The first season of Big Little Lies arrived on HBO in February 2017 billed as a miniseries. It ends with a death on a school trivia night and a circle of women closing ranks around a secret. That should have been the end of it.
It was not. The show ran from February 19, 2017 to July 21, 2019, two seasons and 14 episodes, and a third season was confirmed in September 2025. The question a review has to answer is whether the extension was worth it, and the answer is: mostly, but the first season is the one that earns the score.
Trailer, via HBO.
Monterey, and the mothers of first graders
Big Little Lies is based on the 2014 novel by Liane Moriarty. David E. Kelley created and wrote the series. Jean-Marc Vallée directed the first season; Andrea Arnold directed the second.
The setup is a schoolyard. Three mothers of first graders in Monterey, California, whose apparently perfect lives come apart to the point of murder. Nicole Kidman plays Celeste Wright. Reese Witherspoon plays Madeline Mackenzie. Shailene Woodley plays Jane Chapman. Laura Dern plays Renata Klein. Zoë Kravitz plays Bonnie Carlson. The five of them become tangled in a homicide investigation.
The supporting cast is deep and does real work. Alexander Skarsgård plays Perry Wright. Adam Scott plays Ed Mackenzie. James Tupper plays Nathan Carlson. Jeffrey Nordling plays Gordon Klein. Kathryn Newton plays Abigail Carlson. Iain Armitage plays Ziggy Chapman, Jane’s son.
A miniseries that kept going
Here is the structural problem, and it is worth naming plainly. Big Little Lies was originally billed as a miniseries. The first season has a shape: a death, a reveal, a group of women who choose each other over the truth.
Then HBO ordered a second season, and the show had to find a reason to exist past its own ending. It found one in Meryl Streep, who joined the cast in January 2018 as Mary Louise Wright, the mother of Skarsgård’s character. Streep is the best argument the second season has.
The returning players were confirmed in February 2018: Woodley, Dern, Kravitz, Scott, Tupper, Nordling and Armitage. Newton and Sokolovic came back. Crystal Fox joined the main cast in April, though only Newton received main billing; Fox and Sokolovic were credited as recurring. Douglas Smith was cast in a recurring role in March. Mo McRae and Martin Donovan joined the recurring cast alongside returners Weigert and Dungey. Byrne was announced with Poorna Jagannathan in May, then Denis O’Hare in June.
That is a lot of names for a show that had already told its story.
The first season earns the awards
The first season received 16 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won 8. That includes Outstanding Limited Series, a directing award for Vallée, and acting awards for Kidman, Skarsgård and Dern.
The trio also won Golden Globe Awards. The series won for Best Miniseries or Television Film. Kidman and Skarsgård also took Screen Actors Guild Awards.
That is not a fluke of a weak year. Kidman’s Celeste is the center of the show, a woman in a marriage that is violent. Skarsgård plays Perry as charming right up until he is not. Dern’s Renata is the show’s comic engine and its most reliable source of class anxiety, a woman who has everything and cannot stop announcing it.
The series drew acclaim for its writing, directing, acting, production values, cinematography and soundtrack. All of that is fair. The Monterey coastline is shot like a luxury advertisement, and the show knows it, which is the point.
What the second season does with Meryl Streep
Streep’s Mary Louise arrives asking questions nobody wants answered. She is the mother of a dead man and she wants to know how he died. The performance is precise and cold, and it gives the second season a spine the plot does not otherwise have.
But the second season is a season of aftermath, and aftermath is a weaker engine than discovery. The first season had a mystery. The second has a woman asking pointed questions. That is a real pleasure. It is not the same thing.
Arnold directs the second season with less heat than Vallée brought to the first, in this paper’s view. The show is still beautiful. It is less dangerous.
Casting, in order of how much it matters
The casting is the show’s actual achievement, and it happened fast. Kidman and Witherspoon were attached when the adaptation was announced. In December 2015, Woodley, Scott, Dern and Kravitz were cast in lead roles, with Newton recurring. The following month, Skarsgård, Tupper and Nordling joined the starring cast.
Here is the running order of the principal cast as the show built it:
| Announced | Cast member | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Initial | Nicole Kidman | Celeste Wright |
| Initial | Reese Witherspoon | Madeline Mackenzie |
| December 2015 | Shailene Woodley | Jane Chapman |
| December 2015 | Laura Dern | Renata Klein |
| December 2015 | Zoë Kravitz | Bonnie Carlson |
| December 2015 | Adam Scott | Ed Mackenzie |
| January 2016 | Alexander Skarsgård | Perry Wright |
| January 2016 | James Tupper | Nathan Carlson |
| January 2016 | Jeffrey Nordling | Gordon Klein |
| January 2018 | Meryl Streep | Mary Louise Wright |
Armitage landed a supporting role in that same January 2016 round, alongside Santiago Cabrera, P. J. Byrne, Kelen Coleman, Sarah Burns, Darby Camp, Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti, Ivy George, Chloe Coleman, Virginia Kull, Sarah Baker, Kathreen Khavari, Larry Bates, Hong Chau, Gia Carides, Merrin Dungey, Larry Sullivan and David Monahan.
The case for 7.5
Big Little Lies is a great first season attached to a good second one, and the score has to account for both.
The second season is a different show. It is slower, sadder, and built around a performance rather than a plot. Streep is worth the ticket. The show around her is thinner than it was.
So the score lands at 7.5 out of 10. That matches the published critical score, and it is the right number for a series whose best work is behind it but whose ambition never dropped. Here is how this paper ranks the show’s parts, best first:
- Kidman’s Celeste, the center of the series and the reason the first season holds.
- The first season’s writing and direction, which won the Emmys and the Globes.
- Dern’s Renata, the comic engine and the show’s most reliable source of class anxiety.
- Streep’s Mary Louise, a precise, cold performance that gives the second season a spine.
- The second season’s plot, which is aftermath, and aftermath is a weaker engine than discovery.
If you are coming to Big Little Lies now, watch the first season and stop. Then watch the second, because Streep is in it, and because the women are still worth the time. Just know that the mystery is over, and what is left is grief and a group of actresses who are better than the material they were handed the second time around.
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