I don’t know why I continue to watch this show. It is entirely possible I’m the wrong audience. That didn’t seem to be the case when it started. It was another highly-anticipated HBO production, and I’ve always been a big fan of Bill Paxton. I liked it OK in its first years … I never loved it, it never came close to the HBO peaks of The Wire, Deadwood, or The Sopranos … but it was pretty good. The problem is, as the seasons drag on, and we learn more about the characters, I realize that with very few exceptions, I dislike them. Bill Henrickson is a self-righteous prick who does what he pleases and says God gives him the OK. He is also delusional … he thinks he acts for his family and for higher principles, but his behavior is more destructive than positive for his family, and his so-called higher principles lead to him fuck over friends, family, and business partners.
Which doesn’t make Big Love a bad show … Patty Hewes on Damages is Bill’s equal at ends-justify-means misbehavior, and I love that series. But Damages lets us see just how evil Patty can be. To the extent the show has any depth (it’s fairly shallow in general), it comes from letting us see Patty’s worst side, admitting she’s a bad person, and allowing Glenn Close to play the part with a bit of a conscience, as if Cruella De Vil thought for a moment that she should start being nice. Maybe Big Love is too subtle for me, but as I see it, Bill Henrickson is presented as an Outlaw with a Mission. I think we’re supposed to be on Bill’s side. I could be stretching it here … maybe I just don’t like the character … but at the end of the season finale (no spoilers here), I really believe we’re supposed to admire his Us Against the World stance. (Well, one reason I can’t stand Bill is that he says “Us” but he means “Me,” which only first wife Barb ever seems to realize.)
There’s another thing … the ends-justify-means theme of Damages works in part because while everything else is going on, Patty Hewes tends to successfully fight against the powerful and for the powerless. She’s not just some scumbag corporate lawyer, she’s a scumbag people’s lawyer … it’s entirely possible she believes that what she is doing is good, not because God told her so, but because the results of her work often ARE good. But that’s not the case in Big Love. Bill says he does it all for his family … his family is a wreck. He says he does it for higher purposes … he destroys a lot of what he comes across, getting friends to take the fall (when “necessary”), throwing partners under the bus (when “necessary”), constantly covering up what he’s really thinking/doing.
(Spoilers now)
At the end of this season, he finally opens up about what he sees as his life’s work. The masses who loved him turn their back on him, setting up the next season, and we’re left to feel sorry for poor Bill, who admits his faults but tries his best. Well, someone needs to say it: fuck Bill Henrickson. Not only does he use people, but he makes their lives worse, not better. And he does it under the name of God.
There is some fine acting in Big Love, although there is also some terrible over-acting (hello, Grace Zabriskie and Bruce Dern). And while the best parts of Big Love have always been the interactions between the wives, the distractions from that core have gotten worse over time. This season we had contraband birds, meth dealers and gambling, inbreeding, gay love that led to suicide, an old lady using an axe to lop off the arm of a bad guy, and the rotting corpse of Roman Grant being carried around from one location to the next. Meanwhile, the three wives often worked separate plots … Barb ran the casino, Nikki tried to get pregnant, Margene got married to someone outside the family while running a business. It was busy, all right … it kept me awake. But it also offered far too many examples of the overused “jumped the shark” concept.
There is one thing I liked about this season. Chloë Sevigny’s Nikki has always been the most conservative of the wives, and this was reflected in her clothes, which were usually traditional garb. This was rather like having Aretha Franklin in a continuing role and never asking her to sing, since Sevigny is well-known for her work in the world of fashion. So it was nice that Nikki got to break out a different wardrobe on occasion. I imagine Sevigny was very happy, as well.
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