'Big Love': Seven deadly sins

By a rough count, the Henrickson family was guilty of six of the seven deadly sins in last night's episode. Most normal families would probably be guilty of one or two in any given week, but coming from a family where the lead wife exclaims "Jehoshaphat" upon seeing a video strip poker machine, it's a surprising amount. But luckily for us, running down the list also serves as a great recap of the episode -- one of FOUR EPISODES LEFT, as the HBO ads keep reminding us.

Greed: Poor Nicki (Chole Sevigny). She racked up major credit card debt last season, and now, in the midst of her grief at her father's near-fatal shooting and her robbery of her family's money, she's picked up a new bad habit: bingo. By far the episode's best scene came when the Henricksons took a quick get-to-know-you tour of the local casino. Forget Bill's (Bill Paxton's) newfound obsession with video poker, Nicki's bingo love is taking the family nowhere good. Fast.

Gluttony: The Henricksons wolfing down ice cream at the casino's ice cream parlor. Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) certainly disliked the place, but that sure didn't stop her from getting a big cone of chocolate chip before she left.

Lust: Young Ben Henrickson (Douglas Smith), his hormones raging and his first relationship recently kaput, has some serious hots for his non-mom, Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin). Unfortunately, his supervisor at the family store once had similar feelings for Margene, long before she was a mom. He chose to share intimate details of their onetime relationship, which led us to ...

Wrath: Ben again. Shoving said supervisor into a display of space heaters in retaliation for having to hear about someone else's dirty memories about his non-mom.

Pride: Barb again. This time for her hurt feelings about being the last wife to be informed of Bill's impending purchase of the video gambling company. Her grievances with Bill and his background are starting to mount, and it appears to be only a matter of time before she pops.

Envy: OK, he's not a member of the immediate family, but you've got to admire creepy Alby's (Matt Ross') way of usurping his father's position. Who knows how long he's been coveting the Prophet's status among the polygamists at Juniper Creek, but as soon as the old man appears to be on his death bed, Alby conjures up a sign from God that apparently originates inside his dad's hat. Even if Roman (Harry Dean Stanton) recovers from his bullet in the gut, it appears Alby is now the true power in the family.

Which just leaves us with sloth. But no one can accuse the hard-working Henricksons of being lazy. They're all way too busy scheming with and against one another to lie around on the couch. That's left up to us, the viewer, who now has to sit on the couch for three more hours this season before we find out just where all this is going.

-- Patrick Day

(photo courtesy of HBO)

Comments

[Peter Noble]

Big Love is becoming nastier, troubled and wonderful. It packs more into a single episode than the Sopranos did in the last 2 seasons.
I am convinced that HBO will announce after the next 2 episodes that there will be no more Big Love. So much has been set up that there is easily one more season.
Still I thought that about Deadwood and Carnival.