Women in interesting situations
“Things aren’t what they seem.” It’s the go-to description for smalltown TV mysteries.
The plot for Twin Peaks: Things aren’t what they seem in the death of Laura Palmer. The plot for Riverdale: Things aren’t what they seem in the death of Jason Blossom. And Pretty Little Liars, initially at least: Things aren’t what they seem in the death of Alison DiLaurentis.
The latest unseemly series to slink across screens is Big Little Lies, debuting Sunday on HBO. With a premiere episode helpfully titled Somebody’s Dead, you know where it’s headed.
The key players are the privileged, infighting parents who send their kids to Otter Bay Elementary School, and we begin at a fundraiser that turns deadly. Well, really, we end there and the six subsequent episodes recount how we got to that point, with schoolyard bullying, anxious parenting, rape and domestic abuse along the way.
Based on the 2014 book of the same name by Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies boasts a cast that sounds more like a roster of Vanity Fair after-party guests.
Reese Witherspoon is troublemaking Madeline Martha Mackenzie, as well as an executive producer off-screen. Nicole Kidman plays Madeline’s best friend Celeste, and Alexander Skarsgard embodies Celeste’s husband, Perry. Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Adam Scott, James Tupper and Zoë Kravitz also star.
Montreal-born Jean-Marc Vallée (Wild, Dallas Buyers Club) directs, while David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, Picket Fences) is the writer.
“It was a huge opportunity, with five distinct female parts, where women are talking to each other how they really talk to each other, about issues that are really affecting their lives every day … and that’s so important, that female friendship. And those bonds are what, I mean, my girlfriends are my life,” Witherspoon said recently on Good Morning America.
“And as much as there’s the entertainment part of it, there’s also this camaraderie. You see what we do for each other as friends, and what we do for each other behind the scenes in terms of protecting each other, holding each other’s secrets.”
THE GOOD FIGHT
The anticipated spinoff of The Good Wife debuts Sunday with Christine Baranski reviving her Good Wife character Diane Lockhart.
In the premiere, which picks up one year after the events in The Good Wife’s finale, we see Diane retiring from Lockhart and Lee — only to have her savings wiped out by a financial scam. She then joins a new firm, which employs Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo, also of The Good Wife).
In the opening scene, which had to be rewritten at the last minute when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for the U.S. presidency, Diane looks horrified as he is sworn in as the 45th president.
“(Diane is) a liberal and a feminist and had the legs cut out from under her. It makes for richer storytelling,” Baranski told TV Insider this week, adding she shuffled her schedule around to revive the character.
“I always thought this was a concept worth preserving. I had a concrete job offer when CBS and (Good Wife producer) Robert King called and said, ‘We’d like to make this work.’ I told them I wanted to continue with the collaboration — and I turned down the other offer.”
In the U.S., the first episode of The Good Fight will air on CBS with subsequent episodes streaming on CBS All Access, which isn’t available here. But in Canada, W Network and Global will also air the premiere Sunday, with other episodes airing only on W.