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Jews Watching Big Love: It’s All Over Soon, Baby Blue

One more episode remains.  This week, Big Love felt very comfortable in it’s own skin, tapping into the core of what makes it a show that fans are so passionate about.  This week’s episode felt at times like an Arthur Miller play, filled with high impact dialogue, dramatic exits, off the wall characters that would seem odd in a cartoon show yet somehow appear totally believable within Big Love’s world, and the return of Selma Green.  Big Love this week, was totally rock n roll.

Lets recount what happened this week that made us go, “hmm” and try to dissect some of the not so easily pinned down moments to see if they point toward what will come next.

The Devil in Miss Grant: Last night’s episode kicked off with a rare moment of empathy from Nikki when she catches Margene packing up her Goji materials.

“I’m sorry,” says Nikki, “I know how much you love selling that juice,” and a look from Margene tells us that this rare emotional outstretched hand from Nikki, actually helps to assuage her sorrow over leaving Goji.  But then, Nikki’s behavior spirals out of control, beginning with her plans to send to Cara Lynn to obedience/boarding school.  When her plan falls apart, she walks into her daughter’s room in the middle of the night and proceeds to pulverize her verbally.

“Once a victim, always a victim,” she tells her, insinuating that Mr. Ivy, her teacher/lover, used her for sex and was now happy he to be rid of her.  Then she continues,  “People like you don’t deserve love.  I know what you really are.  Stop crying!”   All this, sitting on the edge of her daughter’s bed in the darkness like some kind of hybrid between the absolute worst of this character and the crazy mother from Carrie. It’s clear that Nikki is talking to herself when she calls her daughter a manipulator and then speculates that she’s probably on birth control, but it hardly makes any of what she said understandable. It was terrible, an absolutely unforgivable moment of shameful parenting, but it leaves us with the question, Is anything unforgivable on this show? Which brings us Frank and Lois…

Sid and Nancy, But Really Old: Watching Frank and Lois gallivanting around in their old age like young senile lovebirds is off-putting.  If one were to watch the all four seasons of Big Love before watching this one, it would be near unbelievable that these two, who’ve nearly murdered each other multiple times, would even be able to delude themselves to believe there’s any love between them.  Yet, here they are.  It seems now, that their relationship will end with a suicide pact.  However, the young lovers on this show, aren’t faring any better…

How Many Girls Must a Boy Bed Down, Before You Can Call Him a Man:

Benny finds himself having to admit to Heather that he slept with Rhonda now that Verlin is dead by Alby’s hand.  I’m sure that I’m not the only one who was hoping that this situation would bring Heather’s lesbianism to light.  Instead, what came to light was Ben’s real outlook on love.  Ben plans to follow his father’s polygamist footsteps because that’s how he was raised.  Similarly, lesbian or not, Heather will marry a man, because she’s Mormon.  Thus reminding us that in Utah, nurture will always defeat nature.  Perhaps the best example of this, is the closeted homosexual/homicidal son of a cult leader, with an Oedipus complex, Albert Grant…

Alby’s Got A Gun: The episode ended with a The Quick and the Dead style shootout between Alby and Bill in which Bill prevailed, but something about it felt underdone.  Bill win’s with superhero-like fervor and it all felt too easy.  Is this a sign of further travails to come?  Also, could Selma’s “Safe travels” quote possibly be the last of Greens?

My prediction still stands, the season will end with Bill’s incarceration, which for me, is satisfying because I believe that the show is about the wives.  But, I’ve come to learn, that one’s prediction for this show’s ending, tends to reflect what the show means to them, much like Lost. Take a moment to guess how it will all end, and see if it doesn’t inform why you’ve been watching all along…

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