Big Little Lies season 2 episode 4 review: No one has their lives figured out

One slap to rule them all took over this week’s episode of Big Little Lies and confirmed what we already kind of knew: No one has their lives figured out and everyone is struggling.

All it took was Celeste slapping Mary Louise for this episode of Big Little Lies to turn from a slight mess into a Monterey-sized catastrophe. Throughout the last few episodes, we’ve seen all the women struggle with something outside of the death of Perry Wright. To be fair, Bonnie continues to struggle with what she did, but she seems to be the only one grappling with that.

Madeline is all too consumed in her own marriage that she helped to destroy, and Jane and Celeste are worried about their children and the father they no longer have more than what happened that night that Perry died. So really, no one cares that Perry Wright is dead except for Mary Louise Wright.

Maybe Mary Louise’s days are numbered, maybe she is the next on the “accidental fall” list or maybe she’s just the villain that none of these women need in their lives but she has certainly made a name for herself while in town. Living with Celeste at the beginning of the season, she’s decided to move into Jane’s complex to be closer to her other grandson, but her wicked ways remained trained on Celeste, who she has deemed as ‘unfit’ and wants to take the twins from.

The episode begins with a pumpkin decorating party that escalates into Celeste slapping Mary Louise, who insults her relationship with Perry. Quipping about the slap, Mary Louise then seems to make it her mission to destroy Celeste’s life — at least where her sons are involved.

Deeming her “unfit,” Mary Louise begins fighting to try and get full custody of the boys to the point that Jane has to go to Mary Louise to make sure that she’s not going to come for Ziggy next. Meanwhile, Renata just wants to give her daughter one last huge birthday party to make her feel better and let her forget about all the hardships her family faces.

So, she throws a disco party for an 8-year-old and has the Tramps perform. Not exactly an 8-year-old’s dream but everyone seems to have a wonderful time — except for Ed and Madeline. Still trying to understand where their relationship is, Madeline wants to dance with Ed, but he refuses and instead has fun with Bonnie. Madeline is continually being told she’s unhinged and she just wants to know what the future holds for her and Ed.

As the party is coming to a close, Bonnie’s mother has a seizure and has visions of a woman drowning. As she’s coming to in the hospital later on, she realizes that it is Bonnie and the last image we see is a premonition that Bonnie is going to die.

Hopefully, her mother opens up and tells Bonnie and stops it from ever happening. That is if anyone on this show actually talked to one another instead of gossiping and lying to everyone. But that’s Monterey. And that’s what we sign up for each week we watch Big Little Lies but hopefully, somewhere down the line, everyone can start to talk about their problems.

Make sure to check back here on Culturess for more Big Little Lies reviews and news after each new episode!