Big Love

Episode Overview: In the aftermath of Roman's shooting, Nicki is an emotional mess, Bill tries his best to capitalize with the video gaming business, and Alby has some sinister cards up his sleeve.


Remember the shock at the end of last week's Big Love when Roman Grant was shot three times?  Yeah, forget about that, because he's alive, and we learn this from Keith Olberman on MSNBC's Countdown.  It's kind of hilarious thinking he would agree to film a fake news story just for this show.  Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) is a wreck, watching the coverage and seeing her mother and even Rhonda defend Roman's good name.  Bill (Bill Paxton) informs her about the gaming business he wants to by, and she's so catatonic with grief she agrees.

At work, Bill gets a call from his mom, Lois.  Her ex-husband Frank cleaned her out, but Bill will have nothing to do with her after she exposed his business plans with his father.

While hitting golf balls with Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Bill lets her in on the business plan, promising she's the only one he's told it to.  Raise your hand if you see where this is going.  Barb tells Nicki, and, since she's grief-stricken, she drops the ball and lets it slip that she knows about the plan already.  This is one of the many problems with having multiple wives, and lying to them.

Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) is shopping at Home Plus and runs into Ben.  Then Ben's boss comes by, Greg, an old flame of Margene's.  She tries to cover and leave quickly, but on her way out Greg lets Ben know how great she was in bed back in the day.  Ben, angered about hearing one of his moms spoken about like this, pushes him and runs away.  Later, Ben tells his dad, but is forced to apologize.  Outside the store, Bill tries to sweet talk Margene into going along with the gaming business.  Because she's a naive little girl, she jumps through Bill's hoops and instantly changes her mind about it to go along with whatever he wants.

Bill calls an emergency meeting of the UEB to try to convince everyone to appoint an interim head.  Alby shows up to threaten them, but is kicked out because he's not a member.  Later Alby sees his mother flummoxed by money troubles, and sees his own opening.  He offers up himself, in subtle ways, as a conduit for Roman, a proxy prophet for Juniper Creek.  Suddenly Roman's not looking so bad.

Nickis heads to Juniper Creek with a fridge to form a bond with her mother.  Her mom is, of course, as awesome as Mary Kay Place, the actress who plays her, turning down every attempt Nicki makes to patch things up.  Nicki gets back in her car and repeatedly smashes into the fridge.  The second awesome mom on this show, Lois, weasels her way into granddaughter Sarah's life, playing the "woe is me" card about how Bill won't speak to her, carefully omitting her part in all of this.  They're at Sarah's much older boyfriend Scott's place, and when he returns from his jog, Lois stares at him in his loose running shorts like he's a 32-ounce porterhouse.  Because it's the incredibly talented Grace Zabriskie, this is more hilarious that disgusting.

Lois calls up Barb to spill the beans on Sarah's old beau.  She has the cojones to say, with a straight face, "Far be it from me to intrude into a family I have been written out of."  God she's good.  Then she punctuates it with a none-too-subtle implication of sexual impropriety.  Lois is playing her family like a fiddle, and they're listening to every note as Rome burns around them. 

At dinner, Bill and his wives discuss the gaming business, and Barb eventually gets it out of him that he already bought it.  She's upset, Margene foolishly questions whether her opinion even matters, while Nicki continues to defend him.  They take a field trip to one of the gambling establishments, and the music lets us know that the Henricksons will be dancing, making love and possibly getting down tonight.  It might be the single greatest thing this show has ever done.

They play a poker machine where, whenever they win, the woman on the screen removes an article of clothing.  Barb is disgusted, while Nicki playfully lets Margene know she resembles the picture.  Nicki gets into bingo.  If you've seen that episode of The Simpsons when Marge gets hooked on slots, you know where this is probably going.  Afterwards they go out for ice cream.

Ben sees Margene and Greg at Home Plus again and gets furious because he thinks they're flirting.  Ben gets huffy and angrily calls Margene a "spanker" because of what Greg told him.  Back at the compound, Bill learns that Lois ransacked Frank's place to discover his hidden finances, was arrested, then released.  She discovered plenty and plans to get a divorce against Bill's objections.  At a testimonial meeting, Alby and his mom put on a huge charade about getting divine guidance that he should take over his father's duties.  Nicki sneaks into Roman's office, finds a box of money, and takes it, possibly as some shady deal she arranged with Alby for...something.  At the Henrickson vote, Margen votes in favor of it, and it's settled, over Barb's dissenting vote.  Nicki ends the episode back at the bingo table.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of HBO)