Big Littles Lies: The Complete Second Season

The most remarkable thing about seasons one and two of "Big Little Lies" is how much they are each a product of their time, and how remarkably the world has altered on many levels between summer 2016 and summer 2018.

Like tectonic plates shifting deep in the foundation and causing chaos on the surface, fallout from the events of Season One and the introduction of a tsunami named Meryl Streep shake the Monterey Five (as they have come to be known) to the core in Season Two. California is no longer the blissful nirvana held together by the power and prestige of Silicon Valley and liberal leadership that was well matched in the White House. Now it is the crumbling paradise where housing is unaffordable, fires rage and risk destroying the landscape, and the occupier of the Oval Office rages and risks destroying California's leadership on the environment and the economy.

The Monterey Five (Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zo� Kravitz) are falling apart as well, after they collectively cover up the truth of how Perry (Kidman's late husband) died at the end of last season. It's three months later, school is starting up again, and Perry's mother, Mary Louise (Streep), has come to Monterey under the pretense of helping Celeste (Kidman) with the twin boys. As Mary Louise needles each of the women to try and get the real facts around Perry's death, "Big Little Lies" reveals many of the lies each character (including Mary Louise) tells themselves.

Celeste escapes her loneliness and guilt with liquor, Ambien and anonymous, rough sex. Witherspoon's Madeline must face her sense that she hasn't accomplished anything, but hides behind a fa�ade of a fix-every-problem mom. Renata (Dern) throws a phenomenal party for her daughter's birthday after her husband's illegal activities have financially wiped them out (the "I will not not be rich" memes dominated the internet for days). Woodley's Jane is dealing with the fallout of learning that Perry was her rapist and Ziggy's father, that Ziggy is half-brother to Max and Josh, and that Mary Louise is their grandmother. Bonnie (Kravitz), the person who actually pushed Perry, is struggling alone with her guilt, so she spends much of Season Two wrestling with nightmares and staring longingly at the ocean as if it could swallow her (and California) up.

Season Two of "Big Little Lies" is messier and a little forced, but it's also bolder and more forceful in its indictment of the class it chronicles. The camaraderie these five strong women built over the course of Season One pays off with several Clash of the Titans moments between Streep and her counterparts. Sometimes the fireworks are the point!

"Big Little Lies: The Complete Second Season"
Blu-ray
$24.99
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