'Big Little Lies' Season 2 is ironically about telling the truth

One of the fun things about the ending of Big Little Lies Season 1 was that almost everyone got away with their big, little lies. The open-endedness of that finale, with questions remaining about Madeline’s affair, Celeste and Jane’s shared trauma, and the assumed aftermath of Perry’s death wrapped the story in a dreamy, what-if haze that hovered satisfyingly over the grey Monterey shore. Some secrets, the show seemed to say, are necessary for a happy life.

It wasn’t the most moral ending in the history of television, but it was very effective. Until, of course, Season 2 came to blow it all to hell.

With the general set dressing of Season 2 Episode 1 out of the way, Episode 2 came in with a flamethrower, setting fire to the tenuous peace that followed last season’s lies. Over the course of fifty-three minutes, Ed discovered Madeline’s affair, Celeste told Mary Louise that Perry was an abuser and a rapist, Renata’s husband was arrested for insider trading, Bonnie’s mother pointed out that her daughter has Trivia Night–related PTSD, and in the episode’s most heartbreaking scene, Jane told Ziggy who and what his father truly was.

That’s so much truth for Big Little Lies. And yet it’s the only way the show could possibly continue. The strange circumstances of Big Little Lies’ second season renewal (read: it didn’t have to happen but everyone wanted more) have put the show in the rare position of extending so far beyond its story that its Season 1 moral must reverse — the quiet comfort of a secret shared is no longer held paramount. Instead, the women of Monterey are forced to confront the truth for its own sake and discover honesty’s place in their lives.

The new idea that honesty should prevail over secrecy is encapsulated in Jane Chapman’s reaction to the news that Ziggy already knows he shares a father with two of his classmates. Jane resolves in that moment to teach him about his parentage as well as the concept of assault; Shailene Woodley’s performance shows how every word of that horrible truth hurts Jane more than she can possibly show, but in a later conversation with Celeste she explains that being honest was the only thing she could do. If she didn’t tell Ziggy, she says, then “his life was built on a foundation of lies.” The subtext is that a life built on lies, big or little, is not worth living.

The other characters fare worse when their secrets are revealed but still circle back to the idea that truth is better than lies. Madeline loses Ed as a partner after he discovers that she kept the news of Ziggy’s father from him as well as her affair. That Ed views that first betrayal almost as bad as the second is telling — he’s not as upset about the affair as he is about Madeline keeping it a secret. The truth, ironically, could have saved her the torment she feels at the end of the episode.

Celeste undergoes a similar revelation when Mary Louise asks why she didn’t go to the police “if” Perry was abusing her. Though Celeste’s life would currently be easier if she had told more people about the abuse before Trivia Night, her case is different from the others in that Mary Louise’s questioning is both problematic and unfair. The realities of domestic abuse rarely allow victims the luxury of disclosure, and Celeste herself barely knows how to process his monstrocity until her therapist guides her through a painful exercise in this very episode. Honesty for Celeste is a double edged sword, as she was and remains the character least likely to be believed when it matters.

There’s plenty more Big Little Lies Season 2 coming up, but the trajectory of the season appears to be rapidly accelerating towards a series of confrontations that will change both the characters and how viewers see the show. Now that the plot is shining light after light on the secrets and lies that held everyone’s lives together, the final scene of Season 1 feels like a naive fantasy compared to the consequences and fallout.

RIP, the lies of Big Little Lies. Long live their horrible, horrible truths.