Weeks remain before Big Little Lies airs its seventh and final episode, but one outcome is already certain. Locals traveling elsewhere will meet someone and share where they’re from, and the response will be: “Oh! Big Little Lies!” Whether area residents like it or not, they will be linked by any number of strangers to the rich/conniving/cutthroat/glamorous soccer moms that drive the plot of the series.
There are other outcomes. They include what the California Film Commission estimates is more than $2.2 million in total direct spending in Monterey County over 20 days of production that involved 23 local crewmembers and 352 extras. That investment included more than $1.2 million in hotel income, $234,000 in local wages, $506,000 in local purchases and rentals and a solid $292,000 in location and permit fees.
Another interesting outcome: This week the Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau launched an iTour for smartphones in collaboration with the HBO team behind the series, which will point out scenes shot at spots like Lovers Point or the beach at Garrapata State Park.
– Mark C. Anderson
The Quick (and Dirty)
A CliffNotes take on the overall plot.
In HBO’s Big Little Lies Jane (Shailene Woodley) plays a young single mother arriving in Monterey with a mysterious and troubled past and her son Ziggy in tow (Iain Armitage). She’s befriended by the well-intentioned Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), mother to Chloe (Darby Camp), and on her second marriage to the cautious-but-loving Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott).
Madeline’s ex, Nathan Carlson (James Tupper), lives in town and dates the significantly younger yoga instructor Bonnie Carlson (Zoe Kravitz). The two clash over parenting their teenage daughter Abigail (Kathryn Newton).
The beatific Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) is the envy of the women, mother to twins Max and Josh (Cameron and Nicolas Crovetti), and wife to the hunky and successful businessman Perry Wright (Alexander Skarsgard). High-powered lawyer Renata Klein (Laura Dern), married to Gordon Klein (Jeffrey Nordling), rules the Otter Bay Elementary School scene with equal parts good and evil. The couple has one daughter, Amabella (Ivy Klein). Jane, Celeste and Madeline navigate catty politics and marital issues past and present against the backdrop of the Monterey Peninsula coastline in an increasingly sinister sequence, based on the best-selling novel by Liane Moriarty.
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