In the finale of Big Little Lies, questions get answered, suspicions are confirmed and oddly enough, new friendships are brought to life in the aftermath of death at the fated “Trivia Night.” The show ends with things basically all tied in a bow, even if few would call the bow particularly pretty.
In the episode, Jane’s son Ziggy opens up to her and finally reveals the truth about who has been hurting Renata’s daughter at school. Jane is relieved to know for a certainty that her son is not the culprit, but she is also put in the awkward position of having to tell one of her new best friends that her son is actually the bully. When Celeste learns that it’s one of her sons who has been hurting a girl in his class, she is forced to admit that her children are very much aware of, and affected by, her husband’s continued abuse.
The biggest reveals of the finale happen almost simultaneously. The first is something I’ve been secretly suspecting since the end of the first episode: that the identity of Ziggy’s father and the man who sexually assaulted Jane all those years ago is actually Perry Wright, Celeste’s abusive husband. The second is learning the identity of the person who dies at the school’s trivia night fundraiser, also Perry Wright.
Though I can’t pretend I was sad to see him die, my favorite parts of the episode were the few minutes leading up to the gory climax of Perry getting pushed down the stairs to meet his end. The moments when Renata learns the truth about the bullying situation from Celeste and seeks out Jane to apologize for her suspicions.
The moments when these women and fellow mothers realize just how wrong they were about each other, and break down their own walls to admit it.
Something that struck me again and again as a terrifying theme of the show was the conniving nature of the relationships between the parents in the school. More often than not, the kids were the ones maturely coexisting while the parents threw tantrums and fought each other like children. Throughout each episode there were snippets of the investigators interviewing all the parents about the events at trivia night. Their answers sounded like they belonged on a reality TV show for high schoolers.
I found myself watching the scenes of the mothers interacting with a growing sense of dread. Is this really how it is when kids start school? Do all the moms really compete like that? And hate each other while doing so?
With my daughter about to start kindergarten, I couldn’t help but start to worry that in a few years’ time I would be seeing some of the show’s drama played out in my real life. Being around fellow moms makes me nervous as it is. I have this ridiculous yet very real inferiority complex around most other mothers, because I am younger than they are. If fellow parents and in particular moms are as pitted against each other as the show makes them out to be, there’s no way I can even compete.
After watching the final episode of the show I feel hopeful, a feeling strikingly different than the nervousness – and even minor despair – I was left feeling after the first six episodes.
To me, the last scene is so beautiful, even if it is slightly flawed. These five women are all standing on a beach, watching their children play together in the sand, deeply and forever connected by the tragic events they’ve witnessed together. Five women who at the beginning of the series couldn’t be in the same room together without open hostility, like a group of catty thirteen-year-olds just learning to use their claws. Now they stand together as one, and it seems likely that their friendships will only get stronger from here.
All women.
All mothers.
All supporting each other through life’s most challenging obstacles.
That is what I will hope to find in the fellow moms I am about to become acquainted with as Skye starts school. I have a feeling I won’t be hoping in vain.
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About the Author
April 2017 – GIRLS
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