How Big Lit­tle Lies reveals the under­ly­ing pres­sures of Amer­i­can society

The title sequence set to Michael Kiwanuka’s Cold Lit­tle Hearts sees the main char­ac­ters in Big Lit­tle Lies cruis­ing the wind­ing roads of Mon­terey, Cal­i­for­nia, their eyes only ever stray­ing on from the emp­ty streets ahead to check the rear-view mir­ror and the trea­sures they guard with their lives: their chil­dren. The sea­side back­drop and the ebb and tide of ambigu­ous sil­hou­ettes insin­u­at­ing dark secrets to be found beneath a seem­ing­ly shal­low exis­tence, set the tone for a show in which the women are the unde­ni­able orches­tra­tors of a community’s downfall.

Men, though in many cas­es respon­si­ble for the fes­ter­ing rage that dri­ves these women, become sec­ondary char­ac­ters with lit­tle to no say in their every­day lives and ques­tions of child rear­ing. Hus­bands are prac­ti­cal­ly ren­dered insignif­i­cant; they may be fac­ing their own pow­er strug­gles between them, but their league ranks on ama­teur lev­els in com­par­i­son to the intrigues and sub­lim­i­nal mes­sag­ing their wives rule the school­yards, car­pools and house­holds with on a dai­ly basis.

Fol­low­ing the pilot episode – not so sub­tly titled ​‘Somebody’s Dead’ – it is clear there is more to the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing Monterey’s club of Mom­ma Bears. Intro­duc­ing the town, its char­ac­ters and usu­al dynam­ics through the eyes of new res­i­dent Jane (Shai­lene Wood­ley), the dif­fer­ence between her and the local, priv­i­leged women Celeste (Nicole Kid­man), Madeleine (Reese With­er­spoon) and Rena­ta (Lau­ra Dern) is imme­di­ate­ly not­ed, but not dwelled upon.

Set in the not-so-dis­tant past, the episode repeat­ed­ly skips to the present, in which the town’s peo­ple find them­selves under ques­tion­ing after the body of a woman is found washed up on the beach the morn­ing after an extrav­a­gant Elvis and Audrey Hep­burn themed fundrais­ing par­ty. The victim’s name has yet to be spo­ken, but upon read­ing between the lines, it’s safe to assume it is one of the Mon­terey women.

The intrigue is not imme­di­ate but builds on silent flash­backs, ter­ri­fy­ing pieces of a hor­rif­ic puz­zle that make up Jane’s painful past. Even though Madeleine and Celeste, the two moth­ers she befriends on Ziggy’s (Iain Armitage) first day of school, move in afflu­ent cir­cles, they wel­come her and offer much need­ed sup­port – par­tic­u­lar­ly Madeleine. This new con­nec­tion threat­ens to be jeop­ar­dised when Zig­gy is accused of try­ing to choke Renata’s daugh­ter Ama­bel­la (Ivy George).

Rena­ta, being one of the most influ­en­tial women in town, has the pow­er to make Jane and Ziggy’s life mis­er­able but Madeleine is adamant not to let that hap­pen. But although Jane is quick to stand up for her son, part of her fears there may have been a truth to Amabelle’s accu­sa­tions, and the dark, heav­i­ly atmos­pher­ic flash­backs seem to con­firm this theory.

In the third episode, ​‘Liv­ing the Dream’, it is revealed that Zig­gy is the prod­uct of a vio­lent rape, and although Jane is doing her best to offer him the best life pos­si­ble, she is unable to shake the grue­some events that led to his exis­tence and can’t help but won­der about Ziggy’s genet­ic make­up. One can only imag­ine the reac­tion from the oth­er Mon­terey moth­ers should this secret ever make it into the pub­lic – the com­pe­ti­tion between work­ing, stay-at-home and tiger-moth­ers is at a con­stant, par­ent­ing inse­cu­ri­ties are at an all-time high.

This kind of infor­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ing amongst the car­pool gos­sip crew will undoubt­ed­ly cause for seri­ous con­se­quences. And this real­ly is the dri­ving sto­ry behind Big Lit­tle Lies; the mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion mere­ly acts as a back­drop to the under­ly­ing pres­sures of Amer­i­can soci­ety and the dark­ly com­pet­i­tive streak of sub­ur­ban living.

Each mater­nal fig­ure is deter­mined to keep up her respec­tive image in order to dis­tract from the real­i­ties that play out behind locked doors. Madeleine is the clas­sic heli­copter-par­ent who lives her life through her chil­dren, and feels high­ly inse­cure about the fact that her eldest daugh­ter Abi­gail (Kathryn New­ton) idolis­es her ex-husband’s hip and open-mind­ed new wife, Bon­nie (Zoe Kravitz); Rena­ta is a suc­cess­ful busi­ness woman who feels guilty for not get­ting to spend much time with her daugh­ter Ama­bel­la and over­com­pen­sates with mate­ri­al­is­tic treats; Celeste is in an out­ward­ly per­fect mar­riage that has grown increas­ing­ly volatile and thrives on angry, vio­lent sex.

They are all deal­ing with their respec­tive per­son­al crises and shame but are adamant to keep up the act in order to safe­guard their sta­tus­es and that of their chil­dren. The mount­ing stress how­ev­er, is caus­ing the hive of queen bees to buzz so loud­ly, they are start­ing to lose the one thing that keeps them going: control.

With its slow pac­ing and haunt­ing hints at a dark end­ing, Big Lit­tle Lies set itself apart from oth­er dra­mas that have pre­vi­ous­ly exam­ined the plight of Des­per­ate House­wives by qui­et­ly rev­el­ling in the char­ac­ters’ emo­tion­al real­i­ties, as well as people’s out­side per­cep­tions. With­er­spoon tru­ly brings her char­ac­ter to life with insa­tiable anx­i­ety, anger and sassi­ness, and the chil­dren – espe­cial­ly Iain Armitage and Dar­by Camp as Chloe – deliv­er out­stand­ing per­for­mances. Set to a mes­meris­ing sound­track of the likes of Leon Bridges, Fleet­wood Mac, PJ Har­vey, Otis Red­ding and Charles Bradley, Big Lit­tle Lies promis­es a tan­ta­lis­ing con­clu­sion to its first season.