What were they thinking, this bunch of writers? They had a great show, wonderful premise, ingenious plot-line — actually, incredible plot-line — and it worked! When I came home on Sunday nights, I fixed a sandwich and a cuppa and crawled into bed to get my Big Love fix. Then suddenly, end of last season, the writers came up with a new twist. It jolted me! I splashed tea on my white sheets. Hey, that’s not going to work! I wrote about it then. Don’t spoil my program! I am a loyal fan! Anybody with any sense can see that this new plot-line  is pure nuts.  But I guess they went mad, off the rocker, either too drunk with power to think straight or they went loony tunes  and decided to hit themselves over the head with a hammer, and once the birdies were singing around them, they destroyed sympathy for the main character, destroyed the fabric of this delicate family relationship, or they said, “Hey, everybody is going for violence and wild stuff, why not us?” I cannot believe smart writers could have logically made these plot decisions. And this is what they did. (Spoiler if you are waiting to watch the series on DVD later.)

A serious Mormon polygamist (Bill Paxton) lives the principle: He is married to three wives, runs a really successful business (based on the fact that although he and his partner are polygamists, nobody else knows). There are three groups of polygamists: the good guys (Bill and his three wives and many children); the bad guys who run a bad compound — supreme prophet who arranges for young women to be “assigned” to older men who fancy them; and the very very bad guys, The Greens, who work out of Mexico and, for people who don’t obey, they drag down the trousers and brand them. Okay. Now Bill has three great wives who live in three adjoining houses. A serious sensible first wife, a rather not-too-reliable second wife from the bad compound — she occasionally lies and cheats and steals but she believes in “the principle”; and a pretty sort of innocent third wife. What’s appealing is that all the “sister wives” get along so well, run the community family, and the kids are most loved and cherished. Sexually, Bill services all each week (with the help of Viagra, which is rather ruining his vision, etc.).

One of the older kids is a true believer, the other wants to break away, and it was all fascinating because I trusted that they believed and Bill seemed to be an honest guy who was simply living the religious life he chose. Also, the “prophet” of the second compound is the really great Harry Dean Stanton, and Bill’s absolutely unrelentingly bad father is Bruce Dern. Any old-timers: remember him in Silent Running (1972) where he is flying this renegade spaceship containing the only greenery left on Earth and now they are going to destroy even that, and he leaves and goes off on a solitary odyssey? And Mary Kay Place as the prophet’s wife: remember her as the appealing friend in The Big Chill with the much younger Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum? Great Sunday night stuff. Go fix the sandwich, make the tea.

Then it all starts to go wrong. Bill announces that he’s buying gambling machines and setting up in a casino to make the family financially secure. Now, the guy has feet of clay. He falls for a new lady, waitress, and woos her, and it’s okay in that society for the husband to court a fourth wife, the purpose being to produce more children and ultimately they will all be together in heaven for eternity. Exactly how he was going to “service” a fourth wife when he had two nights each for the original and a night off. But however…

Secrecy was required for him to run his business, and in one great segment last season, Bill is at a convention trying to do casino business and other guys know he’s Mormon and square and tease him about his faults, if he has any, and he introduces his many wives. Powerful. But…I guess the writers didn’t realize that there was something called Twitter and Facebook etc., etc. That little piece of info was going into the Internet and from thence to the world. Okay, I bought it all. He rationalized the casino (an Indian Casino) and I ate my sandwich and went to bed satisfied and looked forward to the next Sunday.

And then…chaos.  The writers went off the ledge. Bill decided to run for political office. Crumbs spilled, tea splashed. What? Public office? And the reason? He was tired of hiding, he was going to win the office, and on election night, he would stand up with his three wives and announce publicly that he was a polygamist and perhaps change the law. I mean…how? Dumb idea! Once he announces, there goes his business, the privacy of his family, complications with the law. And when first wife chides him, he doesn’t care. Not only that, he outs his really sweet, very trusting business partner for his own interest, cruelly and self-servingly, and he lost me. Wife three goes into business and decides to help the pregnant, not-quite-wife four stay in the country with Bill’s baby by marrying her fiance. What? What? And Bill betrays his Indian partners for his own self-interest. Writers, were you drinking or smoking, or just having a psychiatric meltdown of big-winner guilt? And somebody is importing illegal birds, and Bill’s sweet beloved son is captured by the Greens and almost killed, and Bill rushes in and saves them all and somebody’s arm is chopped off? And the bad polygamy doctor almost implants incestuous eggs in wife two?

Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. I liked Bill. He is in pieces. Who, oh who, is going to put this impossible mess together again? I guess I’m left with Dexter and Masterpiece Theater. But I am used to my Sunday nights. And my sandwich and my curl-up in the snuggy bed and my programs. But wife one has already said that she wants out. Wife two wants the stud all to herself. Wife three has gone and married another guy.

Is there a Writers’ Help Line? Is there a Writers’ Guild emergency crew? Dial TWM for “total writer madness” and get somebody out there before the next season. Hey I’m an old, old fan. I want to support my program. Give me something to go on. Think of this poor lady curled in her comfy bed with her sandwich and her tea waiting for the familiar voices and getting only a cacophony of madness.

Help!