Last week in Utah, the family starring in TLC’s “Sister Wives” program filed a challenge to that state’s criminal law against bigamy.
The Mormon Church famously renounced polygamy in 1890 in exchange for Utah’s statehood. Ever since then, polygamists have tiptoed around the laws with what Kody Brown, the husband on “Sister Wives” calls their “spiritual marriage.” Continue reading
HBO has finally parted ways with its polygamy-based show about love, faith, duty, sharing, and some other spiraled into crazy things that mostly left us shaking our heads and wondering whether it was worth it, and undoubtedly, why it was that we watched this show for five seasons.
When the show first debuted, before TLC’s bandwagon-hopping with their romantic comedy called Sister Wives, and the real life situation regarding Warren Jeffs, and most recently the removal of several compound children by Child Protective Services (Yoikes! So much ewwww.), this little show settled in to test the American view of family. What it means. And what sorts of limits we put on our own feelings, our jealousies, our acceptances, sex, and lastly, commitment. Over the course of five seasons many questions were raised about all of these themes. Did the final season and the finale answer most of them? [Stop reading here, if you’re worried about spoilers.]
Well, yes and no.
No one character escaped persecution or emerged with clean hands at the end of this final season, and each season leading up to the last created more questions than answers about who these three people at the epicenter of Big Love really were.
Nicki: The Puritanical Princess
Nicki, played expertly by Chloë Sevigny, was so wholly unlikable. She was manipulative, mean, nosy, strange, pious, unyielding, and just downright aggravating. Feh! to the absolute max. There were no limits to what she would do to get what she wanted. No amount of sneaky crap she’d conjure to hide her mistakes, and when push came to shove, it was always Nicki who made things ten times worse. Just, urgh. I never, ever, understood how they put up with her. What was the appeal? Her ties to the prophet? Her fashion sense? Her screeching “me, me, me-ing?” At some point, we find out that she was the product of abuses on the compound, and that she’s damaged in a way all the progeny of Roman Grant seemed to be. This was expected, no? The assumption, I suppose, was to make us feel sorry for her, and create some deeper understanding, mostly to uncover what made her little rabid mind tick. This didn’t help much, but at least it gave us more to focus on other than her scheming and lying…but not much.
Margene: The Child Bride
The little naive starry-eyed nymph was just a little too much poured sugar, right? In effect she was much like a large child. She was often chastised and scolded by Nicki and Barb. And given her youth and vitality, she was often relegated to the “bearer of new fruit” role in the marriage. Just how many babies did Margene have? We finally find out in the season finale when Bill says three. I would have just assumed nine. Seriously, I had no idea. Whenever she went to her house and emerged, a new infant was attached to her body in some way. It’s no wonder the writers decided that not only will Margene be a child, bear children, think like a child, but now Bill also married her when she was sixteen! Brilliant! No, crazy, desperate and a stupid, stupid way to add false-drama to this thing! Why did they do this? As if Margene and all her infomercial oddities weren’t enough to annoy the clapboard off a trailer, now they add statutory rape to the wacky stew, because watching her pout as an adult in every episode just wasn’t enough. We really had no useful purpose for Margene if you can’t tell.
Barb: The Good Wife
Good, kind, forgiving, Barb. Barb was always my favorite. Jeanne Tripplehorn’s take on her was excellent. She never compromised her position in the family, and seemed to be the one with the most growth. She was always reaching to understand herself and what she ultimately wanted out of her life, her faith, and her relationship. She wasn’t a large child like Margene, or a damaged soul like Nicki, the more we came to understand her. Barb was someone who initially didn’t believe in polygamy, but found herself led to it, and then embracing it, perhaps selfishly, perhaps out of necessity. Is this a flaw? Perhaps, but one she tried to carry with grace. Nonetheless, I always thought Barb was too good for Bill, and his weird choices for the other wives. It seemed totally incongruous that Bill would choose the ambitious, independent Barb, and also choose Nicki and Margene, two of the neediest people in his family, next to his children.
Bill: The Fearless Leader
Bill’s a jackass. He’s always been a jackass. He’s a selfish, unforgiving, unfaithful, egotistical blowhard who’s willing to sacrifice just about anyone and everything to preserve the principles he finds important. To two of his wives he’s more father figure than husband. To the one he seemed the most devoted, he sought to diminish her. And let’s not forget Anna, who he basically just had an affair with, wanted to conveniently marry, and then knocked up. Of the four it looks like she, out of them all, came to her senses and backed away from the damaged clan after observing all of their feeble, desperate lives.
Throughout the show it became more evident that Bill was striving to be more and more Roman-like. He wanted to be a prophet in his own way, wheeling and dealing, and trading in on his friends and family in order to create success. In the end, while he rails against Albie, that distorted, sad, little man, Bill has just as much ego, and seeks just as much power to push forth his personal agendas. In his own way, he is Albie but with a different flock of followers.
As much as the focus began to creep away from the three women at the heart of this show, and center more on Bill and his ever reaching wants, the finale brought the focus back to the mother, the purist, and the free spirit. By the end, they are all drifting in new directions, two away from the confines of the family, and one attempting to gain what she always desired, more significance, and a step out of Barb’s shadow, but with her blessing. The scene where Nicki tells her big revelation to Barb that she knows she’s difficult is hilarious in that, we along with Barb, are saying, “I know.” And Margene, the oddly constructed dreamer, is finding what she was searching for, growth outside the family, but still maintaining her roots within it. And finally Barb now fully embracing and accepting her new role as priesthood holder and leader, can rely more on Nicki to run the home, without usurping the other in Bill’s eyes.
George Clooney returns to ER Sarah returns happy with baby in tow. Ben and Heather have worked out their fidelity issues and have married, sans Rhonda. No sign of Teeny, but we’re probably to assume that she like her siblings are thriving and doing well, and probably not embracing the tenants of polygamy, because just why would they put themselves through that again? There’s no word of what’s happening with Margene’s nine children now that she looks like a pixie and is sailing on the Carnival Cruise Peace Corp, but mostly we’re supposed to infer that they’re being raised by Nicki as if Marge were a wayward teen mother who’s now off to college.
Because HBO likes sudden, unexpected, surreal deaths (See: Omar and The Wire), Bill doesn’t die the way anyone could have predicted, at the hands of Albie, or in a car crash while singing hymns, or from a massive heart attack while on the Senate floor, no he’s killed in a random, odd way. Some neighbor has just had enough, you see? Enough of people doing things for him, like sodding his front yard. That’s as good a reason as any. So Bill is shot, and he’s now looking over his friends and family, including his mother and father who’ve gone to the great beyond like a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic, and the neighborhood he changed with his three connecting houses, two cats in the yard, yadda, yadda, and a dream of polygamous acceptance.
All in all, I don’t regret sticking with it to see where it would go. The show brought us some colorful characters, and a lot of interesting moments. Do I think the show spun out of control a bit? Yes. In the same way Weeds has driven off the side of a cliff and into a landfill? No. Was there more than a little light shed on the Mormon faith, the abuses that reside in some of these compounds, and the intricacies of polygamy. For a layman, perhaps. But for someone living the life, I’m sure Big Love barely scratched the surface. Which is to say that in the end, for all that has occurred and was brought forth in five seasons, I think Big Love’s ending was a bit too tidy. Those lingering questions and sturm and dang that went along with living the polygamous lifestyle were neatly wrapped up. With Bill’s death it seemed that all the family’s troubles including, prosecution, excommunication, ousting from the community… just went away. Poof. In that regard, I guess you can say everything really was all Bill’s fault. Told you.
