K. and I just finished watching the first three seasons of Big Love, HBO's soap opera about the pseudo-Mormon polygamists. Bill Paxton stars as Bell Hendrickson, who has seemingly overcome his childhood in a cult-like, fundamentalist compound to become a thriving businessman. But Bill has a secret: even though he's he's living as a mainstream suburbanite, he's living the polygamist lifestyle. That secret continually threatens his standing in the community just as his success makes him a target for the people he left behind, especially the cult's sinister leader, played by the always fantastic Harry Dean Stanton.

But Bill's polygamy is also his strength, as he has three partners in life to support him and help him protect his family. Jeanne Tripplehorn plays Barb, Bill's first wife, who struggles with Bill's mid-life conversion to polygamy, but is wise and grounded enough to lead her sister wives. Chloe Sevigny plays Nicolette, his second wife, who is actually the cult leader's daughter, who alternately disdains and falls victim to the world outside her father's compound. And Ginnifer Goodwin plays Margie, Bill's third wife, who is twenty-five younger and formerly the family's babysitter. Goodwin, who I've only really seen as Johnny Cash's first wife in Walk The Line, really lights up the screen and steals most of the scenes she's in.

In what seems like more than a coincidence, three of the teenagers in the show are played by former Veronica Mars castmates: Amanda Seyfried, Tina Majorino, and Kyle Gallner.

It's a good show with a solid cast and mostly excellent writing. I say "mostly" because season three, despite taking almost two years to produce, felt like a rush job compared to the tight plotting of first two.