Big Little Lies Leaves Us With No Answers But a Lot of Intrigue Ahead of the Finale

We have so many questions and most of them are "Can this show never end?"

By Lauren Piester Mar 27, 2017 2:00 AMTags
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Well, we were right to suspect Abigail of being up to something irritating. We just could not have possibly guessed what that something was.

Turns out, she's trying to sell her virginity online, with the proceeds going to Amnesty International.

Most things on this show were already f—ked up, but tonight got ridiculous in so many amazing and eventually (and strangely) positive ways. Abby's insanity was only part of that ridiculousness. 

Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz) was the first to find out about Abigail's (Kathryn Newton) quest to use her own body to bring awareness to sex trafficking, and she was obviously very calm about it, as is the Bonnie way. But then she told Nathan (James Tupper), and he didn't have quite the same reaction. He had the slightly more human reaction: yelling and attempting to take away the laptop with which his teenage daughter was trying to prostitute herself.

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The fight ended for the moment when Sky started screaming (we don't know much about Sky, but there's something off about that kid), but obviously that wasn't the end of it.

Nathan later tried to be calm about the whole thing, commending Abigail on her desire to help, and then it was time for that dinner with Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) and Ed (Adam Scott).

Madeline and Ed had spent the past couple days coming to terms with the lack of passion in their marriage, especially after hearing a (fake) story from Celeste about a night of passion gone horribly wrong (which we'll get to in a minute). Ed acknowledged that in their marriage, and in any marriage, there was a certain level of pretending, and Madeline got pretty mad because she has trouble admitting when anything is wrong in her life.

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Anyway, they arrived at dinner with high pitched "everything is fine" voices, ready to compliment whatever new wine or fully intact fish Bonnie handed to them with big smiles on their faces.

(We just need to make a note here of Madeline brightly asking "Is this Adele?" when the music was definitely Sade and not Adele, because it was such a Madeline moment.)

Everything was going fine until Nathan and Bonnie revealed that they did, in fact, know what Abigail's secret project was. Madeline thought it was a joke, and when she realized it wasn't, the table full of seafood finally overwhelmed her, and she started spewing vomit. First, onto the ground. Then, onto the table full of food. Then, right at Bonnie.

Now, we don't often laugh at puke scenes, but Reese Witherspoon puking up the green juice she'd been chugging all over Zoe Kravitz was, for some reason, hysterical.

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Madeline then confronted Abigail, and basically the whole thing boiled down to the teen thinking this was the way she could make her mark on the world and make a difference, just like her mom and Avenue Q. That doesn't make any sense really, but Abby viewing her mother as the perfect angel she claims to be does make sense. So, Madeline admitted to her daughter that she had an affair and cheated on Ed.

But then, when Abby asked if she still loved Ed, Madeline just walked away.

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Elsewhere tonight, we didn't hate Renata (Laura Dern), and it was very confusing!

Jane (Shailene Woodley) had learned that one of the mothers had started a petition to get Ziggy suspended, just because they all believed he was a bully, without any real proof. She assumed it was Renata, and confronted her by yelling at her and punching her in the eye.

Renata reacted in a very Renata fashion, of course, but later, Jane went to her house to apologize, and she took it pretty well. Jane pointed out that they were both in the same boat, with something going on with their kids that they couldn't explain or fix, and they were out of things to do.

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Renata seemed open to a truce, and later even seemed totally friendly with Jane. We're not ready to trust her yet, but at least we know she didn't make the petition. That honor goes to Harper (Kelen Coleman), one of the other moms who's been chiming in during the murder investigation. We've decided Harper sucks.

And clearly, Harper hasn't met Ziggy, because he seems to be just the sweetest kid. Iain Armitage is up there among Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard in terms of performances on this show. (Then again, if he is Perry's kid as we suspect, then is he also just good at seeming very sweet when he needs to? It's a terrible thought, but...) 

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Speaking of Kidman and Skarsgard, Celeste got a little bit closer to freedom from Perry this week, with help from the therapist. She actually went to go look at an apartment, even if it was an unrealistically incredible apartment with the ocean right outside. (Only a character on this show would have the option of escaping an abusive marriage by renting an oceanfront "just in case" apartment.)

Other than telling Celeste to put together a place to escape to, the therapist suggested telling someone else about Perry's abuse, and keeping a record of everything that happened, particularly as evidence in the eventual custody battle.

Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/courtesy of HBO

That didn't happen, yet. Instead, Perry tried to have sex when they were about to go to opening night of Avenue Q, but Celeste resisted so hard that he ended up with a urethra broken in two places. She told Madeline it was just some rough sex, which spurred her whole argument with Ed.

Perry's injury also meant that he and Celeste couldn't go to the opening night of Avenue Q, so he still hasn't met Jane. That interior decorator did not turn out to be Jane's rapist, so Perry's still very much our #1 suspect, and we still hate him to his very core regardless of whether that popular theory is correct.

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Anyway, that's what happened on Big Little Lies tonight. We still don't know who's dead or who killed them, but since next week is the finale, we must be almost there. Does Abigail's virginity have something to do with what's going on? Will Celeste get to move into her beautiful apartment? Does Madeline actually love Ed? Is Perry actually Jane's rapist or is that a total misdirect?

So many questions to be answered in so little time!

Power Rankings:

5. Madeline: While everyone else is gaining control, Madeline's losing it.  

4. Bonnie: Bonnie handled that Abigail situation with

3. Renata: For once, we didn't hate her, and in fact, we felt for her.  

2. Celeste: An eye for an eye (or a crotch kick for a hair pulling) isn't always the way to go, but this time it was.

1. Jane: She may have punched Renata in the eye, but she also apologized and instituted one of the most unexpected truces in Monterey history.

 

Big Little Lies airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.