Barb’s birth family are white-bread Mormons (non-polygamous members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or LDS for the short-winded). The LDS disdains not only The Prophet’s followers, but polygamy in all its permutations. Barb’s sister and mother don’t return her calls; the break with her family is so complete that she has to read about her mother’s (Ellen Burstyn) plan for a second marriage on the society page. She didn’t get an invitation, but shows up anyway, thereby creating the scene her birth family had sought to avoid — they’re ashamed of Barb and the life she’s living. But more importantly, there are status issues. They equate her choices to the shadowed lives at Juniper Creek. Barb worries that there’s not much difference, either, and hence her agony. Plus, she believes in love, not only her love for Bill, but for her sister and mother. That it’s not being returned from them is a continuing source of torment for her.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to be a part of my family,” says Nicki. But which family? The one she was born into, or the family into which she married (Bill and Barb and their three kids), and where she has borne children? Her allegiances are constantly tested, and the ties that bind snake their way from the compound into her new family. She can’t stay away, she’s daddy’s little girl, but it’s Adaleen (Mary Kay Place), her ambitious, strictly business mother, and sixth wife to her father, with whom she must contend. There’s something Adaleen detests about her daughter — we’re not told precisely what but Nicki’s father-adoration is not only cloying, it verges on incestuous. It would be typical of someone like Adaleen to blame the daughter, and not the father, if such a situation existed. “Your name is dust,” she tells Nicki, disowning her.
Article comments
1 - Saskia Vogel
Always nice to read a well-rounded perspective on alternative relationships!
2 - Alyse
I would actually argue that Barb is the mother-type and Nicki is the crone-type. For Barb is truly a nurturer and Nicki certainly acts like an old woman (crotchety, stern, conservative, etc)
3 - Ellen Horwitz
Good clear summary and analysis, makes sense to me and I've seen most of this season.