It was so disturbing to watch Barb marry the love of her life off to the selfish Nicki. As Barb said the vows — promises which included that the spouses agree to stick it out with one another through sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for as long as they both shall live — it was with an excruciating look in her eyes.
Yet there she was, officiating the wedding with a pained look on her face alongside a polite smile, saying how strong the family is seeing that it was “ordained of God” … until her very freedom is put on the line in order to preserve that family.
It was an intriguing twist to have Barb be hauled away by police for questioning, after not only having been emotionally crushed by being pressured into becoming a legal divorcee, but soon after having witnessed Bill, Nicki and Margene secretly re-sealing themselves to one another. Without her. As she attended to Bill and Nicki’s wedding guests. After all Barb had sacrificed for the sake of the family, agreeing to get divorced, to officiate the wedding AND host a reception for the newly wedded couple, for the three of them to do the re-sealing behind closed doors was like a knife through Barb’s heart.
As police scrutinized footage from Margene’s pro-family, pro-polygamy, pro-Goji rally — specifically when Margene was talking about how Barb was instrumental in taking care of her and making sure that Margene didn’t run away when she was young and confused — combined with Heather’s confession to the bishop, this can only go two ways: Either Barb is going to be pressured by police into admitting Bill’s statutory rape of the 16-year-old Margene possibly in exchange for not being prosecuted for aiding and abetting, or she’s going to take the bullet for the family that’s now squeezing her out and, whether it was “ordained of God” or not, seems to be moving on without her.
Not only is Barb in potential legal jeopardy (and her marriage to the Henricksons seems tenuous at best), but it seems as though everyone in this jam-packed Big Love episode was facing some degree of danger. You’ve got Home Plus — the financial lifeblood of the Henrickson family — in a precarious financial position in the wake of the boycott by members of the Mormon Church and by Alby’s purchase of the main store’s property and the dramatic hiking of the rent. The Juniper Creek residents are in peril as Alby appears to have gone completely messianic (did you get a load of those creepy, Jesus-like Alby paintings?) as he’s attempting to cut off communication with the outside world. Frank’s life is at risk from the unstable, dementia-addled Lois. Then there’s Cara Lynn who’s putting her 37-year-old teacher at risk of jail by continuing their affair, noticed by Margene. (Random tangent: The fact that as Nicki was planning her big wedding, she was all aflutter because she thought Cara Lynn’s teacher had a crush on her and reveled in that imagined attraction just shows how, with Nicki, it’s all about her.)
Where is this all going, to an end of days as Big Love ends its days? This is my chief concern about this show as everything — literally every single storyline — is ratcheting up to insanely dramatic heights: Ben and Rhonda (like sleeping with Rhonda won’t come back to haunt him), Verlan and Alby’s affair and Bill threatening to out Alby, Pam and Carl’s marriage’s public disputes, the poisonous politics at the State House aimed squarely at Bill, the Mormon Church applying pressure to the Henricksons, Adaleen acting more strangely than usual toward Nicki and Don Embry suggesting that they cash out of Home Plus before it’s too late. Name me one character who’s not heading for a major crisis? You can’t.
The Henricksons’ marital woes, combined with Margene’s jailbait relationship with Bill and Barb’s wine-enhanced spiritual awakening, in the context of Bill’s nascent political career, provide more than enough material to keep the show compelling until the end. Please Big Love writers, don’t lard these episodes with too much extraneous storytelling that simply serves as a distraction. When everything is super-dramatic and life or death, nothing is.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Feb 28, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
