Based on Liane Moriarty's bestselling novel, HBO's Big Little Lies struck a chord with award circuits and the masses alike with its star-powered cast and twisty storytelling. The prestige drama, which features Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley, centers on the lives of women in an affluent Monterey community. Exploring issues of domestic violence, it tangles around a murder mystery as we learn more about its main characters: Madeline, Celeste, and Jane.
Just as we'd expect, Big Little Lies was so well-received that its limited run expanded into a second season, which begins on June 9. While it doesn't look like we're getting a third installation, we have high hopes for the upcoming season to answer all of our burning questions. At the very least, viewers are in for a treat with Meryl Streep herself playing a pretty important role.
Excitement aside, it's been a while since we've last watched season one. If you find yourself just remembering the broad strokes of the story and those killer outfits, here are all of the details from the finale that you must remember to gear up for season two!
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The finale opens in the Wright home with Celeste (Nicole Kidman) badly hurt by her husband Perry (Alexander Skarsgård). In a devastating scene at her therapist, Celeste boils down the plan to get an apartment with her children but says that she needs to go to their school fundraiser first before leaving Perry.
We temporarily feel OK for a moment when she sets up her new apartment, but then the property manager lets slip to Perry the news (ugh). The tension cuts deeply when they're in the car together at the Audrey and Elvis-themed school gala, Trivia Night. It feels like a horror scene, and we expect that things can only get worse. And they do.
Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) is distracted. After getting into a car accident with her lover Joseph, she's paranoid about being caught. This feeling intensifies when she notices Joseph's wife Tori near her house, so Madeline goes to visit him. He definitely doesn't feel warmly towards her anymore, to say the very least, teetering on the edge of letting his wife know. We sense that Madeline's husband Ed (Adam Scott) knows what's going on even without all of the details. He serenades her at Trivia Night, but she runs off crying in the middle of his performance.
Things are rocky for Madeline, but at least she's on amicable terms with her daughter Abigail, who she opens up to about her mistakes.
Renata Klein's (Laura Dern) daughter Amabella had accused Ziggy of bullying her, which leads Jane to be worried about whether or not her son is good at heart. After Jane (Shailene Woodley) coaxes him to point out the perpetrator in a school picture, we learn that the kid who really hurt Amabella was Max, one of Celeste's twins. He's been reluctant to tell anyone since Amabella confessed to him that she "might get killed dead." Anyway, Renata's husband confronts Jane at her local café, and the owner Tom kicks him out.
Ed serenades his wife with a love song at Trivia Night, but Madeline leaves his performance crying. Poor Ed. We can't imagine things going super smoothly for them in season 2. Still, this is tame stuff given everything that happens moments later.
On Celeste's front, Perry vacillates between begging her to take him back and threatening her. Bonnie notices this and follows them. Everyone's up at the top of the stairs at the school for one reason or another. Here's when the crap really explodes — Perry comes down the stairs, but Celeste won't go with him. Jane realizes that Perry's the mysterious Saxon Banks, her rapist and Ziggy's father.
Everyone tries to help when Perry attempts to hurt Celeste, but ultimately it's Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), Nathan's free-spirited wife, who pushes him down a flight of stairs. The scene intercuts with waves crashing at the beach as Agnes Obel's melancholy "September Song" plays. (Check out other songs from the stellar soundtrack here!) Why Bonnie though? We'll expect to learn more about her in season two, but in Liane Moriarty's book, she had an abusive father who triggered this reaction.
The first season ends with the women (now called the Monterey Five) at the beach watching their children, and it all seems too happy to be true.
Since the story plays out of order in true Jean-Marc Vallée style, here are parts of the epilogue worth knowing, even though they technically happen before the Trivia Night reveals. Throughout the season, we get glimpses of testimonies to the police. So now we're back at where we started. Celeste tells them that he fell. The police investigate the case and they sense that everyone is lying, but don't know why.
Flash forward to Perry's funeral, where Celeste and Jane realize that they'll forever be in each other's lives because Ziggy and the twins are really all half-brothers. How Perry will come back and how his mother (aka Meryl Streep) will grieve, are questions we'll have answered in season two.
