I don't know why exactly but every time I've seen Big Love mentioned I just glossed over it for some reason, I finally gave it a hard look this summer and just finished the series last night.

Pros:

- Strong performances by the lead antagonists, Harry Dean Stanton (Roman Grant) and Matt Ross (Alby Grant) were a cut above the rest here.

- It was fun to see familiar faces like Aaron Paul, Amanda Seyfried, Bruce Derns, and Mireille Enos (The Killing) just to name a few.

- Chloë Sevigny (Nicolette Grant): You can take the girl out of the compound but you can't take the compound out of the girl. The most interesting of the 3 wives for me early on.

- Bill Paxton is Bill Henrickson without a doubt, I never cared for him in other roles but he is a perfect fit here.

Cons:

- Cheesy at times.
- Overall Big Love was one of the weaker HBO shows I've seen when compared with what they had out at the time, it's surprising to me that Rome, Deadwood, and Carnivàle were cancelled yet Big Love was allowed 5 seasons.

Side note: Not a con just an oddity, over the entire series it was very hard to relate or sympathize with any of the characters really, from normal daily activities to their whole way of thinking. Everything was just a bit off like an alternate universe type of feeling.

When an argument would happen sides would form and I would find my self not caring and take neither side. I'm sure a Mormon or even a religious person would have a better chance at relating but I still expected I would be able to do so in some way at least.

I just finished the second season of Big Love, and I am giving up. I don’t need to watch the other three seasons.

I’m not sure the people who made the show really knew what they wanted it to be. At the times the show seems to be an attempt at making a less profound, polygamist version of Six Feet Under, but at other times the show feels like a farcical dark comedy or dramedy. And the tone seems to swing wildly from episode to episode, or even within individual episodes.

But the other issue is the excess of characters and plot: there is so much going on in the show and I’m not sure to what purpose. Bill is unlikeable, but it’s almost as if they try extra hard to make him unlikeable by involving him in all sorts of polygamist mafia type stuff that I’m sure doesn’t actually happen.

It just got repetitive and not very interesting. I finished this season because of my insane completeness impulse and not out of any interest to find out what happened, I simply didn’t care any more. I didn’t care enough about any of the characters in part because there are too many characters for the scope of the show.

Anyway, I’m done with it.