Come, ye saints .. ye weary .. all sinners, come home.

softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. Come home. come home. Ye who are weary, come home. earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling: all sinners, come home.


List of Big Love episodes - Wkp # Season 3: 2009
30 (3-06) 'Come, Ye Saints': writ by Melanie Marnich; dir by Dan Attias; aired February 22, 2009. The Henricksons embark on a 2,500-mile road-trip pilgrimage to a Joseph Smith shrine in Cumorah, NY, where Bill intends to bury a family time capsule in the sacred earth. Along the way, a series of jarring revelations test the limits of their family bonds and Bill’s faith.
HBO: Big Love: episode 30 synopsis

wow. was that the best hour of television I've ever seen? {up against wh? Lost pilot. Lost S1 finale too. (ok I pick part1 of the finale, with Sawyer saying goodbye to Jack & telling him about meeting Christian in Australia. then the launching of the raft! lovely. Vincent swimming after, oh.) Veronica Mars pilot. The Riches pilot, wh still recall as a fine hour of television even if the series d n sustain. Nip/Tuck pilot too I guess: Escobar.}
wow. just really really good.

my wow echoed in first comment on twop forum after this aired *and* a comment on AlanS blogpost:

Big Love - TWoP Forums p78:
-Tonight's ep: wow...just...wow.

What's Alan Watching?: Big Love, "Come, Ye Saints": I will turn these cars right around!:
-I've loved this show since it started, but this might be the best episode. Seriously. Wow. Just....wow.

after watching last nite, collected some of the responses dlcs tele-v a-before: AlanS & comments (13 then, now ~25), JamesP (only 1 cmmt). per twop Ausiello said last week that the coming epis was a masterpiece. I think that's right. so we get the "wow just wow"s and also lots of "I laughed, I cried." wh I tht also, bcs I did! numerous standout darkly funny moments and numerous poignant moments.

The House Next Door: Big Love Mondays (on Tuesday): Season 3, Ep. 6, "Come, Ye Saints" -By Todd VanDerWerff :
“Come, Ye Saints” has a lot going on (most of the secrets the characters have been carrying around since Season One come out, including Bill’s Viagra use and Nicki’s birth control pills and Ben's attraction to Margene*), but it never feels overfull as some other episodes have this season, perhaps because it doesn’t try to shove in a plot at the Juniper Creek compound. It moves with a calm grace of its own as the characters retrace the steps of their ancestors, chased across the country and into the wilderness by angry mobs aplenty. It’s a deeply moving tribute to the idea that a big family can be both a hindrance and, in times of trial, a salvation. It’s easily Big Love’s best episode ever, and, if we’re being honest, one of the best television episodes I’ve seen in a long, long time. yes yes hear hear.

so much happened, didn't it? just being with the family, in different groups and pairs in the cars, for the whole episode was fantastic. all the interactions, among Barb & Nikki & Margene (Nikki responding to Barb saying they are still upset about Ana ~"yes, we're unhappy about that, but right now we've got larger fish to fry.") Barb overhearing Nikki on the phone with Mr.Henry, all blushing in manner. Margene acting with her oddball sincere generosity in trying to help Bill get excited for Nikki. and Ben & Sarah. Sarah & her dad: her tearing up, so happy, at his offer for just the two of them to go out in Chicago. Barb trying to be close to Sarah. Margene emphatically telling Sarah to ride with her mother and she Margene will ride with Benny, because she wants to take charge of what happened, and her later unambigious confrontation with him:"if you have feelings, you need to get over it." and Bill's moments while taking the family photo, being forgotten at the park, at the end praying over the time capsule with the unseen angel rising behind him.
and! death and new life. Margene's mother -"she's gone"- and the baptism. and Sarah with Nikki, then with all of them.


What's Alan Watching?: Big Love, "Come, Ye Saints"
-Best episode by far in the entire run of Big Love, and so good and redeeming that I feel paid off for watching every prior episode. There was just so much pay off in so many ways. Beautifully done.

-Completely agree with all of the praise heaped on this episode so far, but wanted to add that the quick looks we got at Mormon hostory, and a modern polygamous family's view on them, were yet another thing this episode did really well. They really demonstrated how foreign Mormon culture really is to much of America without doing any cliched or hackneyed "fish out of water" stuff. They also found ways to criticize some of Mormon history (the treatment of blacks, the in-absentia baptimisms) without being heavy-handed. What amazes me the most about this show is how well it balances critiques of religion while never mocking or looking down at the character's religious beliefs.

-I thought the incident with the angel was the high point of the entire series. The uncanny music (mystere de la voix bulgare?) fit the awe-inspiring otherness of a divine encounter. The fact that it was a stage-managed pageant, and Bill never saw it--and most of all, as the preacher said, the whole story might have been from the mouth of a charlatan--suggests the position that human beings find themselves in. Possibly duped, lost, and yet in the presence of mystery.

-christy whose Lost posts ~I think after Jughead, re the time travel logic & 12 monkeys~ stood out to me said... I LOVED IT. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this episode since watching it. The moment when Bill was taking the group photo, looked up and finally saw the sadness and worry on the faces of everyone in his family--that hit me like a ton of bricks.
I kept having the feeling during this episode that scenes were ending right before someone was going to say something important. Especially, of course, Sarah telling someone that she was pregnant. The wordless ending finally had me in tears after being close to it at many points in the episode. Effing amazing hour of TV.

-Amanda Seyfried was wonderful tonight. Aside from the scenes with her miscarriage, I was almost brought to tears in the scene she shared with Bill in the car. When he suggested that they spend a day together in Chicago, she was more excited and happy than I remember seeing her. Bill has always seemed more focused on the boys, and you could really see what Sarah lost when the family became plural.
Watching all the secrets come out into the open was riveting. Didn't we see Bill take Viagra in the very first episode? Even without that, seeing all the interactions (who was riding in the card with whom) was interesting. y I love that.

[first name is driver]
in the cars:
Bill & Barb with Nikki's three boys
Nikki & Marge with Marge's baby
Ben & Sarah with Teeny

then overnight Bill w Marge - urn, viagra. Barb w Nikki - phone call fr boss. ...in morning, Nikki talks to Wanda then discovers her boys with Margene's mother's ashes. .

then, in the cars:
Bill & Nikki with her boys - she reads about the show & gives sweet 'wow' to Bill, who touches her hand.
Barb & Sarah
Marge & Ben w her baby - playing travel game spotting y & z

(where was Teeny? I think there are only three cars, since each of these breakdowns includes all six adult drivers in pairs of two. Bill driving both times, Sarah neither. but otherwise switches up with Barb and Marge riding then driving and Nikki and Ben driving then riding)

then overnight Bill w Nikki (Marge comes by in swimsuit)

then, in the cars:
Bill & Sarah