Big Little Lies Season 2, Episode 2 recap: Update on the Monterey Five

The cats out of the bag on the new Big Little Lies. No one’s secrets are safe anymore, the only question is where they can go after everything is revealed.

Well, season two of Big Little Lies is moving right along. If you expected Perry’s abusive tendencies to stay secret for longer then you’d be surprised by Mary Louise finding out tonight about his violent inclinations. Of course, she doesn’t believe it, but now the truth is out there.

Plus Madeline’s affair comes back to haunt her, Bonnie deals with a visit from her mom, and Renata has to face life with her husband behind bars.

Celeste

The truth has finally been unveiled. Celeste slips up when disciplining their boys (they got into a heated, physical fight) and exclaims “you will not be like him!” With Mary Louise looking on. Yep, there’s no hiding it any longer. But, as expected, Perry’s mother refuses to believe a single thing about Perry’s ugly side. She sounds like the chorus of trolls on the internet who consistently fail to believe women.

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“Well, why didn’t you go to the police?” Mary Louise questions, and it makes you want to scream at the television. She also doesn’t believe Perry could have raped Jane. Madeline’s chatty daughter, Chloe, let that little secret slip (well about Ziggy being Perry’s son, not the violent circumstances). This forces Jane and Celeste to figure out what to do and how to tell their sons about their impossible situation. Ultimately, Jane confesses it to Ziggy.

My heart broke for her and his fractured innocence when he questions what being “a salted” means. For now, things seem to be alright between Celeste, Jane, and their kids. They have them meet up for a playdate, re-introduced to each other, as brothers. Clearly, though, Mary Louise is going to be a problem. Not only does she refuse to believe anything bad about Perry but she is extremely intuitive to all the details surrounding his death.

Bonnie

As Madeline is driving around and rounding up her damaged mommy carpool (first Celeste took an Ambien and wound up driving a car) she finds Bonnie walking on the side of the highway, “hiking.” Obviously, Bonnie is still dealing with the trauma over Perry’s death. But Nathan doesn’t know how to talk to his wife, put bluntly. He enlists help from Bonnie’s mother. Her role is basically about armchair diagnosing Bonnie with PTSD, though she’s probably correct in her assumption, and pointing out what an idiot Nathan is, again, she’s not wrong.

Eventually Bonnie asks Nathan to make her mother leave. We also see her return a few talismans to her mother before she talks about visions she’s been having. Clearly, there is a strong spiritual element to her beliefs, something we don’t learn much about but it’s clear there is history there.

Madeline

One thing that bothered me in the first season was that we never got any closure on Madeline having an affair. Well, if you thought that the storyline was complete, it rears its head again in this episode. Madeline and Abigail have a conversation about it and Ed happens to overhear it.

Not only is he shaken over his daughter knowing for a year (he thinks of Abigail as his daughter), but his wife cheated on him. Both Madeline and Ed are devastated by the way the secret has come out. In Ed’s mind, there’s only one solution, he wants to be done with Madeline altogether.