Chapter fourteen: Big Little Lies: The Series

I am going to try and explain this as best as I can, as if you were sitting on a couch right in front of me and the first episode just started. Here we go:

Season one:

Madeline Martha Mckenzie

(Reese Witherspoon)

Madeline is the leader of the pack, the alpha of the group. She is dependable more than anything. If you are wronged, she will aggressively be your champion advocate until you are given rightful justice. The story begins when she is taking her daughter, Chole, to the first day of school in the first grade. She gets out of her car, because the car in front of her is driving irresponsibly, but it's a car full of teenage girls. One of those girls is her daughter from a previous marriage, Abigail. On the way back to her car Madeline rolls her ankle, and is given a lift by a new woman in town, Jane Chapman, who is dropping her son Ziggy off at Chole's same class.

Jane Chapman

(Shailene Woodley)

Jane is the new girl in Monterey, California. Having no mom friends, Madeline invites her to brunch at her favorite coffee shop with her friend Celeste. They are going to discuss Madeline's play that she hopes to put on in town but is having trouble getting the rights for due to legal and controversial reasons. Jane has moved to Monterey to start a new beginning and get away from a certain memory of rape.

Celeste Wright

(Nicole Kidman)

Celeste is a lawyer with two twin boys, Max and Josh, who are the same age as Chole and Ziggy. Celeste also has an abusive husband, Perry. He'll be physical with her, and she submits herself to it. It's sad really, because it's only Celeste whom Perry is physical with. She doesn't want to leave the marriage because of the children. Her character, I think, is the most important, most pivotal one in the show, because she has the most detailed storyline. In the second season, it will become even more apparent.

Bonnie Carlson

(Zoe Kravitz)

There is also Bonnie who is married to Madeline's ex-husband, Nathan, and is significantly younger than Madeline. They have a daughter, Skye, the same age as the other kids. Bonnie is that hippie, sort of seventies type, who believes in personal space, natural healing remedies, openness, and giving children a chance to experience things for themselves. Abigail and Bonnie get along very well because of this, and it doesn't sit well with Madeline. Her role is minor in the first season, but is vital by the end of it.

Renata Klein

(Laura Dern)

Renata is a fierce woman who, like Madeline, is

not afraid to voice her opinion. Renata works very hard for her first grade daughter, Amabella. I would say that the main difference between her and Madeline is that Madeline is more subtle about things, but Renata goes right for the throat. If you treat her or her daughter poorly, she won't forget it. Since Renata has the most connections in town out of all of the women because of her comfortable lifestyle, she has the money and the contempt to ruin your social status. This is eminent at pick up at the start of the school year when Amabella accuses Ziggy of biting her in front of a crowd of students and parents. She has the bite marks to prove it, and so Renata makes a point to exclude Ziggy from Amabella's birthday party and all future social gatherings. Life is not made easy for Jane either by this accusation, no matter how relentlessly Madeline supports her and goes after Renata on her behalf. The looming question for the first season becomes "Who bit Amabella?"

One day after school, Madeline is helping Jane with Ziggy's family tree project. Where she confides to Madeline that Ziggy is a product of rape by a fling gone horribly wrong. It's the first time she's ever told anyone, and afterwards, Celeste, Madeline, and Jane work to find the man. While this is going on, Celeste and Perry have gone to therapy, by Celeste's request, but Perry doesn't like it, so Celeste decides to go alone instead. After giving extensive details of her relationship with Perry, her therapist advises her that if she doesn't feel that leaving the marriage is necessary, she should at least get a separate apartment ready for herself and the boys. Later, one afternoon, Ziggy is pretending to be sick to stay home from school. It is here that he spills the beans to Jane and points to Max's picture and tells her that's who bit Amabella. Jane informs Celeste of this newfound knowledge while out to lunch with Madeline and Celeste to discuss the possible suspects who might be Ziggy's father.

On the way to an Elvis Presley and Audrey Hepburn-themed banquet for the school, and after Madeline's theater production, Perry confronts Celeste about her separate apartment, and Celeste changes the subject by telling Perry that it wasn't Ziggy who bit Amabella, it was Max. Perry says he will talk to him, but this doesn't satisfy Celeste because Max is behaving the same way Perry is. She gets out of the car, and they arrive at the banquet separately. Ahead of him, Celeste straightens things out with Renata, but Renata has a difficult time believing her. At the same time, Jane and Madeline head out to a balcony where she confides to Jane that she cheated on Ed, her husband, with the theater director of her show. Celeste nervously walks out to the same balcony to get away from Perry. Renata follows Celeste, and Bonnie follows Perry.

On the balcony, Perry begins to get aggressive with Celeste, and the girls pull him off of her. When Jane catches a glimpse of his face, she realizes that Perry was the man who raped her. Looking back, I'm still mad at myself that I couldn't put the pieces together. Ultimately, it's a flight of stairs, five women, and an argument that causes Perry's demise. No one knows who pushed him, so all five of them assume that he slipped. At the end of the season, Perry is dead, and Celeste is free and she no longer needs the apartment. Now, the only faulty wiring is that all of the women have to keep up a lie. It's a little lie that spirals into a big one. (Hence the title.) They all become bonded by it and form a group called The Monterey Five.

Season two:

In the second season, quite a few things happen:

• All negativity between Jane, Renata, Amabella, and Ziggy has been squashed.

• Abigail now wants to permanently live with Nathan and Bonnie and has decided that college is not for her, which Madeline disapproves of.

• Renata's husband loses nearly all their (predominantly her) money and life savings, plus he cheats on her with the nanny, all of which enrages her beyond description.

• Ed has found out about Madeline's affair, which has put a dent in their marriage.

• Celeste and Jane get closer because their sons are half brothers.

• Jane has her first intimate relationship since she was raped.

But perhaps the most danming, or rather interesting, thing to happen in the second season stems from Celeste's family.

Enter Mary Louise Wright. (Meryl Streep)

Mary Louise is actually Meryl's real name. Liane Moriarty, the creator of the story and main writer of the show, gave Meryl's character that name as a trick to get her to play the part because she wrote it specifically for her. This way, she couldn't say no to the role. Clever, right?

Mary Louise is Perry's mother, Celeste's mother-in-law, who comes to town after the death of her son, to help Celeste take care of the twins at the start of the new school year. Her role is the grieving, confused, mother. She's already lost her other son, Raymond, so she is just beside herself with Perry's passing. It doesn't make outings very easy either, as she isn't very socially appealing. She does what she can to help around the house, but it turns gradually into investigative snooping through medicine cabinets and such, as she becomes concerned with Celeste mental stability as a parent after the death of Perry, because Mary Louise has a hunch that Perry didn't die from a fall. The police share the same hunch. When Jane accuses her son of raping her, Mary Louise says that Jane is mistaken.

Then, there comes the papers to take Celeste to court for the custody of her boys. A message that destroys their relationship. The Monterey Five gear Celeste up for the case and are wholeheartedly in her corner, but Bonnie begins to unravel and isolate herself because she knows that Perry's death was no accident. She was the one who pushed him.

In court, Mary Louise has the top-notch lawyer that Renata wanted to get for Celeste but didn't have the money to afford. When Celeste takes the stand, the lawyer berates her with photos of men she has had flings with since her husband's death. Celeste is furious but she can't show her temper in court, and so before the verdict is announced, she insist that Mary Louise be questioned too, and that she be the one to question her. Her lawyer says that this is a risky move and that she should just settle with the option Mary Louise wanted: Weekdays with her, weekends with Celeste. Celeste won't settle. These are her children.

On the day of Mary Louise's trial, Celeste finds a video on an Ipad that her sons took of Perry being physical with her. As Celeste presses her for details on Raymond's death and her parenting after the matter. Through tears, Mary Louise says that he died in a car accident while she was driving at age five, and we find out that she blamed Perry for it by telling him, "Look what you made me do!" Her husband left her after the fact, and she was left to raise Perry alone. At Mary Louise's persistence that her son was not physically abusive, Celeste plays the video for the court. Mary Louise is ashamed of her son and what he became.

Before the verdict is announced, she gives a heartfelt apology up front to both Celeste and Jane. The judge states that because the children have suffered enough already, they do not need a change of guardianship and shall stay with their mother. When this is announced, Celeste tells the boys to go hug their grandma. A message that I have been told means These are still your grandchildren. We are still family.

The season ends when Bonnie sends out text messages to each of the girls that evening as Mary Lousie is making her way back to her home. They all show up at the police station as a unit to straighten out the lie so that it no longer is a big little lie(s). I suspect the ending is meant to symbolize an offering of closure for Mary Louise, and an effort to rid themselves of the guilt.

Together, these women make the storyline for the two season show Big Little Lies, which is an HBO original series television adaptation of a realistic fictional book by Liane Moriarty of the same title. So far, there has been one new season of seven episodes every two years dating back to 2017. So, I have hope that there will be a third season in 2021, if the pattern continues.

I have such a difficult time labeling Mary Louise as evil. I wrestle with this thought more than I need to, given that it's all fictional, but I can't, with a good conscience, call that lady evil, not because she's Meryl Streep, but because evil is such a harsh, provocative word. People refer to someone as evil when it's too difficult for them to remember that person, or when they cannot understand the actions of that person. I feel like Mary Louise's actions, while they were not good, they can be explained. She was grieving. Grief takes many forms on different people.

She had no contempt or ill-will towards Celeste, as she explained in court, and Perry was her last surviving son. Look, if you've made it this far, I just want to say that I know my opinion is unpopular among people who watch the show, because Mary Louise did raise Perry herself, and Perry turned out to be an abuser. So, she should have thought about her own parenting skills before taking Celeste to court for the custody of her kids. I think her actions were not, in the least bit, good. She could have and she should have conducted herself differently. But, her best interests were always with her family and I don't think she's evil because of that. Instead, I think Mary Louise is a multidimensional, dysfunctional character. I love the show - just love!

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.