Big Love Watch: + Us + Us + Us

Margene steps up to the salad plate. HBO photo: Lacey Terrell

Unfortunately, when the Emmys get around to handing out nominations, there's only so much HBO heat to go around. This has hurt The Wire before, and this year, it's likely again that the big nominations will go to The Sopranos and bypass Big Love, which is probably, actor for actor, the best acted show on TV.

Last night gave some strong work to both Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin, whose characters have been paired up as a kind of dynamic duo with Barb split off, first by her fight with Bill and now with her education. The writers of the show have done something amazing with Nicki, who could easily have been the villain--the Nellie Olsen in prairie garb--of this show. For all her craziness, she's turned out to be a strong, impassioned and articulate character, even, or especially, when advocating something as far removed from our experience as polygamy. Sevigny brought full conviction to her talk with Barb about the marriage based on love (i.e., how can you expect mere love, and not a holy principle, to carry you through hard times?); a speech that could haave made her seem like the heartless anti-love character instead showed a faith that we can take seriously, even if we don't agree with it.

I also liked Margene's moment at the compound, when she was able to take charge, recognize that Joey was not sick but drunk, and set things in order. We've had some hints that she did not have the most stable of upbringings, and I think we're meant to see that this is not the first time she's had to sober up a drunk dad sprawled out on the floor. She was suddenly in her element, and it was great to see Margene be the competent one for once.

Other highlights:

* I don't know how compelling I found the main storyline, with the defaced billboard, but I'm continually fascinated by how the Henricksens' marriage is both secret and not a secret; there are the people who know, and the people who don't and the people who know but whose sense of decorum tells them to pretend that they don't.

* Loved, loved the scene in which Lois is freaked out by Bill's recognizing from caller ID that she was calling from a laundromat--not just her hanging up the phone as if it were a live rattlesnake, but the irony of the worst liar in the world saying, "I've got too much to live for to get caught in some rinky-dink coverup."

* Whatever subtlety the show was using to telegraph Alby's closeted homosexuality got a lot less subtle, as he checked out the kiester on the officer at the police precinct.

* Finally, I've been glad that much of the focus has shifted away from Bill, the least interesting major character on the show. Still, the writers manage to give Bill Paxton a few lines every episode that show how well they get his character, as when he saw the defaced billboard on the way to work: "Pull over! Check your blind spot!" Even in the middle of a crisis, Bill is not one to forget proper safe-driving protocol.