This week, we can officially add Big Love to the list of things, along with pizza and sex that are good even when they’re bad. Truly, an hour of the worst moments in Big Love series history, strung together into a single episode, would still be far more enjoyable than the best episode of Burn Notice.  Here’s what worked, and what didn’t’.

What Didn’t Work

Margene is only Sixteen: This week, the whole, “Margene was only 16 when she married Bill” thing, felt a little stagnant.  The storyline itself isn’t stagnant but it seems the writers haven’t fleshed out the characters feelings about it.  Is Bill upset because he now feels like all of the Polygamist cult leaders he’s claimed to hate or does he really think she might be damaged goods?

Bill’s Dream: Mr. Olsen and Mr Scheffer, lets be very clear about this, you are not the creators of The Soprano’s.  The Sop’s is the only modern show that’s been able to pull off the whole dream sequence thing.  In this is episode, Bill’s dream of his mother with Emma Smith (wife of Joseph Smith), while aesthetically beautiful, lacked the depth and potential analysis needed for a successful television dream sequence.

Mr Henrickson Goes to Washington: This was the big political moment that they’ve been working up to all season, and it just felt like the end of Legally Blonde or some politically slanted rom-com.  Every moment spent of politics feels like valuable final season time wasted.

Best of the Worst: The moment where Bill and the other senator “feel each other’s guns” and compliment each other on their weight and girth, was one of the best homoerotic television moments in some time.

What Worked

Multi Level Marketing: Margene selling Goji Blast to all her housewife friends has been comical and true to life, but this week, she’s begun to believe that her spirituality is somehow wrapped up in multi level marketing.  This feels like a critique on pyramid marketing; also self help culture and the way people use religion to hawk their wares.

Poor Lois: Lois Henrickson played Grace Zabriskie has had perhaps more memorable actor moments than any other secondary Big Love character, and this actress truly deserves an Emmy for her work.  In this final season, she starts losing herself to dementia, and this week we learn that the dementia was caused by un-treated herpes given to her by Frank.  Watching her, leaning her forehead against the Henrickson’s picket fence out in the cold saying, “It was all a waste, I’m filthy,” was one of the most heartbreaking moments on the show thus far.

Ben and Heather: Ben and Heather kiss this week.  But, just beforehand we are reminded that, in earlier seasons, there was very good reason to believe that Heather was a lesbian in love with Sarah.  Is she making out with Ben as some misguided way to channel that love?

Help Me Rhonda: The best part of this episode, hands down, was the surprising return of Rhonda Volmer, played by Daveigh Chase — also known as the scary girl from The Ring. Turns out, Rhonda got off the bus that Bill put her on and turned tricks in Vegas until she met Cara Lynn’s cousin and married him.  Each scene that involved Rhonda this week was among the best, but, at the top of heap was the attempted shakedown of Albert Grant.

This Week’s Best Line: “We may not be Catholics but we’re one up on the Scientologists…according to what I’ve read.” –Barb

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Big Love hits its stride with last night’s Christmas themed episode by laying out the main conflicts that will drive this season and close the show.

Margene’s Enlightenment: The major reveal in last night’s episode: Margene was only sixteen years old when she married Bill.  This packs an incredible punch, most obviously with regard to Bill’s place in the political spotlight, but also because it puts him amongst the false prophets he claims to oppose.  Bill always purported to be the moral polygamist, and now he’s realized that he took a sixteen-year-old girl into his marriage, a girl who might not have been sound of mind enough to choose their lifestyle.

Also, Margene is now coming of age.  All the multi level marketing stuff is just her late twenties drive to be an independent person, showing itself.  It seems she’s still drawn to Bill, but her diminishing sense of self might result in her leaving the family at the close of the show.

Barb’s Suffrage: Barb is the emotional anchor of the Henrickson family but this season, her bond to Bill might be the most tenuous.  Her desire for independence within her faith might be a dead end.  She’s realizing that she can’t be a free thinking human being within her faith and therefore within her marriage, and as a result the whole family walked in on her drunk at the end of last night’s episode.

Albert’s Reign: Having shuffled off his homoerotic-coil, Albert is storming the compound in attempt to “purify” everything in sight.  This week he kicked his mother, Adeline out of her house and had all of the dogs on the compound poisoned, but the real conflict took place between him and Laura.  After the dog incident and an apparent growing disconnect in the bedroom, Laura seeks Bill for refuge from the compound.  Bill takes her to a shelter and the whole incident coalesces with a stand off between Bill and Alby.  After punching Albert in the face, Bill spews a barrage of insults his way to the point where his Margene steps in to silence his him, keeping Bill from belittling him further in front of his kids.

There’ve been many frightening forces in the Big Love World, most notably the indelible Hollace Green, but the one that’s most potentially dangerous, is the pent up rage and unfettered insanity of Albert Grant.

This episode really moved Big Love back into familiar territory.  Thankfully Benny made his return to the show and Adeline and Lois, the secondary characters that really enliven the show, have become a solid part of this season’s storyline. The best part of this season so far, however, has been the prevalence of feminist undertones in recent episodes.  Shocking as it sounds out of context, Big Love is shaping up to be one the most important feminist TV shows of all time.   Otherwise, it’s a show about faith.  Without the polygamy theme, Big Love could easily be a show about a huge Hassidic family.  Gentiles aren’t the only ones who can ice skate to the Beach Boys, and they’re certainly not the only ones who do both beautiful and ugly things in the name of god.  A lot of big things are on the horizon, but thus far, predictions are futile.  God only knows what’s next.

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