Big Little Lies’ massive gamble pays off

When it debuted more than two years ago, it won huge plaudits and awards. Was the two-year wait for the follow-up worth it?

I was one of those people who thought a second season of Big Little Lies was completely unnecessary.

The then-miniseries was so contained, a perfect seven episodes that closed out exactly where Liane Moriarty’s book ended — and it seemed like a fitting conclusion to the tumultuous story of the women of Monterey.

The decision to continue the story felt, at the time, like a cynical move on HBO’s part to capitalise on great ratings and critical acclaim. It was also a massive gamble.

But now that the second season is here, I’m so glad. And that is in large part due to the foundation laid by the first instalment.

The characters of Big Little Lies — Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Madeline (Reese Witherspoon), Jane (Shailene Woodley), Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz) and Renata (Laura Dern) — are so vividly drawn that spending time in their incredibly textured world feels like an intoxicating experience you never want to end.

The Monterey Five are forever bound together

Even though it’s been more than two years since the first season ended, the story picks back up without missing a beat. In the universe of the show, some months have passed, and it’s the beginning of the next school year, but slotting back into the upper middle class Monterey feels so natural.

You remember all their names and the dynamics of those relationships — you’ll even remember those envy-inducing beachside houses.

The last time we saw them, the five women and their children were on the beach, sun shining on their faces, their relief palpable, but forever bound by the dark secret of Perry’s (Alexander Skarsgard) death. It’s a secret that threatens to sink them.

On that day, the water was lapping the shore, not gently, but not with the ferociousness every wave seems to crash onto the sand now.

The malevolence of that surf is constantly in the background, symbolic of the turmoil beneath this idyllic coastal community.

Of course, the veneer has been peeled back. What used to be under the surface is now out in the open, and what’s out in the open is primal and raw.

Madeline is selling real estate but also having to come to terms with her affair with that theatre director, while the fiercely alpha Renata will be challenged in a way that fractures her sense of identity. Jane has managed to find some stability and a new job.

Bonnie, who did the actual push down the stairs, has become withdrawn, unable to cope with what happened and what she did.

And Celeste is clearly suffering from PTSD, trying to reconcile the good memories of Perry with the violent and needing to protect his legacy for her sons. The complexity of those conflicting emotions is one of the ways Big Little Lies nails its strong character work.

None of which is easy anyway but all the harder when your mother-in-law Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) is hovering, full of suspicion and passive-aggression.

Mary Louise is the cat among the pigeons, the fox in the henhouse. She wants answers, and she is raging about her son’s death. But her energy is a wily one, seemingly benign, but then she lashes out with a razor-sharp barb, all the while never raising her voice or cocking a brow.

It’s an expertly calibrated performance from Streep, the grand dame of Hollywood thesps, one of the few actors who can walk into an established series already brimming with A-list stars and own every scene without ever seeming imposing.

Mary Louise wants answers about Perry’s death.

Mary Louise’s presence coincides with the arrival of Bonnie’s mother, called on to help by Bonnie’s husband Nathan, which opens up the possibility of delving into Bonnie’s backstory, which wasn’t in the first season but is in Moriarty’s book.

The two older women remind us how much Big Little Lies is about the cyclical, multigenerational nature of not just violence or trauma but everything we pass on to our kids, usually subconsciously.

The youngest generation, those second graders, are the truthtellers in their parents’ lives — absorbing the adults’ habits, anxieties, behaviours, rage and lies and reflecting back the truths their parents can’t face themselves.

Big Little Lies is a world you just want to swim in

Moriarty worked with series writer David E. Kelley on the story for season two, so it’ll be her vision for where those characters go, while Kelley wrote all the scripts, as he did for the first series.

Jean-Marc Vallee and his cinematographer Yves Belanger created the balance between the naturalistic and the dreamlike aesthetic for the first season, but neither could return.

British indie director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) and cinematographer Jim Frohna (Transparent) pick up the reins, maintaining that look and feel but dialling up the hallucinatory aspects with dream sequences, flashbacks or just two minutes of Jane dancing on the beach, headphones in and overlaid with Sufjan Stevens’ Mystery of Love. The effect is hypnotic.

It remains true Big Little Lies didn’t need a second season. If it had stayed a miniseries, its legacy would’ve been enshrined. Everyone involved could’ve gone home with their Emmys and plaudits and smugly patted themselves on their backs.

A second season was a creative risk. But so far (only three episodes were made available for review), that decision to continue the story is one well worth following. Being back with these characters, being back in this world, you just want to swim in it and stay as long as you can.

Big Little Lies season two airs on Fox Showcase on Mondays at 8.30pm. Episode one is streaming on Foxtel Now

Share your TV and movies obsessions | @wenleima