HBO's Big Love Season 3 - Episode 6
Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin
Feb 26, 2009
Last episode the family married Ana (Branka Katic) and by the end she wanted a divorce. She felt like she was ruining what she loved most about the family. This threw Bill (Bill Paxton) for a loop. He thought his family was headed in the right direction and it all seems to be crumbling around him. In this episode he decides to take the family on a road trip.
Margene Heffman (Ginnifer Goodwin)
Margene brought her mom’s ashes along on the trip so that she can give them to her mother’s uncle whose home is somewhat on the route of their trip. While at a motel she catches Bill with an empty pill bottle for Viagra. She says she will keep his secret. Later she interrupts Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) trying to get it on with Bill, who because he dropped all his Viagra down the drain earlier is trying to avoid sex. Bill sees Margene in her bathing suit and starts to get aroused. Margene goes over and passionately kisses Bill in front of Nicki and then he’s ready for action.
That same night after a swim, she and Ben (Douglas Smith) accidentally see each other naked. Margene tries not to make a big deal out of it until Ben writes her a note saying he is in love with her. She left it in one of the cars and Teeny (Jolean Weibe) found it. Margene asked her not to tell anyone and promptly went to Ben and demanded that he shut down his feelings for her.
On the side trip to take her mother’s ashes to her great uncle’s house Nicki tells her that she is upset about her barging in on the previous night. Margene lets it slip that Bill is taking Viagra. They arrive at their destination and talk to her great uncle and his wife. Margene realizes that they didn’t like her mother very much and decided not to leave the ashes there. Later she absentmindedly places the urn on the roof of the car and then drove off causing the urn to come crashing down on the pavement. She realizes then that her mother is really gone. When they get to the next motel Bill baptizes Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) on behalf of Margene’s mother.
Nicki Grant
While on the trip Mr. Henry calls Nicki for no real reason. She enjoys their conversation and tells Wanda (Melora Walters) about it over the phone the next morning. She also buys Bill a cardigan because Mr. Henry wears cardigans.
While at a motel Barb finds Nicki’s birth control pills, but immediately thinks that they belong to Sarah (Amanda Seyfried). Barb confronts Sarah and she of course denies that they are hers. Seeing how much pain this is causing Sarah and the rest of the family Nicki confesses that they are hers and that she has been taking them for four years. Bill is furious and demands that she look him in the eye and say that she will stop taking them. They are interrupted by a knock at the door and she never says that she will stop.
Sarah Henrickson
Sarah tells Ben that she plans on keeping the baby. He is skeptical about her and Heather’s (Tina Majorino) ability to care for the baby. The whole time they are on the trip Barb keeps trying to connect with Sarah, but Sarah is still upset about her mom accepting a fourth wife and she’s pregnant, tired, and nauseous so she doesn’t really want to talk. Bill tries to intervene and help the situation, but it doesn’t really improve. At the end of the episode, Nicki finds Sarah sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night crying. She asks her what’s wrong. “I’m losing my baby,” says Sarah. On the way back home Sarah calls her mom, who is in a different car and tells her what happened. They all pull over and Sarah hugs her crying parents.
Bill Henrickson
Bill is feeling lost the entire episode. Nothing for him is going right. No one seems to want to be on the trip, one of the kids spills juice on the time capsule that they planned to bury at the place where the angel Moroni lead Joseph Smith to the golden tablets that became the Book of Mormon in upstate New York, and while he’s in a campsite restroom trying to clean it off the family takes off a leaves him. Bill has to hitch a ride to make it to their final destination. Once there he decides despite everything that was going on they needed to bury their time capsule and see the last show at the annual Hill Cumorah pageant. After burying the capsule he sends the family ahead of him and he kneels down to pray a desperate prayer for his family.
Big Love Commentary
This episode started off kind of slow and boring, but did pick up the pace. Bill taking Viagra was interesting and what was even more intriguing was the fact that he didn’t need it for Margene. Is he going to continue to take it? Or even better is Nicki going to continue to take the birth control. She seems dead set against having any more children, which is contradictory to her really wanting and being the most enthused about living the principle. But maybe that’s all changing with her growing like affair with her boss. It was hilarious that she bought Bill a cardigan and wanted him to keep it on while they had sex.
It was heart breaking when Sarah lost her baby. Even though she probably didn’t need it she seemed to really want it and embrace the cards that she was dealt. Hopefully she will bounce back from this and her relationship with her mom will improve.
HBO’s Big Love airs Sunday nights at 9pm eastern.
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