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11th Apr '13 5:08:12 PM MarkLungo

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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BigLoveMain4_8827.jpg]]

''Big Love'' is an {{HBO}} drama about the Henricksons, a polygamous family with its roots in a fundamentalist Mormon splinter group hiding in plain sight in a Salt Lake City suburb. The series lasted from March, 2006 to March, 2011, with a total of 53 episodes in five seasons.

Bill, the father and husband, was born on the Juniper Creek Compound, run by a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism known as the United Effort Brotherhood (UEB). His grandfather was a prophet who died under mysterious circumstances. [[DarkMessiah Roman Grant]] took over the sect afterward and Bill was thrown out of the compound at age 14. He eventually succeeded in life despite being thrown out. He attended college where he met his first wife Barbara, and eventually started his own business, Home Plus, a small chain of home improvement stores similar to Home Depot.

Barbara 'Barb' Henrickson was a mainstream LDS who met Bill at the U. They have three children: Ben, Sarah and Teeny. Barb worked as a substitute teacher to bring in extra money. She developed uterine cancer and nearly died after the birth of Teeny. Bill brought in a girl from the compound to help care for Barb and the children. On her "deathbed" she agreed to take Nicki as a second wife for the family. Barb's family disowned her for this decision. She is the HaremNanny.

Nicolette 'Nicki' Grant is a daughter of Roman Grant, the Prophet of Juniper Creek, by his sixth wife. She was raised on the compound and dresses very modestly. Of the three wives, she is the most comfortable with polygamy and the challenges of such a large family. She is not very used to the outside world and has her own issues relating to the world. She became a shopaholic and was responsible for most of the ProductPlacement. She has two sons by Bill. Her sons needed a baby sitter when the boys were younger, resulting in the hiring of Margene.

Margene 'Margy' Heffman is the third wife and the youngest. She was a klutzy employee of Bill who was not born a Mormon. Hired as the babysitter, she was very attracted to Bill and joined the family. She's been the breeder of the family with three kids in the short time she's been married.

Additional major characters live at Juniper Creek, including Roman Grant, the Prophet and leader of the compound. Bill's brother Joey and Joey's wife, [[{{Yandere}} Wanda]], as well as Bill's mother and father, and his father's other wives also make appearances.
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!!This series provides examples of:

* ActingForTwo: the actress that played twins Kathy and Jodean.
* ArmchairPsychology: Used to avoid being taken by feelings of distrust and jealousy.
* ArmouredClosetGay: Alby
** He's also in a TransparentCloset to many characters. His mother says he is... [[UnusualEuphemism "tap tap tap"]].
* ArrangedMarriage: Roman and the Joy Book, a catalog of unmarried girls on the compound. 
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Bill seems to have done this at the end of the series finale]]
* AshesToCrashes: Nicki's sons eat Margie's mother's ashes! And then Margie leaves the urn on the back of the car...
** While the former is pretty funny, the latter is PlayedForDrama.
-->'''Margie:''' My Mom's gone. She just... blew away...
* AxCrazy: so very, very many people on the compound. Lois, Adaleen, Wanda, Roman and company...
* BackForTheFinale: Sarah.
* BalancedHarem
* BumblingDad: Bill is more than a little naively ignorant of his two oldest children and what his wives really feel about each other, as well as completely oblivious to Nicki's spending habits--despite the fact that her house is chock-full of beautiful things and she's often seen giving others pricey gifts--all on a relatively small allowance?
* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler:Dale commits suicide in season 4]].
* TheBusCameBack: Rhonda, Roman Grant's child bride, returns in season 5 after a long absence.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Apparently a dominant gene in the Juniper Creek population.
** Helps that Alby's primary wife is played now by the actress who played Cutthroat Bitch on Series/{{House}}
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Bill's brother Joey and his wife Wanda are not seen or even mentioned in Season 5 after being important characters for the first four seasons.
* ClosetKey: Don's second and third wives, to each other. 
* ClusterFBomb: ''The only show on HBO that averts this.''
* ConflictingLoyalty: Nikki
* ConvenientMiscarriage- [[spoiler:Sarah Henrickson, Bill and Barb's daughter]]. 
* ConvictionByContradiction: Roman
* CreepyChild: Rhonda Vollmer is a non-supernatural variant: behind her artless demeanor and expressionless blue eyes lurks the brain of a baby sociopath and master-manipulator-in-training (not to mention a disturbing fondness for rhinestones). She's got something of an excuse, having been raised in an abusive cult and married off at the age of fourteen to a man in his seventies, but it doesn't do much to make her less terrifying. (Amusingly, she's played by Daveigh Chase, who portrayed the ultimate CreepyChild in the American version of TheRing.)
* CureYourGays: Sarah meets an "ex-gay" guy and his wife when looking for potential adoptive parents. She's disturbed by the whole situation.
* TheDanza: Bill Paxton as Bill Henrickson
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler: Kathy.]]
* DepravedBisexual: Alby,implied to be in the closet from the first season, though in a handful of scenes seems to have no problem lusting after his co-conspirator wife. His despicable actions and general misogyny however, appear to have nothing to do with his sexuality.
* DevilInPlainSight: Nikki and her out-of-control narcissism.
* DiabolusExMachina: After all his troubles with the Utah legislature, the LDS Church, and various compound loonies, Bill is taken out by a minor character we've hardly ever seen him interact with. Justified in that the dissolution of Carl and Pam's marriage was a subplot of Season 5 and Carl blamed Bill and Margene.
* DoubleStandard
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: After a season of Bill fighting political opponents and taking down the compound, he's suddenly and unexpectedly murdered by an unhinged neighbor he had no real animosity with.]]
* DragonAscendant: Alby becomes this after Roman's death becoming the BigBad of the final season.
* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex. Justified with most of the adult characters, since they are polygamists. Where this is murky is with the teenagers. Nikki, normally the most fundamentalist of the wives, does not seem exceptionally surprised or outraged when Sarah relates the ImAManICantHelpIt anecdote noted below to her.
* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Margie goes blonde after her (blonde) mother dies.
** Nikki displayed her rebellion against her family by cutting off her waist-length braid.
** It's suggested that Bill's mother did this long before the show's beginning, when her daughter died. She is the only woman on the compound with short hair.
* FourthDateMarriage: frequently happens in polygamy. Ana pretty much did/was this. Sarah does a version of this in which she suddenly gets engaged and claims to be madly in love with the guy she dumped a few months earlier---for not loving him. 
** More accurately, she broke up with him because [[spoiler:he got her pregnant.]] The love part's debatable.
* {{Gaydar}}: Rhonda picks up that Heather has a thing for Sarah. Heather appears to shut herself firmly in the closet after this but Rhonda alludes to it again in Season 5.
** Other characters seems to sense this about Alby as well.
* GoshdangItToHeck: Very much used, highly surprising for a HBO series, although justified considering the main characters are an offshoot of the conservative Mormons.
** Margene will occasionally drop a real curse word, but only when she's really steamed.
* HappilyMarried: Bill and Barb were apparently this before the other two came into the picture, and despite subsequent problems, it's consistently obvious that she's the one he loves most of all. He has moments of this with the Nikki and Margene as well.
* HaremSeries: Possibly the ''only'' example to occur in LiveActionTelevision.
* TheHecateSisters: The three wives - Margene is the maiden, Barb is the mother, and Nikki is the crone.
* HeelRealization: Nikki at nearly the end of season 5 realizes her actions are just as evil as those on the compound.
* HotDad: Bill, without a doubt. In the first season, we see either him in his tighty whities or his naked butt.
* HotMom: The three wives. Even Nikki in her conservative compound clothes.
* {{Housewife}}
* HumiliationConga: The entire fifth season.
* IdiotBall: Firmly grasped by Bill over the last two seasons. Everyone told him that his plan to enter politics in Season 4 would lead to disaster. And enormous strife and pressure was introduced into the marriage in Season 5 due to Bill's decision to divorce Barb and officially marry Nicki in order to adopt Cara Lynn--when Cara Lynn is a teenager who would be of age in a couple of years anyway.
* [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Kid]]: Kim Lee.
* ImAManICantHelpIt: At one point Sarah discovers a flirtatious message from an ex-girlfriend on her boyfriend Scott's phone. She jokingly says it sounds like they hooked up, which he confirms. When she gets upset, he uses this as an excuse (Sarah and Scott are not sexually active at this point). Here, the claim is treated as completely legitimate. Bear in mind, by the way, that they're both Mormons.
** First of all, he was not a Mormon, IIRC, he was a Baptist (heresy!). And it was NEVER considered OK by the show - Sarah was devastated by the incident, and Scott was made out to be a complete douche for it. Their entire relationship was never treated as healthy - it was treated as Sarah running away from home in a socially acceptable fashion just to get away from the walking traumatizer that was Bill Henrickson.
* LastEpisodeThemeReprise: Natalie Maines' cover of "God Only Knows" plays over the final FadeToBlack.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Three wives of Bill, eight kids so far, employees, friends and, above all, relatives on the compound.
* LongLostRelative: JJ to Wanda, Franky to Bill.
* LukeYouAreMyFather: Cara Lynn to Nicki.
* MacGuffin: the Woodruff letter.
* MamaBear: Lois Hendrickson. Hollis Green learns this the ''hard way.''
* MercyKill: Frank for Lois in the series finale.
* TheMole: Nicki at the law office.
* NativeAmericanCasino: Like most of Bill's bright ideas, this does not work out in the end.
* TheOtherDarrin - Teenie was replaced in season 4, came back for a few episodes, and [[LongBusTrip did not feature at all]] in Season 5 except in two or three brief mentions by other characters. 
* ParentalAbandonment: teenage boys are frequently thrown off the compound for developing sexual interest in the teenage girls intended for old men. Nicki had [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou a good reason for abandoning]] her daughter: in order to get out of her first marriage.
* PapaWolf: Bill. Alby learns this the hard way.
* ProductPlacement: The first season was full of them, as part of a shopaholic storyline with Nicki.
* PsychoticLover: Rhonda, the child bride of the cult leader. She trades shamelessly on her status as an abuse victim, right up to the point when she flips completely and flaunts her status as bride of the Prophet. She's willing to blackmail and manipulate, but she takes pains to appear as a sweet innocent to anyone she's not specifically attacking.
** Wanda has a poisoning fetish as well. .
** In Season 3, [[spoiler:Joey kills Roman in revenge for Kathy's death]]
* PutOnABus: Teeny, Bill and Barb's younger daughter, was PutOnABus every time the actress currently playing her grew too tall. Even in the last episode's coda -- set nearly a year after the episode's primary events, so she could legitimately have been shown as having grown into a teenager -- she merited only a vague acknowledgment that she was in the bathroom playing with makeup.
* RealSongThemeTune: The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows".
* RedHerring: Lois tells the story of her daughter's death, and it seems that it will be a plot point. Apart from being an explanation for Lois's ImportantHaircut (she is the only woman on the compound with short hair) it isn't.
* ReplacedTheThemeTune: From "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys to "Home" by Engineers. 
* RoadShow: "Come, Ye Saints."
* {{Subculture}}: Radical LDS Offshoots
* TakingTheKids: what Don's two other wives did to him. He's not legally married to them, which makes it worse for him.
* TeacherStudentRomance: Cara Lynn and her math teacher, Mutual Attraction subtype. Also something of a WhatHappenedToTheMouse ending to the story. Nicki ends the relationship with a very cruel verbal beatdown of Cara Lynn in which Nicki claims that the teacher had done it before and wasn't really interested in her, but the audience never sees whether that's true or not or if the supposed meeting between Nicki and the teacher ever happened.
* ThickerThanWater
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: said about [[spoiler: Kathy]].
* TheUnfavorite: Nikki, in spades. Her dialogue and backstory makes it's obvious that she grew up as this, being female on the male-dominated compound. Then, we learn Bill took her in not because he'd fallen in love with her, but both to secure a loan from her father, and because Barb's illness left her unable to have more children. A good deal of her behavior can be attributed to this.
** Margene has moments of this too, as she clearly often feels left out of Barb and Nikki's close relationship.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Pretty much everything related to the Juniper Creek compound on the show is based on real people and events. Juniper Creek is based on the real life FLDS community in Arizona called Short Creek (now known as Colorado City), and the raid on the show was based on the real life raid of Short Creek in the '50s. The UEB is the real life FLDS' "United Effort Plan", which was also taken over by the state. The Grants are the Jeffs, with Alby specifically supposed to be FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs who also took over his group when his father died. Even the satellite compounds in Kansas and Mexico exist in real life.
* VillainousIncest: JJ
* WellDoneSonGuy: Alby and Nikki both have this going on.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The grand house that Bill was building for the whole family to live in has been forgotten.
* WhiteShirtOfDeath: [[spoiler:Bill himself at the end of the show.]]
* WhoWillTakeTheKids: Huge issue if anything bad happens in a polygamous relationship. The second and third marriages are not legal. Without any agreement, Bill's rights, and the rights of the kids to be with their siblings, are very limited. 
* YourCheatingHeart: Nicki in season 3. Also Bill's flirtation with Ana that he carried on behind the other three's back. And a strange "inside" version, when Bill and Barb have an "affair" during Season 1(he's not supposed to sleep with her on nights designated for the other two). When Nicki finds out, she's very hurt and upset, as it confirms what she's clearly always suspected--that Bill doesn't love her as much he does Barn.
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18th Mar '13 8:30:27 PM Craver357

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7th Feb '13 8:00:21 PM lexicon

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Zero Context Example, one character can't be two roles and each one has to fill a role, not just be "darker and edgier."

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11th Jan '13 9:41:37 PM BondGirl

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