Correction, Bill Hendrickson IS the worst fictional character I can think of off hand. It has come to the point where I watch the show despite him rather than because of him, which isn't saying a lot about the central character of a show. In comparing it to The Sopranos (just because both were HBO dramas that I enjoy), no matter how psychopathic Tony Soprano was, he remained somewhat sympathetic. Not so with Bill Hendrickson. I don't know if that is due to the writing or due to Bill Paxton's delivery.
I think it was done intentionally by the writers, kind of an F-U to the face of standard formulas for ensemble shows like this. The Sopranos kept the focus on Tony, I think they wanted the viewers of this show to focus on the other characters instead of some lead. Just another example of how HBO takes risk with the shows with enormous success.
God DAMN it, Bill Hendrickson! I want to kick in every single one of your teeth until you fucking admit that "God" isn't speaking to you.....your ego is speaking to you. FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU. [I actually punched my couch several times during this episode. My hand hurts--let me vent.] 1. Forcing sweet, loyal Don Emberly out of the polygamy closet? During a period of extreme stress in his life due to the fact that he cannot even see his children? Yeah, I'll bet the custody judge in that case will be jumping through hoops to let that happen now......NOT. But I'm sure "God" directed you towards strong-arming Don into that admission, didn't he? Right, whatever. Selfish prick. 2. Kicking Ben out of the house? Against all of your promises to yourself that you would make polygamy have a different face than that of Juniper Creek? After lamenting publically for years about the inner turmoils you've suffered because of being a Lost Boy? It isn't hypocritical at all to do that to your own son, nope. Not at all. Again, die in a fire you selfish prick. 3. This may just be me, but I am sick and tired of Bill whining about Nikki's duplicitous dealings and then directing her to continue that behavior when it's to his benefit to do so. Can't have your cake and eat it too, asshole. Either you endorse the behavior or you don't. Other thoughts: -I can't decide how I feel about the Margene/Ben thing. It turns me on, but then I feel yucky. Like when she was staring at Ben's package in Barb's kitchen--what!? Soooooooo......yeah. Either way, Margie just got herself fired. -Teeny is being a little twat. Go back to summer camp, girl-that-is-called-Teeny-but-isn't-actually-Teeny. Oh, and your hair sucks. -I'm wondering what Wanda did pre-Joey that has her so freaked out. Illegitimate baby? Previous marriage? More dead bodies? Whatever it is, I'm sure JJ the creeper won't hesitate to exploit that situation. -Quite honestly, Albie is breaking my heart. B & E is horrible and it skeeved me out while he was unlatching LoverBoy's gate from the outside....but his raw need for affection from someone he finds attractive is pathetically endearing. It makes me sad for everyone still in the closet. On the bright side, HallucinationRoman has some awesome lines. "You've masturbated yourself into sodomy!" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Me too, Roman...me too. -Meth-head Indian bitch needs to set the record straight. I'm guessing that kind of behavior is typical of meth addicts, but still. Lying bitch. But whatever, I endorse whatever means necessary for Hot Indian Dude and Barb to finally "release their frustrations" together. Oh, and Sarah? Shirt OFF, thankyouverymuch.
Last night's episode redeemed itself a bit in my eyes. The previous few had me wondering what the hell I liked about the show in the first place. I think Margie becomes an even bigger star now that she had her breakdown live on the air. She'll get a ton of sympathy purchases and probably will have single guys coming out of the woodwork to "help" her. As for Pinkcup's rant above I agree with much of it. Bill is out for Bill and that's that. His logic is just as flawed as Roman's was and I can see Bill becoming Roman-esq in his dealings with others. The way he cornered and used Don, the way he treated his son, the way he treats Nikki, etc all shows signs of him positioning himself as the ultimate authority figure. First for his family but soon the public (when he gets voted in), and then likely Juniper Creek as it only makes sense that Bill will become the prophet eventually. Releasing the parrots at the end was awesome.
I was almost certain Bill was about to out the entire family before asking Don to throw himself under the bus. I really don't see his end game here. Does he think he can win the election have the polygamy laws changed and then announce to the world that he has 3 wives? Isn't polygamy illegal? Won't it just be a HUGE national uproar once he admits he hoodwinked the state senate election? Having Don take the fall was probably the most selfish things Bills ever done. I really dont care for the Ben and Margene shit either. One, Ben has always came off as just a horny teenager with no real feelings for her besides the school girl crush. Two, Mergene always came off as emotionally damaged by her family and has no real emotional attachment to Ben outside of the random need for affection. Some how the babysitter fantasy really falls flat here, maybe because it's his dads wife, but I though the whole junk glaring scene was fucking wweeeiiird. Kicking Ben out was dumb and against Bill's usual straight forward and frank nature when dealing with family disputes. Once again JJ outdid himself by marrying Nikki's mom and successfully manipulating her against Nikki. Im glad Lois and Frank got some screen time and I think bringing the twin sister into a more prominent role will be good. Sarah, we need to see some tittay before you leave the show otherwise you'll have achieved absolutely nothing in your career.
Don is pretty much the best friend you could ever have. He forgave Bill for the whole health benefit thing and then took that monster bullet? Awesome, awesome guy. With a great flat top. Sarah, give the kid back, your husband is a nancy and the plot line is dumb. Roman making fun of Albie is great, thank god there was no love scenes. Margie and Ben the whole story is worthless, although I can kind of understand Bill being upset. Ben did write a love letter to his wife. I think I'm going to try the whole "heavenly father" bit on my wife. It's kind of like a jedi mind trick. "Heavenly Father wants you to make me filet" "Heavenly Father want's you to watch sports center with me" I'll let you know how it goes...................
Funny that Bill hated Roman for so long for kicking him off the compound, and now Bill has thrown his own son out. Bill's a fucking idiot. He's planning to run for office, so when he's elected, he'll out himself to everyone. I have no idea how he doesn't realize that it'll lead to his own impeachment, the casino using the scandal to disassociate with him, and a huge decline in HomePlus's business. In other words, even if he succeeds he will completely ruin himself. A big part of me hopes he does ruin his entire life--he's certainly earned it.
Like after you eat a person and develop a taste for human meat, Nikki seems to have developed a craving for subterfuge, first in the DA office and now in Bill's opponent's campaign. I guess she's just using her skills. I'm preying to Heavenly Father that this season eases up on the creepiness. They aren't even being clever with the creepiness like they did in previous seasons. Now it's just voyeuristic: hey audience, look at how weird all these people are! The writers do the series a disservice by distancing us from the characters. The premise is inherently weird enough -- everyone gets that people don't view love and family in the same way as the rest of the world does. The interesting thing was the way we were made to feel not all that dissimilar from the weirdos. Now we're wondering why we haven't just firebombed Utah. And also the use of that creepy, urgent background music! I think they've used it in every episode so far. It was cool in the first episode. But now it's like they think we're Pavlov's dog: play the music and the audience will feel like something important is happening. It's like a laugh-track for drama. Bill is a dick. In previous seasons it was subtle. Now he's just a megalomaniac. He's going to destroy every relationship he has over his thirst for power. Nikki will leave the moment someone else comes along -- she's attached to Bill by tradition and instinct only. Bill's going to be a dick to Margie and she's going to be a needy, broken shell of a person after (I'm assuming) being fired from her TV gig. If it goes in that direction, I'd bet that Bill says something like, "Well Margie, maybe it's for the best. I've got enough going on between the casino and campaign." And then Margie will swallow her instinct to punch him in the face, acquiesce, and cry in private. But Albi. Fuck, Albi's creepy. He was creepy when he was a resentful robot of a human being. Now that's he's feeling and showing his emotions, he's like the Hindenburg of creepy. I suspect it ends similarly for him as it did for the balloon. I'm going to give the show a couple more episodes to prove that there's a story worth watching here, but if they don't, I'm tapping out. I'd almost rather watch Damages.
Man the episode was packed with powerful moments. Im not going to lie that the show gets a little taxing when "the circus" arrives, ie they throw all of them in precarious situations with all having different sets of lies to keep up. Nikki's Sunday speech kind illustrates what Im talking about. Looks like you were right and then some. Barb fucking the Indian dude just seems inevitable now.
Well, well, well. Look at that. Hello, Adam Beach. Nice to see you with your shirt off. And your character is single. This season is looking up. EDIT: Found a much hotter picture of Mr. Beach.
If you were to ask me at the end of last season the two characters I would never feel sympathy for, it be Alby and Nikki, and I was proven wrong. Nikki coming to the major realization that her whole life has been twisted beyond belief and Alby finding happiness in his own twisted way both had me feeling for them. I think Alby will be gunning for Bill on all cylinders now. I can't believe they brought the Greens back! I always liked their strange presence in previous seasons. Though after Holice's wife's breakdown last season I don't really get how she's just back in the fold. How fucking creepy was Wanda's family and JayJay's consummation scene with Nikki's mom?
OK, I need to discuss this with someone who might not be as biased as I am against FLDS marriages. Help me out, Kubla Khan. Say you just married a woman, someone around your own age. So...you're old and there's no chance of procreation, which is the main goal of all FLDS marriages. You'd previously been married to her daughter and had produced a child from that union. The kid lives with you part time and has spent time idolizing the very famous husband of the woman you're about to marry (Roman, for the purposes of this discussion). The situation is fucked up, but true love happens in the strangest situations sometimes so you overlook the extreme fucked-upness of this situation and go ahead and marry this older woman. Oh wait, you really aren't in love but are only marrying this older woman as some sort of twisted power play to gain an advantage within the Juniper Creek community. Right--so it's a political marriage. Then it comes to your wedding night. She is clearly repulsed by you. You have to direct her to remove her clothes and lay down on the bed. She stiffly lays down and immediately stares at the ceiling, obviously NOT into getting busy. You would.......sing to her to "make it special", even though she clearly doesn't want to fuck you and doesn't give two shits about it being "special"? Even though the sex doesn't have to happen, seeing as the marriage cannot produce children and it is solely for political purposes? To me, that screams "Hello, I'm a rapist trying to assuage any guilt I subconsciously have about fucking a woman who doesn't want to fuck me!" Right? I may be in the minority here, but unless a woman is enthusiastically consenting I feel like you shouldn't fuck her. At all. That also goes for the old fat dude trying to convince Cara Lynn that their marriage was "meant to be." Yeah, nothing about seeing a crying teenager huddled on a bed turns me on. In fact, that scene almost made me throw up. Same with the group of women huddled in a room crying together, same with the girl kneeling on the ground and praying with her older-than-dirt husband while simultaneously shooting "please save me" eyes at Nikki, and same with Nikki's statement that "This motel is where my soul died." I got majorly creeped the fuck out and it made by stomach turn itself into knots....because, to me, all of those dudes are rapists. Every single one. EDIT: Speaking of rape, Wanda's father definitely molested his daughter. The source of her mental problems are VERY clear to me now. Bless her heart, she didn't come from a great gene pool but those psychological issues are a product of her early environment. I cannot describe to you the feeling I had when Nikki opened the motel door and Wanda was tightly sandwiched between her overly-fawning parents on a bench. And they were touching her. UGH I AM ABOUT TO DRY HEAVE.
Man if girls had to "enthusiastically" consent I'd never get laid. Of coarse there was a lot of things fucked up about the bedroom scene with full body PJs. As much as she might be repulsed by him and how he is just using it as a power play I think the other major issue is the fact that the church seems to have an over all stance on sex that is fucked up to begin with. I dont know much detail about their stance but it seems from the show they use it as only a way to procreate, which leads to a lot of fucked up behavior. You repress peoples sexual urges enough they'll end up hanging themselves in their secret gay love nest. The motel scenes were probably in the top 3 most powerful moments that shine a light on the twisted nature of the religion. Aside from that, part of me still wishes they didn't have to cram 900 story lines each episode. Anna pregnant with an out of wedlock baby? It's only a matter of time until Rhonda Vulmer shows back up to add to the mountain of shit they can pile on the show.
See, the full body PJ's didn't bother me. Those are Mormon undergarments....I'm not sure exactly what the religious purpose to those long johns were, but every Mormon I've ever known has worn them. They serve some sort of function--I'm guessing it's similar to why nuns wear habits. Cover your body, be modest, blah blah blah. But KK--you just answered my point. If the church has a "Sex is only for babies/increasing the love between sealed partners" stance, then JJ fucking Adaleen seems even more unholy than ever. JJ specified to Alby that the marriage wasn't for eternity, which means that he isn't expecting to see Adaleen in the afterlife. She's too old to procreate. So why fuck her at all? And what does it say about him (I say rapist) when he proceeds with sexual intercourse when it is clear his partner isn't into it at all? And don't tell me the girls you sleep with don't enthusiastically consent--if you truly meant that then you have some issues. I didn't mean "enthusiastic verbal consent"--I just meant that enthusiastic consent is any kind of clear indicator that the girl is giving a green light on the process. That could be grinding against you, grabbing your ass and pulling you into her, moaning, ripping her own clothes off, etc. You get my picture. Not silently staring up at the ceiling with a grimace on her face, or curled up in a ball crying.
It could have been a sort of dominance thing Jayjay wanted over Nikki. Im not really sure how mormons view sex, I don't know if they stop having it entirely after a women can't get pregnant, maybe they have some sort of ritual "consummation" for a marriage to be Holy. Guys can be fertile much much longer than women so it would seem that for the rational of procreation they could keep doing it longer if they were to marry younger and younger women, which seems to be how they run things. I was joking because how you used the word enthusiastic seemed funny to me. Im no Brad Pitt I don't think their is much for a girl to get excited about. But there have been two girls that Ive hooked up with that were so timid about it that it really hindered the sexin. They wanted to hook up but for what ever personal reason, I'd say probably because society puts a lot of pressure on girls to not be seen as slutty, they were apprehensive about it.
I'm pretty sure this show has jumped into the realm of ridiculous with this last show. A bomb, a severed limb, a sitcom style fake marriage, gun smuggling, plus the whole running for political office and not being outed as a polygymist yet. They need to just focus on one or two storylines. This season they have been all over the place. The episodes are scattered and things are spinning out of control. I hope they can get it back under control soon.
I agree and have stated my dislike of cramming 80 different things into each episode but honestly none of what occurs, individually, strains believability. It just seems unbelievable that they all happen simultaneously each show. I mean I've been in a ton of similar weird fucked up shit in my life but it has been spread over years and years, not the few weeks this show portrays this season. The only thing I didn't like was the machete scene, it was shot and edited like a fucking 1st year film student did it. Having the off screen Green's debate out loud what to do was campy and lame. Really, wouldn't they just execute Bill and family right then, it'd only take 5 seconds, and then take Holice to the hospital? Or just have Selma focus solely on helping Holice and completely ignoring Bill and letting him go? It's all good though, as long as it gives the Greens a reason to be in the show and pissed at Bill, Im happy. Over all a good episode. You really have to give it to Bill and his arrogance. He knows his parents and brother are broke people but refuses to believe he might be broken too?
I wholeheartedly agree. If they keep up like this, then this will no longer be can't miss viewing for me. As it was, I almost skipped it for the Olympics and after it was over, I wished that I would have. What I really miss is the character development that used to keep me coming back for more. They are forgoing that in favor of all of these more and more far fetched stories. The cast of characters is extensive, they keep adding more, and I am having difficulty caring about them enough to keep up. Hey look, a crooked politician, an evil bigamist, etc! They are spending minutes each episode on the sister wives (who are the main reason I watch this show) and just forwarding the plotline through quick scenes. The show closed last week with Barb being upset about Bill's infidelity again, I was anxious to see how it played out. Instead, it was wrapped up with a 30 second visit to Margene's office. In the past they would have actually developed that storyline. Ugggh, what happened to this show?
I agree with everyone as well. Sadly before last weeks episode I was getting ready to post how proud I was of the show, how they had villains we had never really saw before. They had story lines that had never truly been explored; then Lois cut Hollis Green's arm off with a machete and I almost turned off the show. There are no words for how disappointed I was with that single scene. It was going well, the shame of Frank witnessing his son willing to do what he could never do, the strange and freaky Selma, then the arm. It was almost like one of the writers was like "You know Jim I really like this episode at the Green's compound but I'm afraid it won't fit in hour segment" JIM- "Well we could have Lois cut off Hollis's arm and they could get away cleanly." Head Writer- " Perfect!" I'm not sure how this will affect me watching the rest of the season but there is a small chance that Big Love just jumped the shark.
Sweet Jesus did they really need to dick slap us with the lame and over the top tether ball scene? Are we just going to get one horribly thought out scene per episode or something? Also, since Amanda Seyfried thinks she's got leading role material, they are grooming fucking Tiny/Teeny(?) to take her place. Ugh that little girl is uber annoying. I liked the episode, save the fucking tether ball scene, I like how Barb is done hiding and is being openly cynical about the shit she is put through. I really really didn't want to see a Peggy Hill situation where her naivety causes a shit storm and Bill has to come in come in and fix everything.