Big Love’s Bill Henrickson has evolved into such a controversial person in his fictional world — loathed and despised in many corners of Utah — that it didn’t come as a surprise to see that he has continued to walk around with a big, fat target on his back.
From his off-his-rocker brother-in-law Alby’s perspective, it’s a literal target because Alby wants him dead. From where the folks at the Mormon Church sit, it’s a figurative one, though they want him, and his polygamist brand, to simply go away and they don’t care if they destroy his business or get his family thrown in jail in the meantime. From the view of his peers in the Utah State Senate, it’s a political target as they’d like to impeach him and block his legislative efforts. Aside from Alby wishing Bill to literally go to his grave, all this peril is largely of Bill’s own making.
It’s hard to feel badly for Bill potentially getting charged with, among other things, statutory rape for romancing and marrying Margene when she was only 16 (just like his deceased father-in-law). Sure, Margene didn’t tell him she was underage, but in hindsight, when we met her in season one, she was still so naive and childlike, that it now seems as though it would’ve been a good idea for Bill to check how old Margene was before he bedded and wedded her. Didn’t she used to work at Home Plus before she became the family’s babysitter? Didn’t she have to file paperwork for her employment application? How ‘s it possible that Bill’s never seen her ID in all of these years?
Even if, let’s say for argument’s sake that Margene lied on all those applications and was never asked to show and ID. It was incumbent upon Bill when he brought a third, much younger wife into the family to do a little due diligence. That’s on him. Polygamists marrying young girls (by coercion or by mutual consent) is something that was supposed to be left back on the compound, not playing out in Bill’s suburban version of the new polygamy. When Bill chose to thrust his family into the public spotlight — against Barb and former businesswoman Margene’s wishes — knowing that everything they do or say will be scrutinized under a microscope, he should’ve made damn sure that everything was in order, including all his family’s paperwork.
So this lightning rod, who always seems to be threatening others as much as he’s threatened, can’t be surprised to see his stores being picketed, his family’s background being scoured by authorities — as he knows that he and his wives are breaking the law with polygamy and could be jailed — and people coming after the Henricksons. He put his entire family in a position to lose everything so none of this should come as a shock, particularly not even the fact that his best friend Don, whom he got to fall on his sword last season during the campaign by saying he was a polygamist so no one would suspect Bill before he won his Senate seat, wants to sell his Home Plus shares to Alby in order to still have some money and raise his family in peace.
As Big Love comes careening to the end of its days, I find myself utterly lacking in any shred of sympathy for Bill, whose single-minded narcissism has blinded him to the real impact of his decisions. He fancies himself a modern day Joseph Smith, a pioneer who’s going to lead polygamy into the light and out from the dark corners of the compounds, and he’ll cling to that notion no matter what happens to Barb, Nicki, Margene and their kids. His tepid offer to resign his Senate seat if the Mormon Church hierarchy to back off on prosecuting them, doesn’t changes things.
Never mind that 15-year-old Cara Lynn is living out Nicki’s worst nightmare with her illegal relationship with her 37-year-old teacher. (Hmm, she sees that Bill married a 16-year-old and that went okay, so why not ask to get married at age 16, just like Margene did?)
Never mind that Barb could (AGAIN!) be publicly shamed and potentially incarcerated because of the fact that Bill dragged her into polygamy, that’s after he divorced her and told her he wouldn’t allow her to help lead his new church.
Never mind that Margene remains confused about whether she was lured into joining the Henrickson family, the way they’re claiming she’s been lured into Goji, with folks from both camps referring to one another as a cult and suggesting that she break free from the other.
Everything on this show is, clearly, a mess, although it’s an entertaining mess, I’ll give you that. I was thoroughly engaged while watching this third-to-last episode. The threats and counter-threats have evolved and increased to such an extent that they’re now hard to keep track of. (Alby wants Bill dead, and Nicki … no wait, now Verlan?!) But at this point, I guess I’m okay with all of that, just as long as Bill doesn’t get rewarded for all of this in the end.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Mar 07, 2011 @ 13:35 EST5EDT
