Wham! Bam! Bang! Slash. Squirt. Last night’s episode of All My Mormons was a regular action movie, wasn’t it? Well, part of it at least. The rest was your usual strange almost-sorta-melodrama. If this was a different show, one on FX or something maybe, I think I could watch a whole lot more about Hollis Green and his crazy, gun-totin’ Mexican compound. I love that his loyal Imperial Guards are just his pistol-packing wives. And who can help but love crazy old Selma Green? Between this and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , Sandy Martin might be the least self-conscious actress in showbiz. I know, I know. Charlize Theron is so brave for not wearing makeup that one time, but I think Martin’s unabashed butchness puts her on top. But just barely! Anyway, the whole compound was terrifically scary and odd — with ostrich zoos and Mexican fiestas and all that — and I hope that we get to see it again. Though, it doesn’t look like we will any time soon. Yes, Hollis Green maybe died last night. While Bill, Joey, and Jodeen went adventuring down to the compound to stage a daring rescue, Ben and his grandparents awaited the outcome of their “trial,” a gonzo and obviously rigged affair overseen by old Hollis himself. Grace Zabrieski did, as always, a terrific job, as we watched hershift from her default mode of feisty stubbornness to genuine anguish and terror. Ben proved brave and clever, but very much still a kid. And even old cranky Frank was given a slight whiff of redemption. Basically the whole rescue was a way for Bill to correct the wrong of exiling his son, and for Frank and Lois to reflect on their own past misdeeds with regard to Bill. It was a nice little device, with the pleasingly moving outcome more than making up its bordering-on-silly action hero mechanics. (Bill pulling a gun on Joey and then shooting the ground was a bit much.) Oh and then Lois chopped Hollis’s arm off! Yeah, that’s what I mean by maybe died. Bill was all “Oh, yeah, you can get that fixed these days.” Really? Lois took a machete and cut that sucker off practically at the shoulder. Maybe he wouldn’t necessarily bleed to death, but he’d definitely lose the arm, right? And also: Why didn’t any of Hollis’ followers just immediately shoot Bill and crew after that happened? Their tentative mercy was a bit unbelievable. Unless, you know, they were all a bit too shocked by the whole bearming they’d just seen. Also shocked: Barb. Why? Well, because someone associated with the crazy religious group that’s protesting the casino (because gambling is wicked) sent a well-made bomb to the building as means to a threat. So that’s no good. Barb and her Indian Interest also figured out that Sissy Spacek is a dirty conspirator, and has been helping the religious group fuck with the casino, all the while pretending to be under its employ. A reckoning is surely coming with that. My theory is that Barb is going to cut her arm off. That’s the new street justice on this show. Next year the opening credits will be Bill and his three wives skating in slow motion, pretty ethereal music playing, just chopping people’s arms off, blood slo-mo splattering on their faces. The whole Ana storyline didn’t wrap up quickly as I’d hoped/expected it would. No, instead we wandered further into the Dalmatians, with Margene decided to marry Ana’s hunky beau Goran so he can stay in the country and Ana won’t have to leave with Bill’s love child still living in her stomach. This is, duh, a further complications for this already vastly complicated family, and I’m just not sure how much more weight they (or the show) can really take. Can’t a Mormon get a break? Seriously, if in your life you were running for political office, rescuing your son from a murderous religious cult living in Mexico, dealing with a surprise bastard love child, a wife who made out with said son, and another wife with a crazy ex-husband coming by the house unannounced, all at the same time… Well, I think you’d probably not be able to get out of bed in the morning. No one would. It’s all a bit much. There was a strange scene between Barb and Margene, in which Barb showed up to the Home Shopping office, sort of marveled at how nice it was, and then the ladies made up. Barb then went blabbering on about building Margene a home office in their new Addams Family mansion on the hill, which Margene bristled to. She didn’t see bringing work home anytime soon. This selling jewelry on the TV thing is too big at this point. She’s a career lady. A career lady married to another man. It was a nice, subtle scene with some great acting by Ginnifer Goodwin, who has really evolved from shrill teenager to warmly poised and intelligent grownup. If this whole show is figuring out which one of these wives is going to get the fuck out of this disaster, I always thought it would be Barb. But might Margene now be seeing the independent joys of a non-Principle life? That would be just fine with me. OK, that’s it. It was action-packed and drama-stuffed last night, and with the Ben plot mostly wrapped up now, I suppose we’ll be turning our main focus to this ridiculous election and the Sissy Situation. Which, sigh. Oh, and also! Sarah is going to be leaving, mostly because Amanda Seyfried wants to be a movie star (and will be?), but also because her family is about to come out as big crazy polygamists and she wants to be miles away from that when it happens. What do you guys think? Two episodes doesn’t sound like enough to wrap this all up well, does it?
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Big Love: A Farewell to Arm
