Can you believe Big Little Lies Season 2 is actually over?
In a lot of ways, the finale wrapped things up in a neat little bow, but it wouldn't be
Big Little Lies if it didn't somehow manage to end in a cliffhanger, right?
“I don’t mean it in a negative way.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe I do.”
Here's what you may have missed during the finale and what the ending meant.
Spoilers ahead!
As teased in the penultimate episode of Season 2, we finally got to see the showdown between
Celeste and her mother-in-law, Mary Louise played by Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep,
respectively.
With both women battling for custody of Perry and Celeste's twin boys, the kid gloves were
officially off.
Seeing as she's an attorney herself, Celeste took the opportunity to personally question
Mary Louise.
"Did you ever lose your temper with your boys?"
"Well, this isn't simply about temper."
Of course, it was a risky move and a choice that made Celeste's legal representative squirm.
It begged the question: Would this grieving mom be able to face her late husband's mother
and keep her composure?
After all, Mary Louise wanted to remove the boys from Celeste's home and she fiercely
denied her son Perry's abusive behavior.
In the end, Celeste kept her cool while delivering some very hard truths.
In the courtroom, she even plays a video of Perry physically abusing her which was apparently
filmed by one of the boys.
Faced with video evidence, Mary Louise finally had to acknowledge that her son wasn't the
person she'd believed him to be.
"I simply had no idea."
Going into the season finale, you may have been expecting a particular scene one that
never quite materialized.
In her July 16th appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Shailene Woodley - who plays Jane divulged
what sounded like a major spoiler.
She promised something truly nuts would happen right at the start of the episode:
"It's a little bit of a cliffhanger, but all of the women go to visit Perry's grave and
his body's missing."
Uh, what?
Woodley claimed the showrunners gave her permission to share this little tidbit with the world…
and we were all left to wonder how this plot wrinkle would fit into the spine-tingling
finale.
The possibilities seemed endless…
Would the police exhume Perry's body?
Was he actually alive?
These were just some of the questions we were left to ponder.
Well… it turns out Woodley was totally trolling us.
There was no gravesite visit and there was no missing body.
Woodley totally threw us for a loop… and well, she almost got us.
Here's footage of how we reacted to this news:
Prior to the season finale, a fan theory started picking up steam.
A Reddit user theorized that Corey and Perry were actually brothers, writing:
"Having mentioned the 'deceased' brother [Raymond] many times (subtly) throughout the season,
and it's clearly playing a role in the season finale, it is very likely that this aspect
of Perry's life will be used as the final plot twist."
Raymond did end up playing a role in the finale, but thankfully for Jane not the way this Redditor
imagined.
But yes, we do find out what happened to Raymond.
In a flashback, we see a younger Mary Louise exiting her car shortly after an accident.
In the scene, Perry's younger brother sits motionless in his car seat.
We hear Mary Louise berate 5-year-old Perry:
"Look what you made me do!"
“Did you ever say to him, ‘Look what you made me do?’”
"No!"
We learn that Mary Louise lost her temper while driving and subsequently crashed.
According to Celeste, Mary Louise immediately pinned the blame on Perry and Celeste argues
that this constitutes emotional abuse.
In the very beginning of Season 1, we're introduced to Detective Adrienne Quinlan as she arrives
on the scene of Perry's death.
In the Season One finale, Quinlan is clearly spying on the Monterey Five through binoculars.
In Season 2, it quickly becomes apparent that she's still very much investigating Perry's
so-called "accident."
At the end of Episode 5, she even calls Corey in for questioning, who later tells Jane:
"She knows your history with this guy, she knows he raped you, she knows he's Ziggy's
dad, and she clearly doesn't think he slipped."
As he tells it, Quinlan also left Corey with an ominous message.
He reveals to Jane:
"She said with five witnesses the odds are in her favor.
One of you will finally crack.
The first one who does gets a break."
Because of her continued interest in Perry's death, you might have assumed Detective Quinlan
would end up bringing down the Monterey Five in the season finale.
But despite all the buildup, the detective was conspicuously absent from the final episode.
Seeing Mary Louise get her comeuppance in court was riveting.
When the judge ruled in Celeste's favor and we found out that the twins would be staying
with their mother, it truly felt like a victory.
And although it may have been hard to feel sorry for Mary Louise, it was still quite
apparent that she loved her grandchildren.
After the court's decision, Celeste encouraged her sons to give their grandmother a hug...
and our hearts collectively shattered.
As Celeste's therapist Dr. Reisman stated in the fourth episode of the season:
“I’ve seen the way these things play out.
Nobody wins.”
It's hard to know what will happen to Mary Louise.
At the end of the episode, we see her driving out of town.
It's possible she'll still try to be involved in the lives of her grandchildren albeit from
a distance.
Maybe Celeste will allow her to visit the boys from time to time.
But, after everything that went down, it's hard to see any good coming out of that.
Maybe she'll also keep trying to pursue a relationship with her other grandson, Ziggy.
But would Jane allow it?
It seems rather unlikely to us.
Ahead of Big Little Lies Season 2, show creator David E. Kelley told The Hollywood Reporter:
"There was so much more to tell with the characters, especially with Bonnie.
We only hinted about who Bonnie was.
We had not mined where she came from and what led to the big push at the end of year one."
The second season delved into Bonnie's past and what, or who, led her to push Perry.
In present-day scenes and flashbacks, we get to know Bonnie's parents an abusive mother
and a passive, willfully ignorant father.
After her mother suffers a debilitating stroke, Bonnie reads aloud a letter she wrote.
While doing so, she confesses to her mom what really happened at Trivia Night:
"I snapped, and… when I lunged at him, I was pushing you."
Bonnie does eventually find peace with her mother but only right before her mom passes
away.
As we just mentioned, Bonnie's letter in Episode 6 features the bombshell that she killed Perry
but that was, of course, something the audience already knew.
What we didn't know was how she really felt about her husband Nathan.
Their relationship was particularly tense throughout the second season.
Then again, Bonnie was keeping a pretty big secret, so we can understand why she was keeping
her distance.
But later on in the season, we come to learn that the situation was even more complicated
than that.
Bonnie reveals to her mother:
"I settled for a man that I don't…"
Bonnie doesn't finish that sentence.
But she tells Nathan the truth shortly after her mother passes away: She's not in love
with him, and she doesn't think she ever was.
Throughout much of Season 2, it seemed like the lie about Perry's death was eating Bonnie
up.
But the fact that she didn't really love Nathan was evidently eating her up, too.
Although we don't know what the future has in store for Bonnie, the truth may just set
her free after all.
The Season 2 finale gave us some real insights into the lives of the women at the heart of
Big Little Lies.
With Mary Louise out of the picture, Celeste can finally move on.
Did you notice that she deleted a video of Perry from her tablet?
We can't help but think there are better things in store for her in the future.
Things are looking up for Jane, too: She and Corey are taking their relationship to the
next level.
Although Renata doesn't seem to be getting a particularly happy ending, she does finally
get retribution against her cheating, selfish husband Gordon.
She takes a baseball bat to his toys... including a train set worth six figures… and she also
takes a swing at Gordon.
It's… a very Renata ending.
"Don't go there.
Don't go there, judgie judger!"
Madeline, on the other hand, was able to salvage her marriage.
She and Ed decided to renew their vows in a private ceremony on the beach.
Although Ed says they're not putting "a tidy ribbon" on their past, that's pretty much
how their storyline seems to wrap up.
In the final moments of the Big Little Lies finale, Bonnie sends a text message to her
literal partners in crime.
Unfortunately, we never get to see what she wrote.
All we know is she sent the message, and the rest of the Monterey Five meet her at the
police station.
Earlier on in the season, it's clear that the women are adamant about maintaining the
lie.
But now, it looks like they're all ready and willing to come clean about Perry's murder.
Earlier on in the episode, Madeline tells Celeste:
"I've been thinking a lot about something you said a while back about the lie.
And that it was that it had a shelf life.
I think you're right."
After Renata destroys her husband's room of toys, she tells him:
"No more lies."
She may have been talking exclusively about his lies.
Or she may have been talking about her own lies, too.
Although there's no way to know what happened after the ladies entered the police station,
at least we know they're presenting a united front.
Just as everything appears to be going well for the Monterey Five and the finale seems
to be heading into the credits, a song starts to play: It's Creedence Clearwater Revival's
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"
performed here by Willie Nelson and Paula Nelson.
And this is much more than a song about the weather.
The Big Little Lies soundtrack is full of Easter eggs.
From the theme song to the moody music Bonnie broods over, the show has integrated music
into the action in highly creative ways.
As music supervisor Simon Astall told Elle:
"The way we started it was we had different playlists for each character, with thoughts
of where they might be in their lives."
In the Season 2 finale, it sounds like "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" is foreshadowing
the ending of Big Little Lies.
Key lyrics include:
"Someone told me long ago / There's a calm before the storm / I know it's been comin'
for some time / When it's over, so they say, it'll rain a sunny day."
The song continues to play as we see all five women enter the police station.
Considering how the last episode of Season Two played out, fans were immediately jonesing
for a third season.
They must have been thrilled when Nicole Kidman revealed in an interview with News Corp Australia:
"I think we would love to do a season three because there is certainly ideas.
But we would not do it without all of the same people involved even the kids."
But don't get your hopes up too much.
At least not yet.
Casey Bloys, HBO's president, told TVLine:
"I love this group of people I would do anything with them.
But the reality is, they are some of the busiest actresses working in Hollywood."
But he's not completely ruling out a third season.
He'd be all for it if everyone's schedules happened to align.
Nevertheless, he added:
"I just think it's not realistic.
[...] Season 2 was a chance for everyone involved to end [the franchise] in a way that feels
satisfying."
Guess we'll just have to wait and see whether there will be new episodes of Big Little Lies.
If there isn't, we're not going to take the news very well.
"Mary Louise, Mary Louise… please!"
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