the Dalaverse

I will do a birthday weekend wrap-up, but I just finished watching the last ever episode of "Big Love" and I have a lot of feelings about it. Total stream-of-consciousness reaction under the cut:

--I'd forgotten about Carl so I was halfway thinking it really was gonna end with Bill as the new prophet (he can say he's not all he wants, doesn't make it true), all his wives/children intact, and therefore, like, winning. So I loved that Bill died. But I dislike that he died a martyr, and I'm not entirely convinced that he was aware of all the fucked-up shit he did. I didn't like it, but otoh I'm not surprised because the writers seem to think Bill was always the hero. They are wrong. I don't normally say that about Word of God and all, but honestly? They thought they were writing a completely different show than what I (and virtually everybody else I know of) was watching.

--Thank god the baby was Sarah's and not Margene's. That would have been an unforgivable cliche. Yay Amanda Seyfried! And yay for Ginnifer Goodwin's actual haircut. Whatevs on Ben/Heather (Ben is still a chip off the ol' douchenozzle imo), but at least we got thrown one final bone of Heather/Sarah subtext (that and Rhonda's "You win, lesbo" from last week. God, I hope Daveigh Chase gets another regular gig soon. Who would've thought that the little girl from "The Ring" and "Lilo & Stitch" would grow up to be stunningly beautiful and totally awesome?)

--I so wanted to see Bill's two days in jail. Something along the lines of when his ass got left behind on the big Mormon road trip.

--The scene in Barb's cute new car was lovely. So glad they didn't drive off a cliff or something, which was what I'd have thought it was leading to if it had aired ten minutes later.

--WTF was that courtroom/Senate scene? Ridiculous. Ridiculous ending for a terrible, perpetually half-assed plotline.

--I wished Barb had gotten baptized to complete her feminist awakening; however, I loved her taking over the church. I didn't even mind that Bill gave her his blessing. And that she was the last thing he saw. Okay, fine, I cried a little bit when Bill bought the farm. I'm not made of stone. Nicki's talk with Bill in bed about being afraid of everybody leaving was also touching. Cara Lynn forgave her too quickly, though. You don't call your grieving daughter a whore and a terrible person (even if you are really talking about yourself, and even if that daughter is probably smart enough to realize that eventually) and expect to kiss and make up the next day. Another positive character moment: Margene's real growth as a person of faith and a self-actualized adult. It got sped up in the last season, maybe, but I was glad to see it nonetheless.

--I also cried when Lois and that mean old bastard Frank bit it. And giggled. "And then the cops came..." Bruce Dern and Grace Zabrinski are masterful actors.

--Speaking of which, where the HELL was Adaleen? They dropped the Grant storyline like a hot potato after dragging Adaleen and Alby through the mud for the season and a half.

--That brings me to one of my biggest problems. They went way too far in villainizing Alby this season. I get it - he's his father's successor and whatnot - but the thing is, Alby was always written as a very complex character. While he was deeply flawed, there were moments of genuine sympathy (thanks in large part to Matt Smith's performance). I never saw Alby as a pure Warren Jeffs analogue; prior to this season, he was not written that way. Alby was not as evil as Warren Jeffs. Old Roman was not as evil as Warren Jeffs. Warren Jeffs is a monster. Adding his very real slaughter of all the community's dogs and his sexual abuse of children to Alby's characterization was not only over the top, but ruined a great character. Ugh, it makes me feel sick to say that, but seriously? Warren Jeffs and the leaders of the FLDS are pretty much worse than anything you could write. If you didn't write it that way from the first episode, you can't lay claim to it later. This is similar to the problem with X3 in which there had always been intentional parallels with gay rights in the X-Men movie franchise, but suddenly one of our heroes is getting ex-mutated/de-gayed and we're supposed to accept it. You are muddling your philosophies and metaphors. STOP IT.

--So yeah, the neat resolution for Juniper Creek left me cold. They're all just gonna go to Bill's church now and everything's fine and dandy? All those abuses of power and state and money and church will just magically disappear? Especially after Barb's apparent succession. Bullshit. No one who was still indoctrinated into a fundamentalist group would let that fly. You can't spend five seasons building that up (basing it on an actual community no less) and screen-wipe it away in the last five minutes.

So yeah. There were glaring plotholes and botched stoylines, but also some great character moments and satisfying resolutions. It was a mixed bag of a series finale. I probably need some more time to process it. They cheated by ending on a Natalie Maines cover of "God Only Knows," evoking one of my favorite credits sequences of all time with my favorite Beach Boys song sung by one of my favorite vocalists. See? Cheating.

But I'd better try to purge my mind of it before bed. Last Sunday night, I watched both "Big Love" and "Sister Wives" and had a polygamy nightmare. Flora Jessop was showing me the baby graveyard - it's a real thing, she's mentioned it in her book and in multiple documentaries. A whole, sad little cemetery with a bunch of undocumented children's graves that she's trying to find information about. In the dream it was like there was a huge crypt so the ground was crumbling away, and you could see all the bodies underneath ::shudders:: We were taking pictures as evidence when somebody from the church saw us, threw us in an abandoned house, and blew it up with a grenade. We managed to escape and I was planning to go back for the camera when I woke up. It was very vivid and very disturbing, and it lingered.