The Modern Romantic

Thats the question I'm asking myself after this season of HBO's polygamist drama Big Love. It seems so easy. Get a few followers/wives/children and anoint yourself Daddy/Godhead and depending on your aesthetics and budget move into a suburban development/creepy compound/abandoned warehouse. Sure you have to wear tacky business attire, but no job is perfect, right?

For better (and for worse) the show has abandoned much of its "typical family x3" premise in favor of a Lynchian "dueling polygamist clans" plot line. Paterfamilias Rex, Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) has spent the season pitting two Mormon Fundie groups against each other to his own advantage, while the ladies in his life move along cluelessly, assuming that Bill's lack of affection has more to do with them than the fact that he's off trying on a crusade to bring polygamy to the masses.

In one corner, he has his lovable child-bride taking father-in-law Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), who he sweet talked into thinking he's pals with. Roman, for all his flaws (like, you know, sleeping with 16 year olds) truly believes in the power of family. At the end of the day, Bill is still part of the Juniper Creek family and thus, part of Roman's flock. In fact, Roman seems to have begun to treat Bill as something of a successor to his empire, not knowing that Bill still sort of holds a grudge for well--everything Roman's ever done to him.

In the other corner you have Hollis Green and his band of cross-dressing, iron branding nutters with a penchant for sending gift baskets and ending phone calls by saying "Sincerely Yours, Hollis Green". I mean, how cute was that kid dressed in rags and a winter cap chasing the emaciated dog around the warehouse? Precious. Both want Weaver Gaming, which Bill wants for himself, so he's pitted the two against each other, which you know-- strikes me as a really dumb idea.

I have to give it to the Big Love writers. Last season, you really believed that Bill was trying to give his family a different life than the one he grew up with. You believed his whole "we're normal except for the Principle, which is God's will" schtick. This season, we've watched Bill sanctimoniously invoke his family's health, safety and well-being as reasons to glorify his own name. It's become stunningly clear that Bill doesn't give a rats ass about his family. He's never home, his business pursuits result in things like having the family boat torched by crazies and he seems more like the people he's trying to take down with each new episode.

At this point, Bill has ceased being a likable protagonist and I wonder where this is going. What will happen when Barb, Nikki and Margene find out the peril Bill has put the family in. They're so willfully ignorant, it probably won't hit home 'til it literally hits home, though even then, nobody seems to mention the fact their boat was singed to a crisp in the driveway. How long will these ladies stand by their man?

Labels: tv