Many Faces of Diablo Cody's Modern Housewife; Married Ladies of Big Love

It’s a line that gets at the fractured heart of a series that seems to get better and better with each season, exploring issues of openness in religious belief, economic betterment and emotional escape that are as relevant and chilling as ever. For a show with an off-putting premise — a way of life repellent to most of society — it smartly avoids cheap shock by testing the limits of how much its faith-gripped characters can endure without sacrificing our sympathy for them as human in need of warmth, love and security.

Season three starts with a lot of balls in the air for the Henricksons, who include sister-wives Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Nicki (Chloë Sevigny) and Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin). Bill is trying to build the gaming business he believes will give the family financial strength should his chain of home-improvement stores falter in the wake of his increasing exposure as a polygamist. Pained yet feisty first wife Barb, meanwhile, finds herself revisiting old concerns about where her needs and Bill’s needs intersect. Reproachful and vindictive Nicki continues to struggle with mainstream assimilation and how many ties she should keep to the compound existence she left, while Margene has gone from petulant woman-child to emboldened saleswoman, whether hawking video-poker machines or egging Bill to add lonely Serbian waitress Ana (Branka Katic) as a fourth wife.

Jordin Althaus/Showtime

Mama’s got a brand-new bag: Brie Larson, left, as the daughter with four moms in one. Right, Toni Collette as “Buck”

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More About

• Diablo Cody
• United States of Tara
• Big Love (TV Show)
• Toni Collette
• Matt Ross

But generations past and future continue to pose cohesion problems for the Henricksons, from the nasty compound rift that has put elderly cult prophet Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton) in jail and his creepy son Alby (Matt Ross) in a position of power, to Barb and Bill’s eldest daughter, Sarah (Amanda Seyfried), looking for any way to rebel from what she increasingly views as an unhealthy home situation. This is a show with at least a dozen wonderful performances to brag about — especially Sevigny, Tripplehorn, Seyfried, Ross and the incomparable Grace Zabriskie as Bill’s scheming, scrappy mom — and a storytelling acumen that leaves room for suspense and satire, heartfelt scenes and bone-rattling dread. Big Love may not have the Zeitgeisty juju of other cable shows, but to borrow the characters’ wife-acquisitive terminology, you’d do well to hear its testimony. Surely you have room for one more sister show?

UNITED STATES OF TARA: Showtime, Sundays, 10 p.m.
BIG LOVE: HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m.