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

Great performances
I feel like I knew these characters almost too well though, like I got bored caring about Madeleine's problems (sorry Reese <3 u), maybe because I watched the whole thing in a few nights.
Great direction, little touches throughout
Less funny than I anticipated though and didn't shake the 'that kind of novel*' vibe.
Felt a bit like a beautiful distillation of mumsnet in a way. Enjoyed it enough though. My OH has been giving me the side-eye for recommending it though :/

*I don't know what you call this kind of novel, focusing on relationships/family/parenting/working mother/class issues - usually with big reveal at the end and someone innocent suffering for the good of others - but I don't think they're my thing, I usually guess the big reveal and get irritated by it. (I guessed one early on here, in part due to the extreme unlikeliness of certain roles acting in the ways depicted - and the other I found too pat.)

amazing to watch a series with a bone fide GOOD ENDING.

great performances. I don't have any preconceptions of Reece W but she's brilliantly, comically, subtle here. what a clever actress she is. kidman was a revelation. its just really great to watch excellent female characters and female actresses be basically the whole thing and the whole point but I agree with kinder there^ - we've had rich white women's stories a lot and i think it needed to breathe out a bit. or a lot.

Fucking great show, just finished. damn. Thought it started off real corny (the interstitials with the parents in the police station were really grating at first - also whoa, Todd Bridges)- but it went way further and into heavier terrain than I was expecting. Everyone was great in it. And yeah the ending ruled. No second season please. It was great.

honestly, i feel that this show was amazingly thought out and structured, to the point where i think the early episodes purposefully cast all these people as the cardboard cutout stereotypes you're prepared to hate watch then slowly unfurls so much emotional and psychological depth.

Such a great observation, that is an excellent way of putting it. I watched it over 5 days, and as I watched the last couple episodes I thought about how much my perception of Reese's character especially had changed.

i think it's the only time i ever felt like a therapy session in a show or movie felt really authentic to me.

otm

GUYS!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/meryl-streep-star-big-little-lies-season-2-hbo-1064801

amazed this thread isn't all about the insane wig that nicole kidman wears in every scene.

So I just finished binge watching this and yeah it was pretty great. Not thrilled by the idea of a second season though as it was so satisfying as a whole, and because the director of S1 won't be helming it this time. But I guess the final shot of someone watching the women on the beach through binoculars was intended to set the scene for the second season (sorry for alliteration), even though they can't have known S2 was in the bag when they included that shot.

oh wait, that Vulture article explains that it was the policewoman watching them right at the end, because she suspects something's not quite right. I hadn't caught that.

I hope the second season isn't about them being re-trialled for what happened in the first. That way lies Broadchurch madness.

Also I don't know why but my head has confused elements of Big Little Lies and Logan Lucky. I guess they both have open-endings with strangely prescient detectives going "hmmmmmm..."

I loved this but is it too late to talk about how bad the high school internet sex plot was

i loved this too but i am starting to be tire of the thrilling, televised escapades of the extremely rich (cf McMafia)

oh man that show is really bad compared to BLL

personally i dug the luxury porn and felt like the characters had some resemblance to people i knew, in spirit if not in wealth

also i used to live near monterey so it's beautiful nostalgia (although i guess mostly filmed in southern california?)

i'm perpetually behind the times but i just watched all of this over the last few days. nicole kidman is just fantastic. i cried my guts out. the therapy scenes (especially the first session in episode 3) were so good that i said "this is some of the best television i have ever seen" out loud as i was watching it. i too am getting sick of extremely wealthy families and neighborhoods being the setting for so many creative works, and i'll spare everyone reading this my trite feelings on that because they've already been expressed upthread and it's a problem that many shows have, not just this one.

episode 3, though. that one just blew my mind. and somehow in the midst of all that wrenching turmoil rising to the surface, it was the "dreams" sequence in the van that tore me up more than anything. what a wonderful show.

wow people really love this show. i thought it was just all right! potentially i just really dislike the director

also, when laura dern is one of the leads and she's not the first person you think of in terms of standout performances (and she was so good! god, that part where she throws the phone in the pool and then raises her hand up to signal to her partner that she's ok...she can do no wrong), you know you are in the presence of a ridiculously good ensemble

the therapy scenes (especially the first session in episode 3) were so good that i said "this is some of the best television i have ever seen" out loud as i was watching it

otm this scene was absolutely extraordinary

i may be a total weirdo but if the entire show was just 7 hours straight of those therapy scenes i'd still be happy. i'm not sure if anyone's mentioned how good the therapist is but she goes toe-to-toe with kidman, which is saying a hell of a lot.

https://www.thecut.com/2017/03/real-life-therapists-love-the-big-little-lies-therapist.html

I think the fact that this wasn't all just about rich people problems helped alleviate a lot of the issues I might've otherwise had with the setting. It's mostly a very human story that could've been dropped into a different setting without losing a whole lot.

i'll stop serially posting, but it's interesting that those counseling scenes weren't in the book the show is based off of - http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/big-little-lies-robin-weigert-therapy.html

Oh, that's so strange. But, yes, Robin Weigart is truly great (as anyone who's seen Deadwood can attest).

yeah the actress that played the therapist was fantastic. just saw her in a sorta shitty movie last week in a very small role

i may be a total weirdo but if the entire show was just 7 hours straight of those therapy scenes i'd still be happy

did you ever watch In Treatment?

In Treatment was so fucking creepy and not in a good way.

my mom loved that show but i could never imagine watching it, i get enough out of my own therapy

yeah I only watched the first season and it was years ago...I had actually forgotten about the plot which I think you're referring to as creepy.
It's too bad though, as BLL shows, it's an interesting dramatic situation that so often rings totally false when I see it dramatized.

Dr Melfi obviously the prime example of how it should be done.

A friend I wouldn't expect to said he watched this, so I picked up a bootleg on the weekend. Of course the thing that caught my attention in the first episode was Babe Ruth. I'd never heard Babe Ruth in my life, but as the tiny image of the album cover flashed by on the daughter's cell phone, I did a double-take--"Is that actually what I think it is?" (I was familiar with the album cover)--and backed up. At which point I guessed correctly that that was also what I was hearing. Bizarre. A little far-fetched, maybe, but interesting.

Couple of episodes to go--fascinating, especially (what else) the music. I just read the second season will be directed by Andrea Arnold...excellent. And Meryl Streep will be added...not sure what to say there--could be good.

So, season 2...?

First ep was fine, pretty much in line with what came before. Streep bringin' some quality pass agg into the mix.

I enjoyed the first one a lot - cast were amazing - but I sort of file it with bloodline, stranger things, that recent one that was a bit like this and had a title almost as bad as big little lies: decent shows that really, intensely do not need a sequel. I sort of feel like if tv really is where it’s meant to be at we can be as sceptical of these things having second series as we would be of like phantom thread 2 or 2nd reformed

(sort of)

hard agree

killing eve kinda in this category for me too, can't believe how little i care about watching it after having loved S1

2nd reformed lol

Sequel title jokes are the lamest played-out shit and anyone who makes or enjoys them should be ashamed except when I do it: boogaloo’s gold

I don't mind the continuation of these types of shows if there's some intention informing the decision, either a long game arc planned out in advance or some specific idea of why there should be another season beyond 'because that's what's expected'. I think shows like this (ie those which are more focused on character/relationship development than on weaving some intricate, high-concept plot) can more easily get away with perpetuation sans some lofty notion of where things are heading. In this case, I'd personally be more concerned about their reach ultimately exceeding their grasp (see: the evolution of Big Love from small-scale character piece to showcase for bugfuck psycho cult shenanigans).

The show I was trying to think of was dead to me, which isn’t as bad a title as big little lies obv but still seems pretty determined to communicate “you can skip this”

They all work so well as self-contained stories and the follow-ups come so soon after that it doesn’t feel as if any thought has gone into whether they should continue it, never mind how they can. Getting back on topic the only interesting avenue for further exploration in BLL I can think of is Adam Scott being kind of a creep, felt like that might be going somewhere, but even there I think the suggestion was enough

I'm pretending the second season of Killing Eve doesn't exist, but I'm enjoying BLL season 2 so far. Streep vs. Witherspoon is fucking hilarious.

hard agree

killing eve kinda in this category for me too, can't believe how little i care about watching it after having loved S1

Re BLL on the other hand, bring it on. Unperson otm

I was dubious, mainly because the first season was based on a novel, and I wasn't sure how they'd extend this beyond the novel; of course HBO did exactly that with the Leftovers and it arguably improved upon itself season over season (at least in my opinion). But so far I think there's enough there to keep exploring. Not sure it would need to go beyond this one, but the aftermath of those events is worth looking at. Also Adam Scott's character shaping up to be one of the only non creeps on the show.

I was so goddamned mad at their little daughter!

Wow. Lotta explosions this week, and it's only episode 2.

Yeah, I have no problem with the way they're continuing the story, particularly since Kelley & co. clearly have no intention to softpedal the potential ramifications of what came before.

I have really liked it so far

Ugh this season is kind of Broadchurching and the dialogue isn’t just too on the nose, it’s *only* on the nose, even the nice therapist is behaving weirdly

Careful, now. 'Broadchuching' is quite a strong pejorative, to be used in only the most egregious instances of contempt for an audience.

I think they're doing a fine job of continuing the narrative. And this might be the role Streep was born to play (inasmuch as her performances rarely elicit much interest for me while this show has me all OMG SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU LADY every time she's onscreen and talking).

It’s Broadchurching in the sense that it’s boringly re-litigating the first season’s narrative, when I’d rather watch the same set of characters in some Wacky New Adventure. And the dialogue... everyone’s lost their mystery and talks too much.

Streep is great but her WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU-ness is bending the other characters out of wack. Hard to believe Kidman or Woodley would be so sanguine about herder so long.

ok, 'm supposed to believe that a schoolteacher is teaching Scott's Marmion to seven-year-olds.

Also, the writers in this have never attended a therapy session because that's not how therapists do their job. They mostly don't say anything.

I’ve had very chatty therapists. But the bluntness is very offTM.