‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 Episode 6 Recap Of ‘Bad Mothers’: Meryl Streep Continues To Take Center Stage

Big Little Lies certainly includes more than its fair share of bad mothers, but this week one was bad in a very dastardly and disturbing way. Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) can hang a shingle for that moniker.

The creepy mother-in-law who hit Monterey full force — allegedly to find out what happened to her dead son — has quite the agenda. She has been out to get daughter-in-law Celeste (Nicole Kidman) since she arrived and she has been doing undercover work ever since.

For instance, Mary Louise is in cahoots with Detective Quinlan and she has been having Celeste’s every move followed. She also discovered that Jane bought a gun, a purchase that could impact the older woman in a very powerful way.

In the most hair pulling-worthy scene, Mary Louise showed up in court to battle Celeste for custody of her two children, Max and Josh. To get on with her filthy fight, Streep’s character hired a shifty lawyer who put Celeste on the stand to slut shame her on multiple levels. He asked a lot of tough stuff, most especially about her sex life. For the most part, Perry’s widow answered truthfully as she was under oath.

However, for one part of her defense, Celeste did not tell the truth because she made a pact with the other Monterey mothers who were at the scene of her husband’s death. As she told the court that Perry slipped (which is half true since he was pushed, which meant he did kind of slip with a lot of help), Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz) considered confessing to the crime, right then and there.

She didn’t but she still couldn’t get the past out of her mind. Not only did she continually keep feeling the urge to go to the police to confess that she killed Perry, but she also thought about killing her own mother. After all, her mother asked her to do that. Oh, and by the way, her mother was very cruel to Bonnie as she grew up — and her dad didn’t do anything to stop the abuse.

Meanwhile, Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) also started to feel the strain from telling the lie. She almost told her husband in a show of camaraderie because their marriage has been on the rocks, but after talking to Celeste she decided to keep her mouth shut.

As for Jane (Shailene Woodley), the youngest member of the Monterey Five — who was raped by Mary Louise’s son and now has a child the same age as Celeste’s twins — she goes to visit Mary Louise to tell her off and to possibly off her at the same time. Mary Louise pushed her out of the house before that final blow.

However, maybe that act will happen in the final act of Big Little Lies when the season ends next week. Keep your theories coming as this HBO show remains more vexing and nightmarish than ever.