{"id":5092,"date":"2016-04-10T14:52:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T09:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5092"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:27:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:57:50","slug":"big-little-lies-season-2-women-grief-domestic-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5092","title":{"rendered":"Big Little Lies and the Truth About Women\u2019s Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">W<\/span>hat do you see when you look into the mirror? Some days, I see myself as a confused, scared <\/p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/satire\/cbse-boards-rajiv-gandhi-ins-viraat-modi-rahul-results\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">child<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who experienced something no child should ever have to experience. On other days, I\u2019m 24 and violently in love with a man who would go on to break my heart. There are days when I\u2019m 28 and drowning, arms flailing wildly as a career I spent a decade building is torn asunder. On the days that are left I am the me of today: 32, and silently surveying the shrapnel left behind by wars past. There will be more, experience tells me.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which one of these versions is the most authentic version of me? Which <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/love-and-sex\/love-break-up-friends-relationships\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">heartbreak<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or hurt changed me irrevocably? Was there a fork in the road where pain distilled the essence of me the individual components it was made up of, the sum of the parts always destined to be lesser than the original whole? We are, after all, as much a product of our most soul-searing sadnesses as the joys that make the nerves sing.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite its infuriatingly wasted potential, the second season of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/big-little-lies-season-two-finale-meryl-streep-nicole-kidman\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big Little Lies<\/span><\/i><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">flirted with this grief, a state of the human condition that makes us wary, uncomfortable, and eager to tuck away into the most lightless corners of our person. Grief, at its desolate best, is too tedious for us to engage with just for the sake of it. Its narrative has to be woven around that silver bullet called moving on. It takes great eloquence to tell a story of unspeakable grief, not simply so you can promise your listener that everything eventually falls in place and people go home happy, but because life\u2019s messiness needs to be acknowledged too. Not everyone gets a happy ending; sometimes you just have to settle for a-little-better-than-before.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If season one of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big Little Lies <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was all about shattering the them-not-us illusion of what a victim of domestic violence looks like, season two tried \u2014 but failed \u2014 to capture the hypnotic nature of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pov\/grief-loss-mourning-death-closure-social-media-sharing-facebook-twitter-whatsapp-instagram\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">grief<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-52627\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1563941811.jpg\" alt=\"big_little_lies\" width=\"611\" height=\"407\" \/>\n<figcaption>\n<p>It takes great eloquence to tell a story of unspeakable grief, not simply so you can promise your listener that everything eventually falls in place, but because life\u2019s messiness needs to be acknowledged too.<\/p>\n<p>HBO<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most popular and thoroughly debated theory about mourning and grief \u2014 stage theory \u2014 posits that there are five stages to the process: denial, anger, bargaining, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/health\/depression-middle-class-diagnosis\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">depression<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and acceptance. Poorly written they might be, but between them, Mary Louise (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/meryl-streep-big-little-lies-nicole-kidman-reese-witherspoon\/\">Meryl Streep<\/a>) and the Monterey Five \u2014 Madeline (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/18-years-of-legally-blonde-elle-woods-underrated-reese-witherspoon-big-little-lies\/\">Reese Witherspoon<\/a>), Renata (Laura Dern), Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Bonnie (Zo\u00eb Kravitz), and Jane (Shailene Woodley) \u2014 perfectly encapsulate the messiness of mourning. Their feelings, like their sorrows, aren\u2019t linear. They reveal themselves in the oddest, most inconvenient moments, a lifetime after the societally approved statute of limitations to talk about them is over.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was a Madeline once upon a time, stuck in an unchallenged loop of denial, obstinate and unwilling to admit \u2014 even to myself \u2014 that it was my own feeling of inadequacy not anything he said or did that made me sabotage a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/love-and-sex\/dating-relationships-tinder\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">relationship<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that I really, desperately just wanted to protect. Did he break my heart, or did I break it myself, so I could be the destroyer, not the destroyed? Who among us can claim innocence from standing in the way of our own happiness?\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I dated a Renata once. If rage could manifest itself in human form, it would be him. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/middle-class-mentality-indian-families\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wealth<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 the creation of it, the pursuit of it, and watching it grow \u2014 was what gave his life purpose. His commitment to affluence was both vulgar and a thing of great beauty. Unlike me, he\u2019d crawled his way out of a hole of hardship and was adamant he was never going to be returned there, if he had any say in the matter. To date, I can\u2019t tell with certainty what he could never forgive me for: the fact that I fell out of love with him without notice, or the money he lost on a bad deal with someone I introduced him to.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know several Celestes (who doesn\u2019t?) secretly in love with men who in no way deserve them, and wracked with helplessness, guilt, and shame, at being unable to stop. Celeste number one was married to her monster. He had the kindest eyes you saw on a man; no one could have imagined the violence they were masking. I\u2019m ashamed to admit it, when she called me one morning, shrieking that he was going to kill her, I almost didn\u2019t believe it. If even doting, devoted husbands like him were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/gender\/abusive-marriage-women-domestic-violence\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hitting their wives<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, what hope was there for the rest of us? I\u2019ll never forget the boot-shaped mark on her back, on her stomach, and her sides. Celeste number two was going to marry hers. They were looking at homes together. She was already looking for jobs in his country. And then one day he vanished. No calls, no explanations, no apologies. What do you do with all the love you\u2019re left with, when something like that happens? Can you lock it up somewhere and lose the keys? Throw it into the ocean? Is it possible to ever stop bargaining with reason so you can land on an explanation for why you can\u2019t stop loving someone who discarded you in the most brutal manner possible? I think not.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\">Grief, at its desolate best, is too tedious for us to engage with just for the sake of it.<\/blockquote>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My cousin is a Bonnie, married to a man she will never love, but secure in the knowledge that he\u2019s too gentle to hurt even a fly. She grew up watching her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/modern-family\/still-a-girl-the-side-of-our-mothers\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mother<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> being beaten by her husband. And her mother being beaten by her father before that. Depressing as the prospect of a loveless life is, even to herself, it\u2019s her way of tending to the psychological wounds by one parent who never allowed even home to be safe, and another who didn\u2019t do enough to protect her from the onslaught.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A friend from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/humour\/first-day-college-expectations-reality\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">college<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a Jane. We were 17 when he told me his story. At 11, his best friend\u2019s brother raped him, repeatedly, over a period of three months. At 13, he tried to kill himself. He tried again, at 14. Then 15. Then 19. For a very long time, the incident robbed him of his ability to participate in happiness, or even seek it, for a very long time. This year, we will celebrate 12 years of freedom from suicidal thoughts. The ghoulishness of his past can\u2019t ever be erased, but acceptance has made his suffering end, at long last.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the most terrifying realisation of it all is that there\u2019s a Mary Louise lurking somewhere within almost all of us. I\u2019ve watched staunchly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/gender\/despite-bollywood-influences-i-am-raising-two-feminist-sons-heres-how-to-do-it\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">feminist<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> friends turn into hostile victim-blamers and apologists when their own boyfriends\u2019 and brothers\u2019 heads were on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pov\/why-has-metoo-scared-every-man\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">#MeToo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> chopping block. I\u2019m ashamed to admit I hovered dangerously close to the precipice too, straddling all five stages of grief, when the accused was someone I had wholeheartedly believed in. We\u2019re all capable of righteous disbelief when the only reality we\u2019ve ever known, is under threat.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-52628\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1563941808.jpg\" alt=\"big_little_lies\" width=\"611\" height=\"407\" \/>\n<figcaption>\n<p>BLL2 did manage to tease out the throbbing, raw nerve that connects the very particular \u2014 and yet very widely shared \u2014 griefs of humankind.<\/p>\n<p>HBO<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a deceptively simple dialogue in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/fleabag-review-phoebe-waller-bridge-andrew-scott-female-coping\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fleabag<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that I haven\u2019t been able to get out of my mind since I heard it: \u201cWomen are born with pain built in. It\u2019s our physical destiny.\u201d Fleabag and her friend are talking about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/gender\/finding-my-feminism-in-a-menstrual-cup\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">menstruation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It made me wonder, is pain our emotional destiny too? How can it not be, given the world that we live in?\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BLL2<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> may have buried the evocativeness of grief under layers of wishy-washy, non-committal storytelling, giving no <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/bollywood\/sonchiriya-women-feminism-abhishek-chaubey-sudip-sharma\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">character<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the respect her story so richly deserved. But it did manage to tease out the throbbing, raw nerve that connects the very particular \u2014 and yet very widely shared \u2014 griefs of humankind. The experience of pain might be exquisitely personal, but it\u2019s very rarely unique. It helps to remember that, whether you\u2019re a Madeline, a Renata, a Celeste, a Bonnie, a Jane, or even a Mary Louise.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If season one of Big Little Lies was all about shattering the them-not-us illusion of what a victim of domestic violence looks like, season two tried to capture the hypnotic nature of grief. Poorly written they might be, but between them, Mary Louise and the Monterey Five perfectly encapsulate the messiness of mourning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":5096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1611,8694,4716,1248,8695,3856,1614,1616,1618,8696],"class_list":["post-5092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-big-little-lies","tag-bll2","tag-domestic-violence","tag-grief","tag-laura-dern","tag-meryl-streep","tag-nicole-kidman","tag-reese-witherspoon","tag-shailene-woodley","tag-zoe-kravitz"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Big Little Lies and the Truth About Women\u2019s Grief<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If season one of Big Little Lies was all about shattering the them-not-us illusion of what a victim of domestic violence looks like, season two tried to capture the hypnotic nature of grief. Poorly written they might be, but between them, Mary Louise and the Monterey Five perfectly encapsulate the messiness of mourning.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5092\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big Little Lies and the Truth About Women\u2019s Grief\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If season one of Big Little Lies was all about shattering the them-not-us illusion of what a victim of domestic violence looks like, season two tried to capture the hypnotic nature of grief. 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Poorly written they might be, but between them, Mary Louise and the Monterey Five perfectly encapsulate the messiness of mourning.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sonali Kokra\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sonali Kokra\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/467643c35de7aba9f94af624e4a1cc7c\"},\"headline\":\"Big Little Lies and the Truth About Women\u2019s Grief\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-10T09:22:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-17T15:57:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092\"},\"wordCount\":1397,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.207.105.184\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/1563942201.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Big Little Lies\",\"bll2\",\"Domestic Violence\",\"grief\",\"Laura Dern\",\"Meryl Streep\",\"Nicole Kidman\",\"Reese Witherspoon\",\"Shailene Woodley\",\"Zo\u00eb Kravitz\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Pop Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092\",\"name\":\"Big Little Lies and the Truth About Women\u2019s Grief\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/?p=5092#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.207.105.184\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/1563942201.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-10T09:22:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-17T15:57:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/13.201.39.237\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/467643c35de7aba9f94af624e4a1cc7c\"},\"description\":\"If season one of Big Little Lies was all about shattering the them-not-us illusion of what a victim of domestic violence looks like, season two tried to capture the hypnotic nature of grief. 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