Reese and Nicole and Laura and Audrey and Elvis: Thread for BIG LITTLE LIES on HBO

I don't think they were intending on doing anything with Ed and Bonnie other than giving him a way to be passive aggressive towards Madeline and wind up Nathan at the same time.

Also for real Ed is like the Usain Bolt of passive aggression.

I am still watching s2 but I am pretty disappointed.

The behind the scenes story doesnt surprise me, the whole thing feels so off.

The writing is my main gripe though bc it feels like such a first draft story. Or very rushed. All these random outbursts in place of earned drama, everyone’s yelling & slapping & crying it resembles fkn Dynasty more than the show itself. The depth to the characters is gone & they’re just doggy paddling in a circle around the death of peter & it’s dumb as shit.

Big Little I Know What You Did Last Summer

ugh

Yeah. Even the remixed theme tune is a slow bummer

I love that song

The proper version is great - local Muswell Hill boy makes good! the S2 version loses the drums and only primes me for an hour of drear

agree the proper version is better.

maybe the writing wasn't as strong but I thought the drama this season has made sense. I have enjoyed how much more somber and emotionally dark this has been than the first season

it could be so much better tho

i mean, Laura Dern is amazing & i love seeing her character go nuclear & lose her shit, but in ~every~ scene? i dunno

lol I confess I have really enjoyed all of her scenes. to me she is the comic relief in the midst of all of the suppressed guilt and anger

Well, that wraps everything up, I guess.

that was .... a giant wet fart of an ending. As much as I enjoyed watching laura dern smash shit up and meryl streep lose: the courtroom shit was absurd, no custody hearing goes like that; I love poorna jagannathan but she's obviously the worse lawyer on earth; everybody hates nathan; the stuff with zoe kravitz' mom never had any dramatic tension; what happened with reese witherspoon's daughter deciding not to go to college (also why is that actress in every single thing I watch all of a sudden?); and at the end what, did zoe decide to confess? did they all? why did they all? WTF?

*IF* this comes back they'd better figure out how they want to present the story and stick to it.

Yeah, this deflated really badly. I didn't want a second season and I am actively against the idea of a third.

i liked some of this season (ok maybe only meryl) but the finale was pretty bad

yep. shit loads of stuff dropped; what exactly are we to think of the non-stop Bonnie drowning scenes? Was that just supposed to be metaphor? if it was it was dumb, and if it was meant to foreshadow anything it didn't work either.

if this show comes back it should star ONLY Laura Dern yelling at people.

david e. kelley gonna david e. kelley

The euthanasia plot really took care of itself huh. And that judge really allowed herself to be interrupted for some monologues

The vow renewal was odd. It didn't seem like the show was suggesting we view it cynically, since it was presented as lovely and uplifting, yet the audience knows it's something of a fraud because Madeline never came clean to Ed about the cover up.

Except for popping up in the background of a few scenes, the detective didn't seem to really be still investigating at all. I thought that Mary Louis lash out in defeat by dropping some sort of new information with the detective rather than just slink away.

honestly this show is just bad

I assumed that Madeline came clean to Ed offscreen. I mean you figure her confession to the police would probably get back to him.

The show wasn't mindblowing but my expectations were tempered from go and it was fine.

Y'all need to maybe see some legitimately bad tv or something, I think.

she didn't confess to the police?

Didn't she?

I wasn't clear whether she did confess or just went with Bonnie out of solidarity or something. (Like, does that mean Celeste also came clean? Even though she just fought a big battle to keep her kids?) I figured they would have shown Madeline talking to Ed about it, since it seemed like a big conversation to have considering their whole plot was about trust, and that Ed would not have been particularly receptive to "So, I know you gave me all those chances to come clean, but let me slip one last thing in here..."

bonnie didn't go with madeline to the police station?

i mean the other way around

like the text she sends "hey guys I'm confessing" happens at the time the ceremony is happening?

just seemed like a straight bit of dramatic irony "oh things are all happy and great with everyone (apart from bonnie)" oh no here comes this news to undercut it for all of them

didn't seem to me like things were happy and great for everyone, despite the resolution of some story lines. I thought the final scene of them going to the police station together to confess was the absolutely necessary ending, they needed to put all of the lies and related misery to rest

yeah these bitches needed to go to jail for killing that upstanding young man

hmmm

Won't read anything till I get through the rest, but I thought the first two episodes were fine--although I died a little when "Down by the River" was cut short after 30 seconds at the precise moment the volume should have been turned up.

Two episodes left. Streep is so creepy (Streepy?)--and definitely, at least in part, based on Kael.

I liked most all of the second season. The finale for me was probably the weakest episode--not terrible, but a little pat in spots, and Dern with the baseball bat seemed redundant (her rage had been made quite clear by that point). Kidman is such a great actress sometimes. Streep, Dern, Witherspoon, even Adam Scott I'd say, all excellent. Somebody posted something earlier about Arnold having control taken away from her...I don't doubt it, but I've liked/loved three of her movies, and this seemed to fit with her earlier work.

finale was trash, the entirety of the courtroom stuff was a joke

every time nicole kidman insisted on what a good mother she was i was like... wellllll...

Yeah! Obviously Streep was conniving and awful re: her son, but it's not like there wasn't cause for concern, from the pills to the slapping. (I haven't seen the show since it aired--did any character express more than a passing concern about all that? I mostly recall Witherspoon treating it like not that big of a deal.)

i thought i had no interest in this show (rich white people, parenting, women who snipe at each other) but i actually really thought it was good! i thought S2 gave Bonnie a lot more depth and her moments of intrusive memories were very realistic. I also identified with her aimlessly walking through the woods looking dour.

and lil Ziggy <3 i figured whoever wrote the screenplay (and maybe the original author) had read Far From the Tree, where there is a long and difficult-to-read chapter about children of rape.

anyway, i enjoyed both seasons in spite of my original misgivings. the theme song grew on me too.

Great show

I find madeline very sympathetic, despite her flaws. Still in the middle of season 1.

I loved this series, both seasons, it wasn't perfect but in the end I wish I could find other tv shows that would mean as much to me

i can’t believe i watched THE UNDOING in full