chad is so lame.

and re: nikki, no character on tv currently annoys me the way she does

Margene is "married" to Bill but not legally. She would be free to leave The Family, and marry Chad, who gives her positive reinforcement, which the Family does not! Niki is another matter. I think she would resist any attempts to kick her out of the family unit. Barb was right when she said that Bill needs to slow things down with the expansion. Bill thinks it is divine will that he open a 3rd store, but obviously he is very ambitious and gets angry when his own will is blocked.

for some reason i'm wondering if it was really Niki that voted NO.... or was it Barb?? sure Niki wants Margene to think it's her. (she does love to be the most deceitful and she loves every minute. after all she is supposedly trying to have a baby but is still taking the pill.) but by the look on Barbs face sometimes i wonder if she really ever wanted any of this at all. they may have gotten "stuck" with Niki due to circumstance but that may be all Barb could deal with and Margene coming in would acually benefit Niki,because she can easily manipulate and control her.

After last episode, I do thought Roman was over and done with, but as this week's latest episode revealed, that is far from over. I find every fresh episode so exiciting! I worry about how Margene is going to deal with both Chad's eagerness to have her, and her neighbour's eagerness to set her up. I mean how you can explain to both of them that your already married! I think it's sad though, because this guy seems really sweet, and honestly I think she'd be better off with him then in this three way of nothing but complication and deceit. Honestly, Margene is my favorite character.

When I saw the hotel bill that Nicki pulled out (along with the sly smile), I thought that maybe her and Bill had make-up sex in a hotel room after he met her at the mall. And that maybe this charade was done partly because she wanted Bill's focus to be on her, rather than on Barb.

Technically, Bill said "I feel like a stranger in my own homes" (not home), which made te sentence unique to it's show.

We've known from the start that Nicki is manipulative, but there has been, in my opinion, a sense that she has genuine affection for Bill, the other wives and the children (e.g. the way she protected the families from Albie at the end of "Affair"). However, last night I think she turned a corner and we, sadly, will be unable to recover any sense that she is capable of goodness.

I have liked the bad girl/good girl tightrope that she had been walking all season, but last night she and Roman were inexorably linked by the close up shots of their faces after having each attained some personal triumph over Bill and/or his family (Roman's after talking to Bill at the store and Nicki's after looking at the Fairfield Inn bill at the end of the episode). The parallel was intentional and something that Nicki will not overcome.

Chloe Sevigny is such a brilliant actor, she's playing the role perfectly. I had hoped for some redeeming qualities that would endear Nicki to the audience in spite of her faults. But, after this episode, I fear that Nicki's (and as a result, Chloe's) time with the show will be relatively short lived.

Catherine,

It's been slow to be revealed, but so far the audience s beng led to beleive that Bill didn't have much choice into getting in bed with Roman. It seems that somehow he needed something from Roman (money?) in order for Barb to beat cancer. Nikki was part of the package.

Also, Chris, Nicki's reciept was actually from a Farfield Inn, which is a Marriott product. The Marriott family are Mormon and very involved in the church. Every Marriott has a Book of Mormon either in place of or in addition to a standard Christian Bible.

I love how Nicki was able to manipulate her way out of Bill's "doghouse" -- what a great character!

Bill actually says, "I feel like a stranger in my own homes."

Nikki didn't go to a shelter, she pulled out a receipt for a Radison Hotel & Suites at the end of the show