The Most Awesome Thing I Saw Last Week (Feb 24-Mar 2)

One show that I watch every week and always just adore is Big Love on HBO.  It’s an off-beat premise to say the least…Bill Paxton plays Bill Henrickson, a polygamist in Utah, keeping up the appearance of a “normal” life, even though he has three wives, living in three houses side by side in a leafy green suburb not unlike Wisteria Lane.  Bill grew up on “the compound”, a place called Juniper Creek, which resembles all the Fundamentalist LDS compounds that have been splashed across every magazine and newspaper in the last couple years.  He was thrown off the compound as a young teen by his father (played by a grizzled old Bruce Dern) and eventually rebounded to marry wife Barb (Jeanne Triplehorn) and have three children, as well as a successful business.  In recent years (but before the pilot episode) the couple felt the “calling” to become polygamists, spurred on by Barb’s cancer, which she beat.  By the time the series started, they had two more “sister wives” and four more children in their brood.  Bill still has family ties to Juniper Creek and is always at odds with “The Prophet” Roman Grant, played to creepy perfection by Harry Dean Stanton.