Big Love: Third Season

Big Love: Third Season  |  Created by Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer  |  Score: 7.5

In the complex and deeply satisfying third season of Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer’s Mormon drama, Bill (Bill Paxton), the patriarch of his vast clan of wives, children, siblings and hangers-on, attempts to open a Mormon-friendly casino, as a means of supporting his giant family without the fear of being “outed” as a polygamist. To the consternation of his first wife, Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), the concern of his second wife, Nicolette (Chloë Sevigny) and the exultation of his third wife, Margene (Ginnfer Goodwin), Bill also attempts to add a fourth wife to the mix, Ana (Branka Katic). Adding to the considerable drama, Bill and Barb’s eldest daughter, Sarah (Amanda Seyfried), may or may not be pregnant; and Nicolette gets a job with the Salt Lake DA’s office, doing everything in her power to undermine the state’s case against her evil father, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), while developing a huge crush on the DA himself (Charles Esten).

The genius of the show is in the portrayal of its main (male) protagonist. Bill, despite his innumerable responsibilities (seriously, most of us who are married barely survive a single spouse let alone three of them), never takes his foot off the gas. He’s constantly striving for more, bigger businesses, more wives, more children, more schemes — never once considering the result of his excess. He’s like George W. Bush, hearing voices, reading tea leaves, never doubting his actions, and never looking back at them with any degree of regret or perspective. In the process of improving things for himself and his vast family, he continually puts them in further and further peril, seemingly without seeing it.

For their part, the writers of the series are smart enough to recognize in their fallible hero, excess hubris is a gold mine of dramatic pathos. They don’t ask their viewers to see Bill as he sees himself — nor do his wives, for that matter. Instead, they send him out to perform the business of his narcissistic pursuits, and allow us the chance to judge the resulting debacles for ourselves.

The significant extra on this boxed set is a series of vignettes where the characters trace the paths of their stories so far. For a show as convoluted and dense as this, it’s a welcome way to refresh the key moments you might have forgotten.

Big Love: The Third Season at Amazon!

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Piers Marchant is a Philly-based writer and editor, and the EIC (and film critic) for two.one.five magazine (215mag.com). His reviews can be found on 215mag.com and his tumblr blog, Sweet Smell of Success.  You can also follow him on twitter @kafkaesque83.

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