‘Big Love’ Watch: Q. and A. With the Creators

Bill Paxton and Jeanne Tripplehorn in a scene from “Big Love.”

 

Sunday night brought the finale of “Big Love” after five seasons. And shockingly (spoiler alert), the show’s protagonist, Bill Henrickson, of the hardware-store minichain and multiple marriages, died at the hands of an emasculated whack-job neighbor. You can read my thoughts on the conclusion in a critic’s notebook in The Times. Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the creators and head writers of the series, about, among other things, how and why they chose to end the show the way they did. We’d like to keep the discussion going, so please post your comments.
Ginia Bellafante: So how and by what process did you decide that Bill Henrickson would die at the end of the series?
Will Scheffer: Well, we knew at the beginning of the season that we were going to wrap things up, and we had reached the general arc thematically that we wanted to reach. We wanted to redeem Bill, and we wanted to give him, on a series level, a hero’s journey: the creation of a family and a marriage that endured. We asked ourselves, “What is the deepest rendering of this conclusion?” And we decided that it was a family and marriage that endures after his death. That would be the greatest testament that this character led a life worth living.

So how did you determine that it would be Carl, Bill’s neighbor and a peripheral character, who would end up murdering Bill?
Mark V. Olsen: Well, in terms of a potential killer, we looked at everyone — and I mean everyone.
Will Scheffer: We didn’t want anyone to be able to easily guess, and we felt Carl was the right person thematically. In terms of his being the killer we thought we could build both a personal story and a real surprise. We tried to create a character who would be viewed not just as operating out of an insanity defense, but as someone who was acting in his own way for his church. In the beginning of the series we were flipping Donna Reed and “Father Knows Best” on their heads. Carl and his wife were supposed to be the typical nosy neighbors. This year Carl was more strongly identified with his failures as a Mormon man. Bill seems to be mocking the traditional Mormon church, and Carl watches, horrified, as Bill succeeds, and he founders.
We don’t know an enormous amount about Carl, so give me his character bio.
Mark V. Olsen: Well, Carl is a devout Mormon who struggles with the pressures of perfection and responsibility. Two seasons ago, his wife, Pam, indicates their difficulty having children. His adequacy as a man and a priesthood holder is repeatedly challenged. To be a failure in this culture is intense. Everything about this show has to be about marriage in some way. Marriage is so sacred and holy to Mormon life. Carl couldn’t accept that he was failing as a husband and priesthood holder, and this made him lash out at Bill. We were also intrigued by the idea of the milque-toast Mormon man who explodes. When we were doing reserach for the show we learned about a Motorola executive in Phoenix, a Mormon, who came home and exploded, and his family was slaughtered. We wanted to explore the suppression of that type on the A-side and the eruption on the B-side.

When the series began, faith did not play such a prominent role, but by the final season it emerged as a significant fact of the Henricksons’ lives and the crucial ground for debate between Bill and Barb. Why was it sidelined initially?
Mark V. Olsen: We didn’t know how much exposition the show could carry in the first season. To come out with the religiosity right away, we thought could be off-putting. We didn’t know that we truly acquit it well in the beginning, so most of the religious practices were off-camera, out-of-story.
In the epilogue 11 months after Bill’s death we see his wives, Barb, Nicki and Margene, all living together. What do you imagine is the future for these women?
Mark V. Olsen: Do we believe that these women will live like sorority sisters for the next 30 years? Like nuns? That stretches credulity.
Will Scheffer: I could see Margene through her work meeting a doctor, but the general idea is that these women remain close forever.