SPOILERS
I watched all of Big Little Lies 2, and now that I’ve seen how they ended the second season… I’m not really happy about it. The first season was very high-quality and you could definitely feel the source material throughout. The second season was done with Liane Moriarty’s approval – and story suggestions, I believe – but there definitely was a darker, depressing vibe. A heaviness set in, especially around the Mary Louise character, played by Meryl Streep. Plus, they set it up for a third season. I don’t know why so many people are like “wow, great ending, don’t need a third season!” It was literally a cliffhanger with the women walking into the police station. The writers and the actresses absolutely want a third season. And I can’t invest any more time and effort in this mess.
Poorna Jagannathan played Celeste’s custody lawyer Katie Richmond on BLL2, and Poorna chatted with Joanna Robinson at Vanity Fair just after the finale about her experience working on the show and being a viewer. Poorna had some tea! Apparently, the original scripted ending involved the death of one of the Monterey Five, and… basically, the whole second season was drastically re-edited in post-production. Some highlights:
On the ending of Season 2: Jagannathan expressed surprise at the season two finale’s cliffhanger ending, which saw the Monterey Five all walking into the town’s police station together in solidarity. “I read the script and I watched yesterday’s episode and I was like, ‘Oh my god there might be a Season 3!’ It’s not the script I got! One character doesn’t even make it. One character dies. It’s a different script. This version left the door open on something I thought was definitely closed.”
Poorna wishes that BLL2 had done more with and for Zoe Kravitz’s character Bonnie: When she first tried to watch Season 1 of Big Little Lies, Jagannathan said she turned the show off: “I wasn’t drawn to watching things with so many white people in it.” The actress later got sucked in when she tried to watch again on airplane. She praised the show’s explorations of motherhood, femininity, and sexual violence: “I was so drawn to it, beyond race. It’s a powerful thing for them to have done that because I’m pretty skeptical.” Still, the actress said, she wished the reality of Bonnie—or even her character, Katie—navigating this extremely white space had been more fully fleshed-out: “It’s a very well-written show some scenes and characters are underwritten. The aspect of color is introduced but not explored.”
On the post-production changes: If the season’s ending was altered, the rewrite may also have something to do with the way it was reportedly massively re-worked in post-production, when—according to a report in IndieWire—season one director Jean-Marc Vallée dramatically transformed director Andrea Arnold’s season two work. Jagannathan had a lot of praise for the editing on season two—“the flow of the episode was great because of that editing”—but says she was “saddened” by how everything worked out for Arnold. Because much of Vallée’s work reportedly came during the post-production stage, Jagannathan said she didn’t see any conflict play out on set. Quite the contrary, she said: shooting the courtroom scenes was an extraordinarily emotional experience for everyone involved, including Arnold. Jagannathan described the director checking in between takes with her eyes red from crying. The project, Jagannathan said, was “sitting in its femininity;” it was clear to everyone, she added, that this sensitive “material was in the hands of someone who cares.” Jagannathan called Arnold “a genius.”
The only tension on-set: The only whiff of tension Jagannathan reported from the set came from season two star Meryl Streep, who would push back on notes from her director. “Meryl wouldn’t entertain any comments that insinuated she was the villain,” Jagannathan explained. Streep wasn’t rude, but would protectively respond “that’s not of your business” when she got a note she disagreed with. That’s fine for a multiple Oscar winner—but Jagannathan jokes that she would be fired very quickly if she tried something similar.
I understand how an actor doesn’t want to hear that he or she is playing the villain (because every villain is the hero of their own story), but did Meryl really think that Mary Louise was NOT the villain? Yikes. As for the tea about the original scripts killing off one of the main women – VF theorizes that Bonnie was supposed to die, and that was certainly where the story and the “visions” were leading: Bonnie killing herself, possibly after leaving a suicide note confessing to the “crime” of self-defense. As for the rest of what Poorna says… looking back on this season, it definitely didn’t have the structural flow or the in-epsiode flow of the first season, probably because what we saw was not the vision of the original director of the season. Problematic sh-t, huh. I hope there’s not a third season.
Photos courtesy of HBO/BLL2.
I TRULY got the feeling that Bonnie wasn’t going to make it either…I’m just SO GLAD they didn’t put the one WOC in the show in the refrigerator…
And I’m DOWN for a season 3….I just hope they wait as LONG as they have to…to get Vallee…so that the MESS that happened this season doesn’t happen in the next…
I am not. The fact that they hired Andrea Arnold just on paper in and of itself was a insult. Let the talented director do her job. Vallee might not have been in the director’s chair but his hands was all over this trainwreck of a second season and he and Kelley should be ashamed of themselves.
Yes…the way they handled that IS an insult…it’s obvious that Vallee is who Kelly wants…it’s obvious that Vallee’s vision, which is damn near like a character in itself….is what they WANT for this series…and frankly I agree with that sentiment based on season 1….and THAT’S why I stated what I stated…it is not to take ANYTHING from Andrea Arnold who I think is a magnificent director
They must be high on crack at HBO!
Vallee really made the first season of BLL something else, but not only did he f*ck up season 2 badly, he was also the director/responsible for that Sharp Objects mess. I love Amy Adams to death, but boy, by the second episode, I was already hate-watching that sh*t.
And I’m with Kaiser on this: I don’t get why people want a third season at all. And f*ck HBO for doing that poor director Andrea so dirty!
@Katherine M. Lol. I thought I was the only one who hate watched Sharp Objects!.
The second season was a total disjointed mess, with an excellent performance by Kidman and (I guess) Dern, and tons of overacting from Meryl. Like…way too much overacting from Meryl. It doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t consider herself the villain – look at her “not all men” and “I knew nothing about Weinstein” comments.
I don’t think any of the Monterey Five should have died, but it’s interesting that it’s not even the same script. The ending with all five of them waltzing into the jail was so contrived, especially after Celeste said in the SAME EPISODE that the only lie was the friendship. Madeline, Celeste, and Jane were friends. Renata and Bonnie were people they disliked the whole first season. I also find it hard to believe that Jane would have been totally cool with Renata after she campaigned to get Ziggy removed from the school the whole first season – and I find it hard to believe that Renata would have been totally cool with Celeste once she found out that her sons were the ones bullying Amabella. Ughhhh.
For every post saying we don’t need a season 3, I’ll say, we do need one! It’s such a good show and the second season was fantastic.
I was concerned they were going to kill off Bonnie and her mother, which felt a little disturbing…two WOC, gone..?!
I want a season 3. Let them redeem that ending!!!
I am curious how Meryl feels about that tea…. She can’t possibly have thought that Mary Louise wasn’t THE villain….surely???
I think that this explains why Streep’s performance seemed muted – almost suppressed.
I wish they’d left well enough alone. The beauty of cable is that you can tell a story, and let it be. This season took away the power of the story.
I was convinced that the season was going to end with Bonnie walking into the ocean to drown herself. The visions made it seem like that was where it was heading.
It sounds like Meryl was in character when she was receiving those director’s notes. Part of playing a villain is trying to root out the humanity of the character in order to add layers to the character and make the role easier to portray.
@boxey lady – Exactly. I was going to say the same thing- actor’s job is to see the humanity in their character so that they can play them well even if the character is a villain. But I wonder what note Meryl received that made her exclaim “nome of your business”?
Well I’m glad they had the good sense NOT to kill off the only major WOC character on the show. That would’ve been f*cked up.
As fot Meryl seeing her character as the villain. She couldn’t. As an actor you can’t play a role that way. She had to look at things the way her character would. Wrong or right. And THAT’S why her performance was so good. It’s acting 101. You don’t judge your character. Now that she is done with the role and can take a step back she nay absolutely see her as the villain. But she most certainly could not while playing her.
The satisfaction with the ending really depends on how you see the story. If the key story in the second season is how lie, no matter it’s reason, such as protection of your friend, poisons the lives and how something like death, even of a very vile person, affects you and your life then this is the ending of the story. And this is how I looked at this season with lives of all characters with exception of maybe Jane fall apart, then it is a true ending – as they all stand by each other and set themselves free from secrets and lies by telling the truth to the police, then the story is concluded in this way. If it were to end in another death but the secret was kept then I think there definitely was a need for third season. But not in this case. In this case the story is resolved as in the lie is ended. All the secrets they had in season one like rape and abuse were just being dragged into the light when Perry died. This season explored how these lies weight on the characters and gradually they face up to their own little and big lies, so I don’t consider it a disappointment. Rather I think they could have executed it better but I would strongly dispute the ending was deliberately changed so there was season 3. In my mind the story does not need another season exactly because of how it ended. As for what this lady says about the inside scoop, I don’t know, her role was so small and secondary I have doubts she knew the ending at all.
I really do hope there is a third season to make all the time I invested in this worthwhile. I wish they’d killed off Meryl Streep’s character. I could not get into her at all. It was definitely Bonnie they were planning to knock off. Wonder why they changed their mind? Didn’t like that story line either. Really didn’t like much of Season Two.
2019 and these writers still don’t know how to write a WOC, how progressive.
HBO has already said there won’t be a third season and that the second season was it. Unless the upcoming new leadership reverses curse because they think they can make money off a third season, there won’t be a third.
It was totally set up for Bonnie to take her life,I’m glad she didn’t,but it was there throughout. I would watch season 3,but I don’t want them to do one I’d rather just come to my own conclusions.
A lot of you have mentioned the holes that were left when direction was changed and re-edited but there is one that REALLY bothered me that I haven’t seen anyone else mention yet. If they all went to the police station to confess their lie at the end of the finale, wouldn’t that put Celeste in BIG trouble as she had already said under oath in court that the death was from him slipping? I mean, wouldn’t she be in big legal trouble?
I didn’t like the second season as much as I liked the first season but I still thought about BLL throughout the week, waited for every episode, and was always sucked into the story, talking about it with coworkers etc… I was very invested, more than I am in most shows. It could have been better… so I hope they take a shot at another season. I really feel there is more of this story to tell.