At long last, the highly anticipated second installment of HBO’s Big Little Lies is almost here, and we can’t wait to revisit the Monterey Five once more. But, if comments made by Nicole Kidman during a panel discussion ahead of the season are any indication, BLL fans can also expect a less likable character to play a part in what’s to come. Did Kidman really drop a BLL season two spoiler? Or were her remarks just a slip of the tongue? We’ll fill you in on the details and let you be the judge.
Since the stars of the series are gearing up for the June 9 premiere, they’ve been doing quite a bit of press to hype up the second season — all while being careful not to reveal too much. Until, it would seem, Kidman shared some surprising insight about a character most of us assumed wouldn’t be seen again in the BLL universe. It all started innocently enough, with Kidman being asked about her working relationship with Alexander Skarsgård. In season one, he played the abusive husband of her character, Celeste. However, Kidman’s response came off as seriously spoiler-y. “He was the most incredible acting partner, and then he came back for season two,” she said, eliciting a giggle and raised eyebrows from her co-producer and co-star Reese Witherspoon.
Naturally, Kidman tried to backtrack a bit, saying, “He has a little bit of a part in the sense of… the basis of… okay, I’ll be quiet. He didn’t abandon us. We’ll put it that way.”
Wait, what? Does this really mean what we think it means? If Kidman’s comments are taken at face value, we’re led to believe that Skarsgård will reprise his role as Perry. This seems illogical considering (spoiler alert!) his death was central to the ending of the first season. So, there are a few hypotheses we can draw here. The first, and arguably most outlandish, is that Perry didn’t really die. We’ve seen this happen in soapy TV shows and melodramatic movies before, right? It’s the old bait-and-switch. But what purpose would it really serve for Perry to survive? It would pretty much kill the whole storyline about the Monterey Five being investigated in connection with Perry’s death.
The more plausible theory — and the one we’re banking on — is that Skarsgård will appear as his recently deceased character in flashbacks. When you think about it, in fact, it makes a ton of sense for Perry to still play a part. As we found out last season, he raped Jane (played by Shailene Woodley), which resulted in her having his son. Since that served as one of last season’s final explosively revealed secrets, it stands to reason that incident and its repercussions could be mined more.
Plus, Meryl Streep signed on for season two to play Perry’s mother, Mary Louise Wright. As has been made very clear in teaser trailers for the second season, she’s determined to find out the truth behind her son’s death. So, we might get to see flashbacks of Perry that give context to his relationship with Mary Louise… aka how we turned out to be such a monster.
Of course, we’ll just have to tune in to see if and when Skarsgård makes an appearance. Big Little Lies season two premieres June 9 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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