‘Big Love’: Utah Gets Kinky

“I know she says she doesn’t want it. But she does! She really does!�

Man, what a kinky episode of Big Love. This week, Sandy, Utah, really gave Entourage’s Hollywood a run for its money, dishing up one graphic sequence for each sister-wife: a Bill-on-Barb make-out session (cut short by angry marital chatter), “naughty girl� oral sex between Bill and Margene, and “good girl� petticoat intercourse with Niki. (Let’s skip right over Bill’s mom’s attempt to barter her “back door� to his smirky dad — though it’s worth mentioning his memorable comeback: “If I want an old caboose, I’ll call Union Pacific.�)

Of course, there were the usual business shenanigans. Bill is idiotically working a triangulated scheme with Weber Gaming, playing the inbred, Tarantino-esque (and apparently quasi-transsexual: “my brother Selma?�) Greene clan against the equally inbred, but at least not outright homicidal, and therefore comparatively sympathetic, Roman-led compound. There’s a lot of talk about liens and houses of cards, the FBI gets involved, and in the final shocking sequence, Roman Grant is assassinated, apparently by two fundamentalist J.T. Leroys.

Which was all very exciting. But in between, we got dollops of Big Love’s central appeal: the highbrow titillation that is HBO at its core.

Bill may be trapped in every man’s dream — three naked ladies! — but he’s also living every man’s nightmare: relationship processing so endless it might paralyze a seventies lesbian cooperative. Even Margene gets in on the action, worrying about her role as house sex toy, until she relieves Bill with the words that turn him on most: “I hate talking about things too.�
Meanwhile, wet-eyed Ben offers Brynn a wedding ring, with a mix of selfishness and piety straight out of Bill’s playbook.

Most perverse view of cunnilingus since The Sopranos, season one: “You should be ashamed of yourself, for emasculating our husband like that.� —Emily Nussbaum