BIG LOVE

'''Big Love''' is an HBO television drama about a Utah Fundamentalist Mormon family that practices plural marriage, a type of polygamy that is no longer officially endorsed by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). ''Big Love'' stars Bill Paxton, Chloë Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ginnifer Goodwin and Harry Dean Stanton. It premiered in the United States on March 12, 2006 following the sixth season premiere of the popular HBO series ''The Sopranos''.
The second season began on Monday, June 11, 2007. HBO sets new date for Second Series The show has been renewed for a third season.^[1]
The series theme song is "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys; musical score for the series is composed by David Byrne. Score for the first season was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh.
The show was co-created by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer who also serve as executive producers. Olsen and Scheffer spent two and a half years researching the premise of the show, with the intent of creating a fair portrayal of polygamy in America without being judgmental.

Contents

Plot

Cast and characters

Family tree

The United Effort Brotherhood

Production and crew

Episodes

International broadcasting

DVD releases

References

See also

External links

Plot

The series revolves around polygamist Bill Henrickson, his three wives Barb (legal wife/first wife), Nicki (second wife) and Margene (third wife), and their combined family of seven children. Henrickson lives with his family in three neighboring houses in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.
Season 1 introduces the main characters and revolves around the family's struggles to live their polygamous lifestyle while keeping it a secret from the outside world.
While Bill goes about expanding his chain of home improvement stores ("Henrickson’s Home Plus"), he struggles to balance his three wives and his strained relationship with Nicki's father, Church prophet Roman Grant. From his compound on Juniper Creek, Roman seeks to gain a greater share of the profits from Bill's business ventures. Bill opposes this and manipulates his alcoholic brother Joey, a former NFL player, to gain a seat on the church's board of directors, in order to undercut Roman's considerable influence and to maintain a level of autonomy from his controlling grasp.
Barb balances managing the family’s personal finances while working as a substitute teacher. As the season progresses, it appears that Barb has mixed feelings about the concept of polygamy and agreed to it out of love for her husband. Barb also has to deal with sister-wife Nicki, who wants to undermine Barb's position as "head wife".
Second wife Nicki has other problems, among which is the fact that she owes nearly $60,000 in credit card charges, which now threatens her ability to provide for her and Bill's children. Due to the debt previously being kept secret, Nicki goes to her father for help making her payments. Bill is shocked and angered when he discovers the amount of Nicki's debt as well as her going to her father for help, but ultimately reconciles with Nicki.
Meanwhile Margene (the third wife) and Bill's various children (most notably his oldest children via his marriage to Barb) struggle to keep their family's secret from their friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
By the end of the season, Barb and Bill are exposed as polygamists when Barb is nominated for a "Mother of the Year" Award. Meanwhile Joey's mentally unstable wife Wanda poisons Alby Grant (Roman's closeted homosexual son and chief minion) when Alby discovers that Bill is using Joey as a pawn in his scheme to undermine Roman's power within the church.
Season 2 picks up two weeks after the end of season 1, as the Henrickson family deals with being exposed as polygamists, with Roman being revealed to be the one behind their public unmasking. The public exposure threatens to damage Bill's "Henrickson's Home Plus" business and causes him to expand his plan to steal power from Roman from within the church. This is hampered, though, when Roman discovers that Wanda had poisoned his son. He offers to force Alby to stay quiet about Wanda's attempted murder in exchange for Joey becoming Roman's pawn on the church's board of directors. Alby is furious that both his father and mother do not care that he was almost killed, let alone wish to further ally themselves with the family of his attackers. So Alby goes to the state police with the evidence of his poisoning in order to force an arrest. However, to everyone's surprise, Joey confesses to the attempt on Alby's life and is arrested instead of Wanda. Bill demands that Roman force Alby to recant his statements and claim that he poisoned himself in order to free Joey from jail and protect his sister-in-law, but Alby informs the authorities that Roman is seeking to commit obstruction of justice to silence him, which leads to a police raid upon Juniper Creek.
Other plotlines include Bill's flirtation with a waitress that could lead to another marriage, oldest daughter Sarah seeking help in dealing with her family's lifestyle through a support group for former Latter-day Saints, Barb's concern over her teenage son Ben's belief in polygamy, and Rhonda, Roman's 17-year-old next wife, running away from the compound and seeking Sarah's help.

Cast and characters

'Main Cast:'

Actor	Role
Bill Paxton	Bill Henrickson
Jeanne Tripplehorn	Barbara Henrickson
Chloë Sevigny	Nicki Grant
Ginnifer Goodwin	Margene Heffman
Amanda Seyfried	Sarah Henrickson
Douglas Smith	Ben Henrickson
Harry Dean Stanton	Roman Grant
Mary Kay Place	Adaleen Grant
Bruce Dern	Franklin Harlow
Grace Zabriskie	Lois Henrickson
Joel McKinnon Miller	Don Embry
Shawn Doyle	Joey Henrickson
Melora Walters	Wanda Henrickson
Brian Kerwin	Eddie Henrickson
Matt Ross	Alby Grant
Daveigh Chase	Rhonda Volmer
Jolean Wejbe	Teeny Henrickson
Keegan Holst	Wayne Henrickson
Tina Majorino	Heather Tuttle
Branka Katic	Ana

'Recurring:'

★ Garrett Grey - Ray Henrickson

★ Aidan and Andrew Gonzales - Joey Henrickson Jr.

★ Wendy Phillips - Peg Embry, Don's wife, Home Plus head bookkeeper

★ Kyle Gallner - Jason Embry, Don and Peg's son, Ben's best friend.

★ Annie Fitzgerald - Verna, Don's second wife Big Love Episode Guide Viagra Blue

★ Renee Albert - Julep "Jo-Jo", Don's third wife^[2]

★ Carlos Jacott - Carl Martin, neighbor, Pam's husband

★ Audrey Wasilewski - Pam Martin, neighbor, Carl's wife

★ Jodie Markell - Wendy Hunt, secretary for Bill

★ Sarah Jones - Brynn, Ben's girlfriend

★ Lawrence O'Donnell - Lee Hatcher, family attorney

★ Jim Beaver - Carter Reese, business acquaintance of Bill

★ Luke Askew - Hollis Green, patriarch of a rival polygamist group

★ Ellen Burstyn - Nancy, Barbara Henrickson's estranged mother

Family tree

The United Effort Brotherhood

The show's fictional fundamentalist group, the "United Effort Brotherhood", or UEB, is similar to and was inspired by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) whose financial and legal wing is called the "United Effort Plan". The FLDS is one of the most prolific and well-known polygamist groups which regard themselves as the legitimiate successors of the original LDS church. Creators Olsen and Scheffer included a drive through the twin FLDS towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, as part of their research for the show.^[3]

Production and crew

Although situated in Utah, the series is primarily filmed at the Santa Clarita Studios in Santa Clarita, California. The location used for filming "Henrickson’s Home Plus" scenes is The All American Home Center in Downey, California.
The head writers for the series are the co-creators: Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. The writing staff includes staff writers: Dustin Lance Black, Doug Jung, Eileen Myers, Jennifer Schuur, Doug Stockstill, Jeanette Collins & Mimi Friedman.
Directors of the series include many veteran directors from other programs on HBO and many with backgrounds with independent films include Rodrigo Garcia, Charles McDougall, Sarah Pia Anderson, Dan Attias, Burr Steers, Michael Spiller, Alan Taylor, Mary Harron, Steve Shill, Julian Farino, Michael Lehmann and Alan Poul (former executive producer of ''Six Feet Under'').
The show's producers are Ann Holm, Ron Binkowski, Bernadette Caulfield, Angela Courtin, Jeanette Collins & Mimi Friedman, and Shane Keller. David Knoller. Executive producers are Olsen and Scheffer as well as Gary Goetzman and actor/writer/director Tom Hanks.

Episodes

Main articles: List of Big Love episodes

Season	No. of episodes	First Airdate	Last Airdate
Season 1	12	March 12, 2006	June 4, 2006
Season 2	12	June 11, 2007	August 26, 2007

International broadcasting

Country	Alternate title/Translation	TV Network(s)	Series Premiere	Weekly Schedule
United States		HBO	12 March 2006	Sundays at 9:00pm (ET)
Canada		The Movie Network (East) Movie Central (West)	14 March 2006	Mondays at 10:00pm (ET) (The Movie Network)
Argentina		HBO
Australia		SBS TV	3 June 2007	Sundays at 8.30pm (cut), Fridays 10:00pm (uncut)
Belgium		Canvas (First run) and BeTV ''(Re-runs)''	September 2006
Brazil	Amor Imenso	HBO	1 October 2006
Chile		HBO
Czech Republic		HBO
Colombia		HBO
España		Canal+
Finland		Nelonen	19 February 2007	Mondays at 9.00pm
France		Canal+	9 September 2007
Guatemala		HBO	September 9 2007	Sundays at 9.00pm
Hungary	Hármastársak	HBO/HBO2	5 January 2007
Israel		YES+
Italy		Fox Life
Mexico		HBO
Netherlands		NET 5	28 May 2007	Mondays at 9.30pm
New Zealand		TV2
Norway		FEM	September 3 2007	Mondays at 9.30pm
Peru		HBO
Poland	Trzy na jednego (Three To One)	HBO, HBO2
Romania	Marea Iubire	HBO
Scandinavia		Canal+
South Africa		M-Net
Turkey		Foxlife
United Kingdom		Channel Five ''(First run)'' and Five Life ''(re-runs)''	June 2006	Mondays 22.00
Uruguay		HBO

DVD releases

DVD Name	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
Big Love Season 1	October 17 2006	April 27 2007	September 5 2007

References

1. Fleming, Zeitchik, HBO stays in 'Love', ''Variety'', July 24, 2007
2. Episodes Cast for "Big Love"
3. The real sources behind Big Love Brooke Adams

See also

★ Mormon fundamentalism

External links

★ Official site

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