'Big Love': Stumbling at the finish line

Let's call this the summer of HBO's head-scratching endings.  We started in June with Tony Soprano's sudden cut-to-black, then continued with the impenetrable conclusion of "John From Cincinnati," and now, just in time for Labor Day, we have the season finale of "Big Love," which was firing on all cylinders for most of its second season but came to a sputtering, half-hearted close.

The problem?  After a final episode filled with betrayals revealed, secrets unveiled, Bill's schemes against Alby thwarted and Roman jailed, the series somehow managed to steer itself back to something status quo.  Not exactly the sort of compelling stuff that leaves you breathless for more.

How, after episode and episode of Barb's increasing frustration with her place in the family did she come to Bill and reaffirm her stance alongside him?  This coming just moments after Bill made out with Ana (Branka Katic) in the family's pantry.  Barb was already upset with Bill over the revelation that Bill had dated Ana, and Ana's lustful reappearance would have been the perfect capper for Barb's ever-increasing list of grievances with polygamist living.  But no, instead the tryst went unnoted and Barb's increasing dissatisfaction seems to have been sated, at least until next season.  Our last shot of the show in 2007 was of the three sister wives, laughing and enjoying themselves as a family unit. Somehow that just didn't sit right.

All three wives developed as characters this year.  Margene began to learn how to assert herself, if only through the same methods a teenage daughter would assert herself.  Nicki revealed herself as a character to be pitied, admittedly suppressing her own desires and filling the void through gambling.  And then there was Barb, whose disapproving mother and sister have become a haunting specter over her home, and whose increasing inability to call the shots seemed to be the fatal bullet in her marriage. But despite Bill moving forward with Weber Gaming against her wishes, and Bill courting a possible fourth wife against her wishes, and Bill encouraging their son Ben to pursue a polygamist lifestyle against her wishes, she continued to stand by him without much complaint.  Will nothing make this woman pop?

In other developments, Bill's latest scheme to oust his arch-enemies Roman and Alby from the board of the UEB failed when Alby had his father arrested.  The inner-workings of the polygamist board members have been the least interesting aspect of "Big Love," and the events of the season-ender were no different.  The threatening phone conversations have been done to death.  Alby's intense stare has worn out its welcome, and Roman seems headed for an Uncle Junior-style slow fade-out.

After being shot in spectacular style by members of a rival polygamist family, Roman (Harry Dean Stanton) has spent the last few episodes in and out of a near-coma -- most of it induced by his son. But he finally came back to coherence in the season finale, only to be arrested.  In essence, Roman's place in the storyline didn't change one bit.  He started the episode absent and powerless, and it appears he'll be starting the third season in the same condition.  So why did we spend so much time with this feeble man who doesn't seem to be a threat to anyone anymore?

It seems as if the show's creators have grown just as bored with the constant power struggle between Bill and Roman, and seeking to change things up have brought Alby into power.  But Harry Dean Stanton is such an interesting actor, they can't rightly kick him off the show, so what do they do?  That seems like it will be one of the show's major challenges next year.

The other major challenge, and one that was made more difficult after the final episode, is how to make us believe that the Henricksons can continue to function as a family in a believable manner. How much more of this can Barb take?  For the show's sake, let's hope that it's not a lot.  Because in its second season, "Big Love" has discovered itself and successfully juggled the political and the domestic, the humorous and the melodramatic, and even, at times, the frightening.  When it's working as it should, it's dazzling to watch.  Let's hope the finale of the second season was just a minor stumble on the show's march to glory.

-- Patrick Day

(Photo courtesy HBO)