminate breeding, or not having any more kids altogether… well, first that would be counter to the purpose of a polygamous marriage, but more importantly, that would be a firm rejection of god’s plan and for the faithful… it’s just not done. They’ll blame themselves for being weak and sinners before they will decide that god’s plan just isn’t a great idea and maybe they should have their own plan.
That’s where that whole discussion came in with Margene’s friend (the neighbor?) about how “we have to be perfect, don’t we?” That is a classic mormon woman’s dilemma and I’m very pleased with how accurate the writers seem to be showing this undercurrent that is very real in IRL mormonism (both mainstream and FLDS). That’s one of the primary topics discussed on mormonism recovery boards: how the women are expected to have more children than they can handle and not really get to make many choices about the timing or number of children, or much of anything. Keep working, keep striving unto perfection, pray, pay, and obey.
[/soapbox]
Sorry. I get a little ranty. I’ll close with a joke.
Q. Why do mormon women stop having children at 35?
A. Because 36 kids is just too many!
That didn’t seem ranty at all, Dogzilla. Your input is educative and illuminating - I hope you’ll contribute more as it occurs to you.
My main thought watching last night was that I would so rather get my neck broken by a braid than marry that creepy fuck! Why’d Kathy stab SELMA, though? I would have gone straight for Roman. That poor woman, she was way too sweet to live.
Man, I’d like to see Roman get gutted with a lineoleum knife and tossed in a hogpen. Great job by Harry Dean Stanton.
My first guess is Kathy just panicked and went for the closest person. It’s possible that she’s been trained to see Roman as almost-god and therefore, again, you wouldn’t stab god in the foot with a pitchfork.
Well, I might, but a believing mormon/FLDS wouldn’t. 
Dogzilla, that was enlightening. It’s the kind of exposition the show’s writers have given us in dribs and drabs, and it hasn’t been reinforced enough.
Any thoughts on Wanda relinquishing First Wife status? Was “poise and carriage” just too much for her to handle?
What position is Bill in to judge? After all, he’s just had a little extramarital action of his own recently.
I think Bill blames himself for Sarah’s sins in the larger sense. He’s paid almost no attention to her; he’s spent her formative years bringing in a couple of super-needy wives and siring umpteen children. If he did have any time to devote to his original brood, he’s spent it with Ben. You saw the way her eyes lit up last week when he suggested a night on the town with just the two of them. If anybody got the short end of the stick with this whole polygamy thing, it’s Sarah, and I think Bill is starting to realize that.
That scene between Kathy and Wanda, right before Kathy wandered off, reminded me of the scene in Hot Shots! where “Dead Meat” and his wife are walking out to his plane, talking about how wonderfully happy they are. Meanwhile, he walks under a ladder, she breaks a mirror, he goes to sign his life insurance papers but the pen runs out of ink, etc. I was a little relieved when she turned up alive, then disgusted by what they had planned for her, then shocked by the eventual ending.
Shame we didn’t get to see the wedding, though. “I do. Very truly yours, Hollis Green.”
I think she went after Selma with the pitchfork because it seems like Selma was the youngest of the group and best able to run after her.
Do the Hennricksons even have a bishop? I thought the non-compound polygamists were sort of “rolling their own” version of Mormonism and there wasn’t a central body governing them other than the LDS Bible and their interpretations of it.
I don’t recall them attending worship services but I could just be forgetting. I would like to see them at one, though.
I think in the Hennricksons household, Bill plays the role of bishop. I think Don does have a more organized church, I think from the first season I remember a conversation where Bill tried being involved but it was not for him.
Bill is his own bishop.
Don did invite Bill to join his congregation at one point, but Bill said he was not ready to join any organized group.
Bear with me Auntie Pam, I’ve had an epiphany! I went to Taco Bell for lunch, and as I was munching on my Mexican Pizza Minus Beef, I realized what I think this episode was all about and I’m delighted (again) that the writers and producers are shining a light on this. It’s brilliant, from an exmo (exmormon) perspective. We deal with these issues on the back end (after people leave the church), often for years and years. It’s very difficult to teach adult women how to stand up for themselves after they’ve spent a lifetime of being told to “keep sweet” and “submit” to male authority in their lives.
This episode (and possibly the entire series, I’m not sure yet) was designed to show you how mormon women are not allowed to think for themselves and make their own choices for their lives.
Before I illustrate that, I want to make something clear, if all y’all Dopers are not already aware: The peculiar stripe of mormonism that the Henricksons practice is not exactly 100% FLDS and it’s not exactly 100% mainstream LDS either. I don’t think it matters because the basic principles are the same (give or take minor details). Henceforth, I refer to “mormonism” in these threads as an umbrella term for all brands and stripes of the faith depicted in this series. But sometimes, Bill makes choices that make no sense against my mormon background and I think it’s because he doesn’t practice exactly that brand of mormonism. (And Doctor J, I think maybe you’re right about the car and why Bill did that. Makes sense to me within the realm of Bill’s character: he listens to women and gives credence to their ideas and needs much more than most mormon men.)
Okay, so let’s take a look at each of the women in this episode and see how or if they were able to make choices for themselves. It seems clear to me that “Think for yourself; make your own choices” = there’s a very high price to pay for that freedom.
Let’s start with:
• Barb - Barb would like to be harder on Sarah, but Bill tells her he will handle it. She tries to tell Nikki to “just fix it” and emphasizes her frustration with her inability to control Nikki by banging on the shower door. (I just love Chloe Sevegny in that scene. She looked like she wanted to slam Barb’s head right into that shower door.) Of all the women on Big Love, Barb seems to have quite a lot of personal power (moreso than a lot of others), mostly because she is First Wife. She still has to defer to Bill on most decisions. Bill is kind enough to hear her out and you see how the compound husbands “listen” to their wives. Those women’s concerns aren’t considered at all. Lois and Adaleen also seem to have some power and control over their decisions, but again, they pay a terrible price when they make their own choices and don’t just toe the party line.
• **Nikki **-- Nikki would like to choose when and if she’s going to have more babies. When Barb, Bill, and Margene confronted her, she had an anxiety attack and melted down. This is probably what pushed her into that date with the hottie lawyer (whom I think she should totally boink). Later, though, when Margene surprised her at work and confronted her with her situation, Nikki then chose to quit her job because, clearly, the price for making her own decisions was too high so she had to bail. She still wants “off the schedule” though, and I suspect that Bill will tell her to stay on the schedule or get out of the family. I was taught, in every single year of Sunday School, that the one and only sole purpose of a woman is to be a mother. That is your job and that is god’s plan and you shall not deviate from that proscribed path in life. (That’s the same Sunday School class that I stalked out of in a huff after that lesson… which is why I’m not a mormon anymore. ;))
• Margene – This is pretty obvious. Girl is in way over her head. She would like to get a break from being brood mare once in a while. She’s suffering from depression horribly. I think this is why Ana chose to leave the relationship: she wasn’t able to submit her decision-making to Barb and Bill. Good on her, if you ask me. Even Pam, the neighbor with the Zoloft, she feels the pressure of trying to be perfect and sympathizes with Margene because she doesn’t get to control her choices either, even as a mainstream LDS woman.
• Sarah – This was the interesting point, for me. Remember the conversation she had with Barb about halfway through the episode where Barb told her that women don’t get to control the choices about their own bodies (Duh, why do you think everyone around you is melting down, Boss Lady?). Sarah says she thinks god punished her for having sex (read: for making her own decisions) so he took her baby. I think Sarah thinks that ASU is not part of god’s plan and she wants to be “good” (read: obedient) and stay there in Utah. The price for choosing to control her own body (have a baby) was way too high for her (miscarriage). And absolutely, many mormon moms would tell her that she miscarried because she was not righteous enough and because god didn’t want Sarah raising a baby when she’s not worthy of that honor. Barb did not do that, to her credit.
• Heather – Heather has given up control of her own choices to Sarah, which was why she was so devastated when Sarah said she wasn’t going to ASU. Heather has been paying her own price for taking control of her choices in terms of enduring enormous pressure from her parents to go to the Y (BYU to you and me). I don’t think Heather really wanted to go to ASU in the first place. She’s in love with Sarah and was going to go wherever Sarah goes. Bummer for Heather.
• Wanda – (Here you go, Auntie Pam!) I think, absolutely yes, being in charge and making the decisions for both wives was overwhelming for Wanda. She knows she’s barely capable of getting dressed in the morning and she has no clue how to lead. She doesn’t want to. Ironically, she made the decision to relinquish First Wife status and like a good, obedient Second Wife, Kathy readily agreed to whatever Wanda wants. (That was a little funny to me.)
• Kathy – Obviously had no choice in to whom she would be married. She loved Joey and Wanda and she wanted to be with them, so god forbid the compound men allow a woman to choose what she wants. Purely as a malicious power play and for no other reason, they assigned her to Hollis Green. And I, too, would prefer self-strangulation by my own braid over marrying that creepy dude. Her death was merciful, IMHO.
• Selma Green – Now, you’d think a tranny in an über-conservative polygamy compound would be nothing more than a seething, roiling mass of issues. And, clearly, she is. She’s been allowed to cross-dress, but when push came to shove, the men in her life made the choice for her: you will wear a dress and you will act like a proper First Wife and you’ll like it. Selma is probably just as relieved about Kathy’s death as Kathy should be. (If she could be.)
• Even Alby’s Second Wife – Did we get a name? She was the one who went begging to Alby to have children and the First Wife (also nameless) insisted that Alby doesn’t want Second Wife. See, in a polygamy compound, the more babies you have, the more power you get to amass, the more choices you get to make for yourself and for others. She’s on her knees, crying and begging to be slept with so she can have a baby but she is clearly not in control of that choice.
Who have I missed and is she making her own choices for herself or is she being obedient?
:: Thinks about Rhonda ::