By now, anyone who’s watched the latest episode of Big Love – if you haven’t yet, then run far away from this post — likely wound up feeling aghast, skeeved out or unsurprised by the fact that they went THERE.
Margene. Ben. …
… Lip-lock. And not a stepmom-stepkid kinda lip-lock either. As if their smooch wasn’t enough to make viewers squirm in their seats, the Big Love writers then literally shined a spotlight on Ben — the one who wrote a highly inappropriate love letter to his father’s third wife last season — and had him referred to as “Mr. Margene Heffman” to the home shopping channel’s primetime audience, which included Ben’s mother (also Margene’s sister-wife).
My response to the scene was a combination of feeling both aghast and skeeved. After several seasons of watching the series try to project a veneer of vanilla, suburban normalcy onto the Henricksons — as if they’re just like any other middle class family with the bustle of kids’ activities, family meals and work/life issues (except for the multiple wives, the connection to a polygamist compound and constant criminal conspiring/blackmailing) — this turn of events took a giant step away from that concept and injected adult sexuality into a stepmom-kid relationship because the adult initiated it. (Reminded me a bit of Margene’s mother coming onto Bill in season two, although Bill was an unwilling recipient of his mother-in-law’s affections.)
The Boston Globe’s Matthew Gilbert called this “a problem that is more important to the show than it seems,” adding, “Will the entire family structure break down in boundaryless and abuse when monogamy is not in the picture? … Are the Henricksons going to become a miniaturized and prettified version of Juniper Creek?”
What do you think about the decision to have Margene and Ben kiss? What does this foreshadow for the Henrickson family?
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Jan 28, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
I like it because it calls into question exactly how “normal” they are as well as the impact/effect that the dual lifestyle has played on the kids. Sarah pretty clearly sees the patriarchy as limiting and rejects it for her future. But Ben is a male. Patriarchy isn’t LIMITING to him, and he’s learned different lessons than Sarah.
Bill doesn’t want to be like the compound males, so he hasn’t been as alpha dog to the new man living in his home. Ben would have been kicked out of the house already if they lived on the compound, just like Bill was. Bill is trying to pick and choose the parts of the polygamous lifestyle and the suburban “normal” lifestyle that he likes and ignore the rest. The whole family is a powderkeg and that kiss may well have been the spark that sets it off.
Being introduced as Mr. Margene is not that big of a deal – it’s easily explained away as a mis-understanding. But what that kiss started in Ben (and possibly Margene) is going to be significant.