Big Little Lies season one had us gripped with the underlying tension and complex relationships, not to mention the stellar acting from stars like Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, Laura Dern and Nicole Kidman.
We can't get enough of the Monterey mums and their crazy tale, and jumped for joy when HBO commissioned a season two with seven new episodes. Meryl Streep has also joined the cast, causing an Internet furore.
The sophomore series is due to premiere on June 9, 2019 and the first-look images are highly intense. It looks like plenty of confrontations will take place, and epiphany moments.
The teaser shows plenty of screaming, presumably due to the tension of the police investigation.
Meryl is seen throwing some world class shade at the end, playing the role of Perry's mother. Celeste's husband Perry is six feet under after his abuse escalated and he was pushed down the steps by Bonnie.
Perry's mum, Mary Louise, arrives in town with plenty of questions about her son's death. Nicole Kidman shared the first picture of Mary Louise Wright last August, alongside Celeste's "darling boys."
Oh Matt! No need to pray. I got her ! https://t.co/nMitvPXETc
— Reese Witherspoon (@ReeseW) August 1, 2018
Madeleine and Mary Louise appear to have a massive showdown.
Reese and Meryl were seen filming a scene involving an ice cream cone being hurled in Los Angeles. They both appear to be fiery characters, and it's unsurprising that they clash.
The show finally has it's own Instagram account, so we're guessing that it'll be riddled with BLL hints about the new season fairly soon. Currently, it's just a grid of videos and gallery posts about the cast.
A new director is also attached to the project: Andrea Arnold. Every episode of season one was directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, but he was quoted saying, "If we do a season two, we’ll break a beautiful thing and spoil it."
He decided not to do season two, basically. Arnold previously worked on episodes of Transparent and the Oscar-winning short film Wasp.
So happy to be able to finally share this—Big Little Lies’: Denis O’Hare Set To Recur In Season 2 Of HBO Series https://t.co/kodnpiJa7O via @deadline
— Denis O'Hare (@denisohare) June 15, 2018
News also broke that This Is Us and American Horror Story actor Denis O'Hare is set to become a regular cast member for season two. His role is yet to be described though, we're waiting.
It also looks like all the original members of the Monterey Mom patrol are returning. Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman will also return as executive producers (girl power) and Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoë Kravitz are reprising their cast roles.
Rumour has it, Alexander Skarsgård could be back? The actor won a Golden Globe, an Emmy and a SAG Award for his incredible portrayal of Celeste's abusive husband, Perry. Though he's definitely dead, he could appear in flashbacks.
Celeste's husband could still appear in her nightmares. Executive producer Bruna Papandrea recently responded “not that I know of” when asked if Alexander will return.
Alexander has also teased, “I don’t even know if I’m really dead or not. I feel okay right now, but we’ll see.” He's keeping the option open, it would seem.
Liane Moriarty is the author of the book, Big Little Lies. She also wrote the story for season two, despite never publishing a sequel to the book. The season one show-runner and writer David E. Kelley is also returning.
Word on the street is that Bonnie's parents show up to stir trouble. In April 2018, the Hollywood Reporter broke everyone's hearts by claiming Zoë’s real-life celebrity parents Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet will not play Bonnie’s parents on BLL.
Crystal Fox plays Elizabeth Howard, and Martin Donovan (Weeds) will portray Bonnie's father, Martin. Bonnie will struggle to process what she did to Perry, and it has an important emotional link to her past. Deadline reports that Perry's death drags up unsavoury memories from her childhood.
Renata is also due to have a few alterations to her marriage, according to Deadline.
Another new character also hits up Monterey, but this time it's a young,"offbeat" surfer. Actor Douglas Smith will play Corey Brockfield. The character is an “aspiring marine biologist” and Jane’s (Shailene) co-worker. There seems to be potential for a love interest here.
The Canadian actor has worked on The Alienist, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Big Love.
The cast are getting some big pay raises to boot; ABC News reported in April 2018 that the cast will get increases for the second season.
Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming told THR in a different interview that this was a “direct result” of the Time’s Up movement, thanks to Witherspoon:
“One of the things that’s come out of thinking about the movement and some conversations with Reese, who’s really at the forefront, is something we’ve done recently. We’ve proactively gone through all of our shows- in fact, we just finished our process where we went through and made sure that there were no inappropriate disparities in pay, and where there were, if we found any, we corrected it going forward.”
THR claimed in January of last year that Nicole and Reese, who produce the show, will earn $1 million per episode on season two, compared to $250,000 to $350,000 per episode on season one.
Their children's school will get a brand new teacher at Otter Bay Elementary. Mo McRae, of Pitch fame, will play Michael Perkins; a second grade teacher who causes Renata's daughter to have panic attacks about the environment.
HBO confirmed that P. J. Byrne will reprise his role as the school’s principal last May, and Poora Jagannathan (Gypsy, The Night Of) will play a new character named Katie Richmond. We're assuming she's a mum, but nothing's been set in stone.
Meryl has been having a whale of a time on set with the women, even going group bowling with the cast. Nicole Kidman is set to create more projects with Liane Moriarty, specifically her upcoming book Nine Perfect Strangers.
Nicole has bought the film and television rights, so we're in for a treat. We have no word on whether or not there'll be a Big Little Lies season three. BLL creator and executive producer Kelley has said,
“It’s one and two, and we like our closure with season two, but that will probably be it.” Nicole seemed to disagree, saying, “There’s no plan for it to end, specifically. This was a long shoot for us, and it was an enormous amount of work, and we’re just amazed that we can be here.”
Production wrapped in August of 2018, and we're predicting big things...especially after seeing Perry's mother say:
“I want to know what happened that night” while the camera pans to the ladies in a lineup at the police station. The excitement is officially building: only 40 days left to wait.
