Big Love 5.3: Grim Christmas

A more grim than merry Christmas on Big Love 5.3, in which about the only really uplifting moment is when Bill and family serenade Senator Dwyer (Gregory Itzin), morose in his office with his wife in the hospital.

Everything else for the Henricksons was from bad to worse.   Bill's mother has real dementia setting in (she's enjoying Diane Renay singing "Blue Navy Blue" on television, about the sanest thing she does tonight).  Cara Lynn figures out (and Nikki confirms) that her father is dead.   In close to the worse development for the family, Alby's wife Lura takes her kids and comes to Bill for safe haven.  All of this on Christmas eve.

But the worst, in terms of its apparent impact on everyone, is Margene's admission that she was only 16 when she married Bill (legal age in Utah is 18).  This sets Barb to hit the bottle, Barb and Nikki at each other's throats, and you can imagine the rest.

I was wondering, though, just why this is such a big deal for Bill and family?  After all, they've already been living in defiance of Utah law, so what's the problem, other than a little more bad PR, I suppose, in Margene marrying into the family at 16?  Margene's mother gave her permission, and, according to what I see on Wikipedia, 16 is a legal age to marry in Utah, with parental consent ... so Bill and Margene's marriage wasn't even technically illegal.

Laws and morality always co-exist uncomfortably, and more so in Bill's family, work, and life.   But this season, the Henricksons are having an especially tough time of it.  The last scene in tonight's episode, with the Henricksons in a nativity scene, was close to heartbreaking, as the expressions on their faces betrayed what they were feeling.

There are some rays of hope, though.  Ben and Heather (Sarah's friend) seem to be on the start of something good.   And Cara Lynn and Don's son are even further along - though Caroline's male teacher, who clearly likes her,  may be another bad cloud rolling in...

Well, Christmas is over, for the Henricksons and the real world, and it will good television indeed to see how the new year works for out for those characters on our screen.

See also Big Love's Back and North to Alaska

See also Big Love Season 4 Start with Casino, Psycho, and Birds ... Big Love 4.2: Politician or Prophet?  ... Big Love 4.3: Super-Compressed, Super-Fine ...  Big Love 4.4:  Bill and Don
... The Potential for Brilliance in Big Love 4.5 ... Big Love 4.6: Barb Ascendant ... Nearly Gunfight at the OK Corral for Big Love 4.7 ... Big Love Breakout Season 4 Finale

See also: Big Love, Season 3 ... 1. a 4th ... 2. Two Issues Resolved, Two Not So Much ... 6. Exquisite, Perfectly Played ... Big Love Season 3 Finale: Bigger Love ...

And from Season 2: 2: Oh, Happy Day, and Not ... 3: Sons and Mothers ... 4. Help Me, Rhonda ... 5. The Waitress and More... 6. Just Lust ... 7. Margene's Mama ... 8. Polygamy and Misgivings ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 10. Polygamy as the Ultimate Cool/Bad ... 11. Family in Crisis ... Big Love Season 2 Concludes

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Big Love Back and North to Alaska

Big Love opened its 5th and final season tonight on HBO with "North to Alaska" - sung at first by Bill, at the end by Johnny Horton (one of my all-time favorites) - the show had Lobo's "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" in there, and Gregory Itzin (ex-Prez, 24) playing another one his choice vicious politicians.

Winter will be the theme, this season, and the show ends with a snowfall.  There's a little fall from grace for all three wives, too.  Barb buys a bottle of wine - not against traditional Christianity, as Barb points out to Nicki, but contrary to Mormon teaching, as Nicki points out to Barb.  Nicki has shorter hair than last year, and a still short temper, but I didn't blame her one bit when she verbally lashed out at a kid who wrote all over her son.  Margene's feeling the heat, too, as she loses her hard-won job, and curses out a guy on a news crew who sticks a microphone too close to her face.

All of this, of course, is due to Bill's going public with his polygamous family at the end of last season.  His family's suffering, he's suffering, his store is suffering.  The tension between him and Don continues, and it's likely to get only worse, given the romance starting between Don's son and Nicki's daughter.   (Romantic that I am, I'm glad to see it.)

But there's political hope at the end.  The Henrickson are having an open house.  No one comes by.   And then ... a few people do show up, appreciative of what Bill has done for them, by going public.


I expect a lot more than a few viewers will love this final season of one of the best shows ever on television.

My favorite line in tonight's episode:  Bill doesn't "give a flaming heck about the Boy Scouts." And here's a little North to Alaska for you ...





See also Big Love Season 4 Start with Casino, Psycho, and Birds ... Big Love 4.2: Politician or Prophet?  ... Big Love 4.3: Super-Compressed, Super-Fine ...  Big Love 4.4:  Bill and Don
... The Potential for Brilliance in Big Love 4.5 ... Big Love 4.6: Barb Ascendant ... Nearly Gunfight at the OK Corral for Big Love 4.7 ... Big Love Breakout Season 4 Finale

See also: Big Love, Season 3 ... 1. a 4th ... 2. Two Issues Resolved, Two Not So Much ... 6. Exquisite, Perfectly Played ... Big Love Season 3 Finale: Bigger Love ...

And from Season 2: 2: Oh, Happy Day, and Not ... 3: Sons and Mothers ... 4. Help Me, Rhonda ... 5. The Waitress and More... 6. Just Lust ... 7. Margene's Mama ... 8. Polygamy and Misgivings ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 10. Polygamy as the Ultimate Cool/Bad ... 11. Family in Crisis ... Big Love Season 2 Concludes

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

24 Forever!

24 ended its 8th and presumably final television season tonight, with a film in the making to follow.  The 2-hour finale was a masterpiece of work, a lesson in how to end a great television series.    While comparisons to finales of other series are like apples and oranges, there's no doubt that the 24 finale was the best series finale on the air this season.

Among the highlights -

• Jack and Chloe have never been better.  Chloe goes all out to help Jack, including shooting him.  When Jack thanks her at the end, that scene was one of the best in the entire series.
• Jack is irrepressible.   When a jackass CTU agent is about to shoot him - and Jack is already wounded with Chloe's shot (which fortunately went clean through) - Jack almost disables the agent with an attack.  Earlier, when Jason is lording over Jack on the stretcher, Jack bites Jason's ear off.  Nothing can stop Jack except death itself, and no one is better than Jack in evading its clutches.
• President Talyor, after watching Jack's message to Kim - recorded in case Jack doesn't make it - at last decides to do the right thing.   She won't sign the peace treaty, and will tell the world about the Russians.   Great acting by Cherry Jones (and great acting by Gregory Itzin as Nixonian President Logan).
• The last we see of Jack is on a big screen looking at us, at CTU, which Chloe orders shut down.  A fine symbolic segue from television to movie screen.

Jack must once again leave the country - with not only the Russians but the Americans looking for him (he wounded a whole bunch of American agents).  Taylor can't protect him, because she'll be resigning in an hour we won't see on television.

But we will see it and/or its aftermath in the movie, and Chloe protecting Jack's family as she promised, and who knows what else as the most exciting, adrenalin-producing show in television history moves to the bigger screens.  The show revolutionized television with its intensity and daring.  24 attracted  the ire of commentators like Keith Olbermann, who mistakenly saw the show as just a jingoistic justification of torture.   24 did have some of that, but it was much more, including many times in which torture didn't work, and Jack was opposed by articulate characters who stopped his most extreme impulses.  This included Renee Walker, last year, and whose murder this year ironically provoked the worst we've seen from Jack.

But 24 was mostly about an indomitable, invincible spirit, struggling full throttle against the forces of terror and depravity that still threaten our country from inside and out.   Born just before September 11, being uncannily in tune with the age that followed, which continues to this day, 24 was the perfect entertainment for people who like their television searing, real, and on the edge.  As Jack Bauer, indelibly played by Kiefer Sutherland, moves into the cinema, we can expect a rollercoaster in theaters, a revolution in storytelling, as gripping as what we've been seeing in our homes for the past decade.



10-min podcast review of 24 finale

See also Season 8 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hour 11 ... Hour 12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hours 15-16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22

And see also Season 7 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22  ... Hours 23-24 

And see also Season 6 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hours 8 and 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hour 11 ... Hour 12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22 ... Hours 23-24

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