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‘Big Love’: Snake pit

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After an embarrassing family confrontation in front of her disapproving mother and sister, it seemed certain that Barb would drop a bomb on Bill in the closing moments of last night’s episode. Finally, it appeared the harried first wife might try to leave Bill in an effort to save herself and her children from the inevitable alienation of the polygamist lifestyle. That’s how it seemed, anyway, as Barb took off her earrings in front of the mirror and glanced at the marital bed she shared every third night with Bill. But the producers had another surprise in mind: rattlesnakes. A bed full of slithering, hissing rattlesnakes.

Just like their marriage, the bed looked warm and inviting. But just beneath the surface lay a literal snake pit of seething vipers. Quite the symbolic image to conclude the penultimate episode of the season -- and not just in reference to the inherent difficulties of the polygamist lifestyle. In its second season, ‘Big Love’ has mastered its mix of domestic comedy and hard-edged melodrama, keeping everything unpredictable. Just when you think the show is going to go for the heartstrings, it goes for the throat.

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But who left those snakes in Bill and Barb’s bed? There are two prime suspects: Alby, the temporary leader of the polygamist group at Juniper Creek, and Hollis Greene, the creepier-than-thou polygamist leader on the run. Both are circling Bill and his family like a couple of hungry tigers waiting to pounce, and it looks like the confrontation will come sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, Barb struggled to achieve some kind of reconciliation with her estranged mother, played with surprising tenderness by Ellen Burstyn. For a while it seemed that Barb might try to send her son, Ben, to live with his grandmother on the weekends, where he would get an earful of anti-polygamist rhetoric. She did this after discovering that Ben had started dating a pair of over-eager polygamist twins with an eye on marriage before turning 18. The episode ended with Ben coming back to stay with his family, but that decision may be reversed next week, now that Bill appears to have become involved in a blood war with Alby and the Greenes.

The dark side of Bill’s life, the one he struggles hard to shield from the rest of the family, seems to have invaded their lives. Alby has started making more frequent appearances at his sister Nicki’s home, and we already know the Greenes have Bill’s address.

All seems set to have a climactic showdown next week. But this is ‘Big Love,’ and though it seems the criminals currently hold all the cards plot-wise, it may be the wives who deliver the biggest surprises before the season ends.

-- Patrick Day

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