Big Little Lies and the Slap Heard 'Round the World

Do you think Nicole Kidman ever imagined her career would come to this?

By Lauren Piester Jul 01, 2019 2:00 AMTags
Big Little Lies, Season 2, Episode 4HBO

There's a lot to talk about after tonight's episode of Big Little Lies, and we will get to it, we promise.

But first we gotta talk about that slap.  

Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) showed up unannounced at the pumpkin carving party Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) was holding, to which she was not invited. She brought a cake to be nice, but she very, very quickly brought all her Mary Louise-yness out. She wondered where her third grand child was, then announced she had rented an apartment in the exact same building as Jane (Shailene Woodley) and Ziggy (Iain Armitage), and she just couldn't wait to have all three boys over for sleepovers. 

Celeste (Nicole Kidman) pulled her aside to just let her know she was overstepping a bit, moving into the same building as her son's rape victim, and Mary Louise wondered yet again if Jane really was a rape victim. 

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"There are many many questions that I still have," she said. "For instance, why was he with her that night? What was he looking for, or perhaps seeking refuge from? I mean, how many other women did he go to? If there's one, there are others." 

That's when Nicole Kidman got to lose her cool and SLAP Meryl Streep right across her face, sending her reeling backwards. Celeste tried to apologize immediately, but Mary Louise acted like she was unbothered. 

"What should we call that? Foreplay?" she snipped as she adjusted her glasses. 

This woman is an incredible nightmare! 

HBO

You bet we replayed that slap several times before moving on in the episode, only to discover that Mary Louise was about to get far, far worse. 

She was worried Celeste was unwell and unable to take care of her sons, so she found a lawyer and petitioned to get custody of Max and Josh, and by the end of the episode, it looked as if maybe she's not all that far off. 

Celeste is still taking pills, and she drank a whole bunch while out at a bar with Jane and got very drunk. The next morning, she seemed to have forgotten she had taken the bartender home, and looked "weird," as her son said. 

Obviously Celeste is unwell, but is she unwell enough for us to want Mary Louise to take care of her sons? We're not so sure about that. 

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Renata, meanwhile, despite her best efforts, is no longer rich, but she wasn't going to let her wealth go without one last hurrah. She threw a massive disco-themed birthday party for Amabella just a few hours after a bankruptcy hearing that revealed Renata had spent $4,000 on some mysterious medical thing she refused to disclose, and then which lost Renata and Gordon their Tesla. 

The party was wild, and while Madeline and Ed continued to fight and Jane opened up to her new potential boyfriend Corey, Bonnie's mother suddenly passed out after another vision about water. 

She ended up in the hospital with a bit of a brain bleed, and the episode ended with yet another vision of Bonnie drowning. Should we actually be worried about Bonnie literally drowning, or is this all a metaphor for how Bonnie's metaphorically drowning in the lie about Perry? 

And is Bonnie's mother actually psychic? Because it feels like we're just glossing over that. 

Anyway, bless this show. First we got the scream, now we've got the slap. What madness will Meryl have for us next? 

Big Little Lies airs Sundays on HBO.