Big Love 5.6: "I'll Be There"

A hot scene at the end of Big Love 5.6 tonight, as Rhonda seduces Ben, giving a sultry rendition of Gerry and the Pacemakers' "I'll Be There," as she struts her stuff in a strip club.  Rhonda had previously shown her musical acumen with a fine version of "Happiest Girl in the U.S.A" a few seasons ago.   Daveigh Chase does her own singing in this role, and she does a fine job, indeed.

Ben is kept honorable in these circumstances, with his girlfriend Heather breaking up with him just before he goes to see Rhonda.   And this isn't the only place love, ethics, and sex are at play tonight.

We learn that Cara Lynn has kissed her teacher before, and tonight they not only kiss (and perhaps/likely more), but he confesses he's falling in love with her, and Cara Lynn later seeks counsel about love from Margene.

Meanwhile, the religious tensions are boiling over, as the LDS releases a statement castigating what Bill is doing - calling his religion Mormon, and coupling it with polygamy.  In this instance, although my sympathies usually are with Bill, I think both groups have some right in the matter.  Bill is right to insist on calling his polygamous religion Morman, since the religion did start that way.  But the LDS position is understandable, given that the LDS has worked so hard to separate its mainstream Mormon religion from its polygamous past.

Throw into that dangerous brew the fact Albie is literally gunning for Bill, and Barb's mentor in her seeking to be a priesthood holder is a lesbian, and we have a concentration of volatile ingredients for the rest of this final season.



See also Big Love's Back and North to Alaska ... Big Love 5.3: Grim Christmas ... Big Love 5.5: Barb's Deal

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

Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love

So far on Big Love, Bill Henrickson has stirred up some mighty tensions, even fury, with his three wives, but he's still alive.   The man with three wives on Bones 6.12 is not so lucky.  But, then again, Bones is about bones, and usually with little or no flesh upon then, so the state of the polygamous husband should be no surprise.

The situation is indeed more extreme on Bones, because the sister wives were sisters - siblings - before they were married to the same man, and this makes the killer a logically deducible choice.  What one man would be the most aggrieved by another man marrying three sisters while all are alive?

The conflicts in polygamous marriages - at least, according to Bones and Big Love - often come from the husband favoring, or being perceived as favoring, one of his wives above the others.  This leads to Booth discoursing to Bones that a man with multiple loves always loves one the best.   How would he know that, Bones asks?  He just knows, Booth says, looking across the room at Cam and the guy she is realizing she loves, and then Booth quickly looks at Bones, but she doesn't quite see it.  Good news, especially following the meaningful gaze Booth gave Bones across the street last week, but then what's Booth doing picking out a ring for Hannah in those coming attractions for next week?

My prediction:  he'll never put that ring on Hannah's finger.   Maybe, if Bones and Hannah and Booth were polygamous, he might.   But Bones after all is not Big Love.   Which means there might be plenty of copulation - which Bones had plenty of good scholarly riffs on tonight - but ultimately only one woman for one man.

See also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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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 2 Episode 8: Polygamy and Misgivings

A powerhouse of an episode of Big Love on HBO tonight, that shook the series to its polygamous roots. And it did this with some of the hottest scenes so far, and a shocker course-changing ending.

It began with the seemingly innocuous: Bill falls asleep and misses his night with Nikki. She's of course unhappy, and Bill concludes from this that maybe one night a week off - from sex with his wives - would be a good thing for him and the family. The reason, presumably, is stress at business. But nothing is innocuous in this intensely loving tinder house of a family.

Nikki assumes the reason is her. Margene's ok with it, at first - reasonably pointing out that the wives have plenty of nights off, so why shouldn't Bill. Unlike Nikki, Margene is happy and secure in her sexual relationship with Bill.

But the most profound and revealing reaction is Barb's: she's furious about this request, because she's already seen her seven nights a week whittled down to fewer than three.

And Barb's misgivings about polygamy become even more clear when Ben announces that he wants to marry Brynn - so as not to let his lust and love be sinful - and answers his parents' concerns that he's too young to make such a decision by assuring them he can take another wife later, in addition to Brynn, if he feels so moved.

Barb is horrified, talks to Brynn and tells her about Ben's scenario. Brynn (played by the beautiful Sarah Jones) breaks up with Ben - who is furious at Barb for talking to Brynn-

But the deeper story here is Barb and her complex, conflicted feelings about polygamy. Whatever she may say and even feel about herself, she certainly does not want this for her son - that's crystal and painfully clear.

On the bright side, we see the hottest scenes so far with Bill and each of his wives...

But the business with Roman and the Greenes is reaching a boiling point, and I won't tell you the ending, in case you haven't seen it.

Suffice to say that Big Love has moved on to a new, more dangerous and violent level...

See also reviews of other episodes: Big Love Resumes ... 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 ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 11. Family in Crisis ... 12. Polygamy and Great Performances Confirmed