(S02E03) I was reading Meredith's post from last week's episode, along with the comments. Boy y'all must have really loved this episode! Lots of time spent on the compound this week, with Nikki and Bill there for a big family reunion. I was thinking about this because even though the compound parts of the plot line are also not my favorite, it's not because the compound creeps me out. I just prefer the dynamics of the three households. There isn't anything particularly familiar about the compound to me either, though I love the scenery they show of Utah. That is the scenery of my childhood memories.

There was one thing that definitely struck me about the comments as something that divides someone who used to be a Latter-Day Saint who is watching from those who don't have any background in this religions. It was the comments about how self-delusional Bill is for saying that he just wants to live a normal life. What struck me as funny is that there wasn't anything funny to me about him saying that. It's amazing how normal I consider all of this-- probably because even though polygamy is no longer a principle of the Mormon Church-- plural marriage is an eternal principle.

This means that while polygamy isn't practiced here on earth, it is not out of the question in the afterlife. When you grow up with something (as I did, as Bill has, as we all have), of course it is normal to you. I think the point of what i am trying to say is something I think the show does very effectively: Bill doesn't know he isn't normal. He really doesn't. He lived normally with Barb for many years, but he grew up with polygamy. This IS normal.

That being said, I don't condone polygamy, and I feel as squeamish about it as many people have expressed that they do. The scene with Roman and Rhonda in which he assured her that angels would sing for them absolutely creeped me out-- but somehow, the scene in which Adaleen describes the family's genealogy to a younger family member creeped me out just as much. It's not just polygamy she is gleefully describing: It's so much intermarriage that the ability to marry someone you are not related to is non-existent. It's incest.

Another scene that really creeped me out is when Bill lay Nikki down with the laundry and sang, "Jesus Wants You for a Sunbeam." I grew up with that song-- it's for three-year-olds. It's not a pre-coitus song. And do you think Nikki knows that Alby is gay? How can she tell him she'll leave being a girl to him and then tell him to get back to his wives? (The theological answer to this is: Homosexuality is a sin only in so far as you are practicing. It would have been totally acceptable to know that maybe he had certain femme tendencies and yet accept the fact that he was married to a woman, or in this case, women.)

On the other hand, I didn't find Barb's conversation with Margie to be out of line at all. Margie says she knows there is only a five year age difference between her and Ben, and she knows she is attractive-- but she is really kidding herself if she thinks Ben considers her to be a mother figure. The conversation Ben has with his friend getting tattooed speaks to that-- how Margie is always running around half-dressed. Their relationship IS inappropriate. I think Margie is completely as innocent as she seems-- but she needs to be told that their relationship is dangerous because Ben is an adolescent boy and Margene is NOT his mother.

By the way, I have no idea why that boy was engraving sXe on is back. I have never heard of an organization of teenage boys getting tattooed and pledging to live a clean life. That is either new, unique to Utah, or fictional. But the fact that Ben is having sex is a big, big, big deal. Chastity is very important to regular Mormons, so I can only imagine how important it is to the fundamentalists (and we get big clues in the conversation between Rhonda and her manipulative mother).

I like Brian Kerwin (Bill's young uncle), though aren't their lives and storylines complicated enough without introducing more subplots and more characters?

I sincerely felt sorry for Nikki when Alby told her about how Roman betrayed Barb and their entire family. Nikki isn't so one-note evil this season. The is growing more compassionate, and it's very interesting that at the same time she is wondering how families can stay together with "only love" holding them together (and not the principle), I think she is starting to love her family more and more deeply. I think that is what truly frightens her. Adaleen cries "Shame" and she and Roman both lecture Bill and Nikki about family-- when family is exactly what Nikki is cleaving to. When she was only concerned with the principle, she didn't have so much to lose.

One additional note about theology: When Ben and Sarah are talking about his sex life, it was accurate when Sarah said the line about how it's better to be dead than to give up your chastity (I've definitely heard that kind of rhetoric before, but I can't say that ANYBODY would condemn a woman for being raped). However, it was not accurate for Ben to ask if Sarah thought he was going to hell. There is no hell in Mormon theology. There are three kingdoms of heaven, and the lowest would be sort of equivalent to a traditional idea of hell. But nobody how had been raised Mormon as these two kids were would use that kind of phrasing about going to hell, unless they were joking, re: "Oh, we are so going to hell for this."

I'm not overlooking Rhonda-- there just isn't much to say about her big escape so far except, "Well done!"

p.s. The excellent closing song was sung by Neko Case. Meredith has the next two weeks, so see you in July!