| 'Big Love' is back | |
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By Scott D. Pierce Deseret Morning News | |
You're reading "one of the best morning papers in the country." It must be true. I heard it on an upcoming episode of HBO's "Big Love," which returns tonight at 10 on the pay-cable channel. Yes, the series about a family of Utah polygamists is back ... but with less local media frenzy, one would hope. During and after the 12-episode first season of "Big Love," the sky didn't fall. Tourists didn't stop coming to Utah. Mitt Romney still gets to run for president. The Jazz actually got better. Most of the 4 million (at most) people who saw each episode last season seem to have been able to determine that "Big Love" is fiction. Fact-based fiction, but fiction nonetheless. The second season picks up right where the first left off, in terms of both plot and quality. "Big Love" remains a compelling show about compelling characters. Tonight, the Henricksons are in turmoil about being "outed" as polygamists. First-wife Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) withdraws from everyone after she was disqualified from a Utah mother-of-the-year contest just before the ceremony began at the governor's mansion; Bill (Bill Paxton) is determined to find out who did the outing; second wife Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) and third wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) are struggling to hold the family together. Bill fears for the future of his business, and he's still got his cult-leader father-in-law, Roman (Harry Dean Stanton) to deal with. That and the fact that he helped cover up his brother's wife's attempt to murder his wife's brother. It gets a little complicated. As the season gets going, the family has to deal with a lot, including the 16-year-old runaway bride who decides she doesn't want to marry the elderly Roman; 16-year-old Ben's (Douglas Smith) guilt over his relationship with his girlfriend, which leads him toward joining Straight Edge; and 18-year-old Sarah's (Amanda Seyfried) interest in Scott (Aaron Paul), a 28-year-old ex-Mormon. Sarah's story leads (in the July 2 episode) to the comment about the Deseret Morning News. Scott works for KWSS ("a radio station owned by the church"), and Sarah's fast-food co-worker/friend, Heather (Tina Majorino) doesn't like him. "Well, does anyone from the church tell you what to say?" asks Heather, an active member of the LDS Church. "No," Scott says. "Or bleep things out?" "No." "Well, then, it hardly sounds like censorship to me," Heather says. "There's many different kinds of censorship," Scott replies. "Well, the church owns the Deseret News, and it's one of the best morning papers in the country," Heather retorts. While the character is speaking sincerely, it's obvious the show and its writers are being just a tad sarcastic. More than a tad, perhaps. Which is a tad ironic, given that yours truly has always written rather favorably about their little polygamy show. For Utah viewers, "Big Love" remains an odd mix of fact and fiction. The Henricksons live in real-life Sandy, but the teens go to fictional Cumorah High. There are references to Warren Jeffs, but not by that name. The show uses the real name of this paper, but why is it KWSS instead of KSL? (Maybe they intend for us to read it as K-WUSS.) And part of what makes some of this stuff funny is that it is indeed based on the sort of people we do run into here in Utah. Heather's impression of Scott is that, "He's not just progressive, he's like a ... a liberal, heathen Democrat. The fact that the church hired somebody who's so obviously against it shows just how tolerant we really are." Of course, you can hardly disagree with her assessment that "He has to be a huge loser to be that old and going out with somebody our age." It's funny. And dramatic. And it's HBO, so it's not for kids. E-mail: pierce@desnews.com | |
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deseretnews.com Originally published Monday, June 11, 2007 | |
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