Big Love Season 3 thread

[_Danna]

Having just discovered that I can watch online, I have spent the past few days catching up with the whole season. Wow, what a good show. Pretty much all you ever wanted to know about Mormonism so far.

Having never been through the temple, it was all new to me although I knew roughly what was going on. I thought it made the temple look attractive. Barb obviously held it sacred enough to want to sneak back in to participate, and the value she placed on it made look like it might be cool. The 'celestial' lighting and sacred music helped as well.

I get dragged along to the odd Catholic shindig with my husband at Christmas and Easter. The priests are all in lovely robes, the alter boys and girls as well. They re-enact christmas and easter scriptures, and wave an incense thing (a censor?) around. Rituals for those taking orders (monks and so on) are much wierder. So compared to that, the small snippets shown on biglove are not too strange compared some other religions that dress up. Is raising your arms to pray really wierder than kneeling or bowing down in a mosque or rocking in front of the wailing wall? Whether a person thinks it is 'cultish' would depend on the type of church they are used to - which would probably be their bench-mark for 'normal'.

So I don't think the physical activity depicted should be considered 'embarrassing'. It is the meaning underlying the activity that should set off the wierdometer. First having to pay 10% to get in (and the other requirements), the secrecy about the ritual is in itself 'cultish', the history of the secrecy (JSjrs underhand polygamy and polygyny), thinking that a codeword secret name and handshake will get you into heaven and that if others find out they could sneak in to heaven(!), having to do the ritual for dead people and the disempowering of God implied by the whole ritual itself. Now that is strange thinking. But wouldn't that just go over the head of the average TV viewer?

If the ritual were considered to symbolic and/or a renewal of covenants - which maybe in a hundred years it will be - it wouldn't be odd. It is odd because it is meant to be literal and legalistic. Mormons take eveything way too seriously.

[_Dr. Shades]

So far today, I've three messages from never-Mormon friends, all expressing shocked disbelief that I willingly and frequently participated in something so overtly cultish and odd. I'm not sure how to answer them, or even if I'm going to.

Simple. Answer, "All religions are kooky to members of other religions."

[_cinepro]

Bond has posted his summary of the episode, which can help put the Temple scenes into context if you didn't watch the whole thing:

Big Love 3.9

[_TAK]

So far today, I've three messages from never-Mormon friends, all expressing shocked disbelief that I willingly and frequently participated in something so overtly cultish and odd. I'm not sure how to answer them, or even if I'm going to.

Simple. Answer, "All religions are kooky to members of other religions."

Have you been to a methodist service?
I doubt anything would seem kooky to you.

[_floatingboy]

If someone thinks the "chanting" is strange, they've never been to Catholic mass. And don't eastern religions have chant-like worship? Look at all the ritual in far-eastern religions that is quite foreign to the western concept of religious worship. I guess since they do it out in the open there's not real mystique to it, which I'm sure helps to make it seems more innocuous, but I doubt any mainstream westerner, be they religious or not, would have any objection to those rituals. In fact, they might see them as quite beautiful, probably because people tend to romanticize things from far off lands, whereas that which is familiar is banal and even more easily held in contempt (kind of like the "a prophet hath no honor in his own country" concept).

Can anyone follow what I just said? Ha. Not sure if it's at all clear. My reaction to the temple scene is more in line with El Duderino (His Dudeness? I'm not into the whole 'brevity' thing): it will be somewhat anticlimactic for most. They really did seem to try to be respectful, but I'm still on the fence about all the details of the names of the signs/tokens being essential to the plot. But I can see the argument about how they are: posterity and power of the priesthood are emphasized and that is important to Barb, as it would seem, and therefore has a big impact on her spiritually.

The scene I feel like they fudged on purposefully in order to heighten drama and create sympathy for Barb is the excommunication scene. I've never been involved in one of those, but I do know the tone that those types of proceedings tend to have, and that's not it. Nor would it go down that way, as far as I know. I'm sure that there are people out there that can point to personal experiences in which there was some sensed and even expressed verbal hostility, but I think that those scenarios would have to been part of a very small minority. "DO YOU REPENT?!" Hardly credible. I mean, hey, it's TV. But if you're going to toot your own horn about authenticity, then you'd better deliver.

[_floatingboy]

I do have to qualify what I said about the portrayal of the endowment: while they way they portrayed it was respectful, the fact that they portrayed it at all is decidedly disrespectful and they know it. It's obviously a ratings ploy and I'm sure it worked, at least somewhat.

[_Seven]

I do have to qualify what I said about the portrayal of the endowment: while they way they portrayed it was respectful, the fact that they portrayed it at all is decidedly disrespectful and they know it. It's obviously a ratings ploy and I'm sure it worked, at least somewhat.

I felt the endowment was portrayed in the most respectful way possible and in a very postive light.
If HBO was out to get vengeance on the church by showing it, they did a terrible job.

Ironically, what HBO did was give a whitewashed version of what actually goes on in the temple. I wouldn't be surprised if it attracts new converts that had previously imagined the temple endowment to be a dark and sinister ritual. I believe this episode helped the church by removing fears about what goes on in the temple. The depiction of Barb going through was very moving, and more spiritual than experiencing it in real life.

If HBO really wanted to disrespect Mormons, they would have shown Barb having a flashback to the covenants she made to the church, the penalties Barb enacted on her throat and bowels prior to 1990, the sexist Patriarchal language that is integral for her practicing polygamy, the washings and annointings, and the clips of Satan threatening those who break their covenants to portay the gravity of her excommunication.

They could have easily made Mormons appear to be dangerous and threatening in their obedience and loyalty to the church/Prophets (instilling fear for the political force they have, especially following Prop 8) and made it fit the storyline, yet they showed a beautiful short scene of Barb at the veil and in the prayer circle.

[_KimberlyAnn]

I think you're right, Seven.

My friends thought the chanting in a circle and handshakes and aprons were odd, but when I told them those participating in the temple ritual were likely doing it for folks who were dead is when they really got curious. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around the concept of "converting" the deceased.

"So THAT'S why Mormons do all that genealogy work!!"

"Yes."

"OMG!"

"A participant takes the name of a deceased individual and does all those ordinances in proxy for them. Of course, that's after the deceased have been baptized by proxy, which happens before the endowment on their behalf."

"OMG!"

Of course, one of those gals who thought my former participation in temple ordinances odd is a Pentecostal. I visited her church after I left Mormonism and she announced to her Sunday School class that I was a former Mormon and her class wanted to pray for me. I didn't want them to, but was too uncomfortable to tell them. We got in a circle and held hands, which was common enough, but then some dude broke out of the circle, came and put his hands on my shoulders, and started praying in tongues! I was horrified. I mean, frozen in horror. I'd never heard glossolalia before and it was so bizarre, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I could hear his voice right in my ear and feel his breath on my head. Freaks me out now, just thinking about it.

"ShamalammmadingdongashammalammalaaaaaamammaaaaaJesusshammmmalllllllllllllllllllaaamashoopshoopdo-wop." Or something like that. ;)

He went on for what felt like an hour. After Sunday School, I couldn't run to my car fast enough.

Tongue-talkers are definitely something else. I hope a Mormon breaks out in tongues at the veil someday. What a hoot!

KA

[_harmony]

"ShamalammmadingdongashammalammalaaaaaamammaaaaaJesusshammmmalllllllllllllllllllaaamashoopshoopdo-wop."

You sure he wasn't channeling Cher? Or maybe Otis Day and the Knights?

[_cinepro]

Well, the season is over, and Bond has posted his summary of the last episode:

Big Love Season 3, Episode 10

I watched this one and it was really good.

Turns out, they film the show at a studio here in SoCal and use the streets near my house for their "driving scenes", so I was pretty shocked to see them drive by our nearby Wal-Mart last episode.