Wife Watch '10
By Melissa McKimmey | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (13)
Hi all! I’d like to thank the academy, my producers, my family and most importantly, Dustin, for offering this gig to me. My credentials are thus: I watch a lot of TV, I read a lot, I write for fun, and I live in Utah.
“Big Love” season 4 is premiering this Sunday, January 10th. Polygamy, gambling, veiled homosexuality, perversion of religion, this show has it all. Since cable has such a long lag time between seasons and “Big Love” is pretty detailed, let’s review season 3 before the new season starts, shall we?
Bill starts seeing Ana, a waitress at a local diner. Margene pushes this relationship hard, because she wants a playmate and a bigger voting block with the other wives. Margene and Bill convince Barb and Nicki to let Bill propose to Ana, and they are married. For about a day. Ana didn’t read her monogamy-to-polygamy handbook and decides that being told what to do and having to give up her cash is a deal-breaker and divorces herself from the family. Amateur.
Roman Grant is on trial (and smug and creepy as ever). Nicki is sent by Adalene and Roman to work in the DA’s office and get info. Of course, Nicki lies to Bill about working, because she’s a Grant and that’s what they do. She also winds up with a little crush on her DA boss and gets ratted out by Margene to Bill. Bill’s brother Joey’s new wife Kathy (what a mouthful) is a key witness in the trail. Kathy takes the stand and tells the court that Roman married her off at 16, but her twin sister lies and says that she was 19. Roman’s off the hook and Nicki pushes him down the stairs but fails to kill him. He’s tough for such an old guy.
Oh yeah, Adalene buys off Rhonda with $30,000. She’s going to Hollywood to be famous! I recall Rhonda telling Bill she’d become his next wife, but I really, really hope I’m imaging it.
Roman has Kathy kidnapped and tries to marry her off hours before her wedding to Joey. She bolts and Roman and his henchmen chase her down. She breaks her neck when she is driven off the road because her braid is caught the truck door. RIP Kathy. (Also, I totally saw it coming.) Joey is devastated and confronts Roman, then Adalene about Kathy’s death.
Sarah gets pregnant, decides to give her baby up for adoption, then decides to keep it, then has a miscarriage on the family vacation. Sarah’s alternately awesome and stupid. She’s her father’s daughter, all right. Nicki comforts her during the miscarriage and the next day Sarah tells Bill and Barb. She decides not to go to college for a while. (Mistake! Leave the crazy while you can!) Then she and her boyfriend Scott, who bugs the hell out of me, decide to get married and tell her stunned parents.
There’s a whole boring plot point about some historical documents that Bill wants from his brother-in-law, Ted, that says the Mormon church lied about renouncing polygamy, but that other evil polygamist family, the Greenes, wants them too. So they kidnap Ted’s kid to get them. (You’d think a kidnapping would make it interesting, You’d be wrong.) Too bad these incredibly valuable documents were faked by Alby all along! Suckers. Also, Bill is an idiot. He thinks he’s so damn cunning, but my nephew could put together a plan better than this guy. And how does he have time to do all this plotting? What, the three wives, job, conflicts with multiple crazy people and mass of kids aren’t enough for you? Ass.
Somewhere along the line, Barb gets excommunicated from the Mormon church and she is really upset about it. I remember feeling bad for her at the time, but now it’s eh. Her sister talked to her bishop or someone about Barb and is pretty much the reason it happens. She tries to make up for it by taking Barb and their mom to the temple, but I still think she’s a cow.
Alby awesomely tries to blow up Adalene. He’s a tad inept, though, and gets himself and a maid instead. Everyone survives, which is good because Alby is a great character. Alby also wanted to kill Roman, but Joey winds up in Roman’s room with a pillow and only one man looks to have survived. (Hint: not Roman.)
And on top of all this, it turns out that Nicki was married before, to a creepy guy named J.J. And she has a daughter who is about 14! I know, right?! Her name is Cara Lynn and when Nicki finds out that Cara Lynn is going to be put in the joy book, she takes her home and introduces her to the family. Bill and the family are doing their own religious ceremony because Bill wants to be the leader of his own church. Of course he does. And that’s the jist of it.
This is one season, people! And I probably missed some plot points. More happens on this show in one episode than in an entire season on other shows.
So, what’s next? Will Alby go all they way with a guy? Is Roman dead? Is Bill really going to divorce Nicki? Is crazy Wanda still crazy? We’ll find out Sunday!
Melissa McKimmey is a mom, wife and grocery merchandiser who spends too much time on the internet and has a Chai tea addiction. She spends most of her time on the internet as TWoP Fan and can be emailed at here.
Follow @pajiba
← From Paris with Love Trailer | Michael Cera Career Assessment →
Comments
Posted by: Snath at January 8, 2010 11:12 AM
I love this show to pieces. I'm fascinated by the religion angle, even though I myself am mostly an atheist.
Though it'll mean the end of the weekend, I'm looking forward to Sunday night so very, very much.