Meryl Streep’s ‘Big Little Lies’ Debut Led To An Amazing ‘Mamma Mia’ Revelation

Big Little Lies, the prestigious HBO series that began as a self-contained mini-series but has nevertheless returned for a second season, returned on Sunday, with Meryl Streep joining a cast that also includes Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, and Zoe Kravitz.

Streep, on the show, is playing the mother of Alexander Skarsgård’s character, who died at the end of the first season, kicking off the plot of the new season. And, per The AV Club, fans of the show have come to a revelation that ties in with another recent role by the same actress.

As pointed out by a Twitter user named Molly, “If Meryl Streep’s son is Alexander Skarsgård I believe we finally have the answer to who the real dad is in Mamma Mia.”

The plot of the 2008 movie Mamma Mia, as well as the Broadway musical that inspired it, was that Streep’s character Donna was the mother of Amanda Seyfried’s Sophie, and had raised her as a single mother. Sophie, who is getting married, decides to invite the three men who could be her father- Harry, Sam, and Bill- to the wedding. Bill was played in the first and second Mamma Mia movies by Stellan Skarsgård, the Swedish actor who is Alexander Skarsgard’s father.

The film left the truth of Sophie’s parentage ambiguous, but fans of both that movie and Big Little Lies think they have the answer.

Skarsgard returned for last year’s movie sequel, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, along with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, although Streep did not, save for a brief cameo at the end. Similarly, Alexander Skarsgard, despite the death of his character in the first season, is scheduled to appear at least occasionally on the current season of Big Little Lies.

The series, which is based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, debuted on HBO in early 2017, with the series created by veteran TV writer/producer David E. Kelley. The series was nominated for 16 Emmy Awards and won eight of them, including for Outstanding Limited Series.

However, Big Little Lies turned out to not be so limited after all, as HBO announced in late 2017 that it was making a second season. This led, per The Hollywood Reporter, to “outrage” about its categorization as a limited series, as the renewal was announced after nominations were announced for the Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

Both seasons of Big Little Lies consist of seven episodes.