Big Little Lies on HBO, Are You Watching?

Are you watching “Big Little Lies” on HBO?

While I’m not a huge fan, I’ve read two novels by Liane Moriarty previously (What Alice Forgot and The Husband’s Secret), but not this one. I’m glad I didn’t so that the finale this Sunday will be somewhat of a surprise for me.

I have a strong feeling for what will happen and who is murdered, but I’ve been wrong before! We shall see. It’s pretty safe to say I won’t be reading the book now, and I am halfway tempted to search for spoilers as to how this story ends. Don’t do it, Gina! Just wait three more days, for goodness sakes!

There are a couple themes that consistently run through this. Marriage, while seemingly perfect, is hard and hardly perfect even for the most happily married people because, DUH!, nothing is. We all make mistakes. Big ones and little ones. We are all selfish at times. Judgement of others plain old sucks, and we can only worry about what those important to us think of us, not anyone who really doesn’t matter because that’s not our business. We need to keep our own houses in order. Kids make marriage an even bigger challenge. There’s more.

For some reason in the last episode, this conversation resonated with me:

“We don’t talk about it because that would make it harder to pretend. Sometime that’s the essence of a happy marriage, isn’t it? The ability to pretend.”

Then: 

“In every marriage there is pretending. Even the best ones. I don’t have to pretend to love you, and you don’t have to pretend to love me, but what I DO like to pretend, as do you, is that I’m all that.”

I’m thinking of all the ways I pretend in order for life to flow smoothly or to feel happier or to avoid certain issues. Do you sometimes pretend, too?

What do you think of the whole concept of pretending and/or Big Little Lies in general (book or movie)?

[Also, I read somewhere that Keith Urban was upset and did not like the severe bruising his wife, Nicole Kidman, experienced during filming. She, and her character, took a lot of physical punishment, sexually and abusively. This storyline was incredibly sad, horrific and hit far too close to home, as I know someone who was in a similar relationship and secretly moved out while her husband was away on business like the show implies Celeste will do. I helped her fill the moving truck, rearrange furniture so nothing would look amiss when he entered the house, if he didn't look too closely, but he is the type of man who would notice every possession missing. Papers were served a few hours after we left as he walked up their driveway, suitcase in hand. The first thing he asked was, "Where's my Bronco (a car)?" That night, we slept on the bedroom floor, a knife beside each of us, because the sparse amount of furniture she took from their Malibu mansion wouldn't arrive until the following morning. I've only since been that scared one time and that was last November. Oh, we also took one of the dogs. That next day, we set up her hideaway. She was safe and divorced shortly thereafter (after a bit of a struggle settling affairs, of course. He is a lawyer.)]