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Big Little Lies – Season 1, Episode 1 Somebody's Dead

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Big Little Lies – Season 1, Episode 1

Somebody's Dead

Aired Feb 19, 2017

Drama

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100%

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11 Reviews

In an affluent community, a suspicious death at an elementary school fundraiser draws attention to the friction amongst some of the mothers; Madeline and Celeste welcome Jane into their inner circle; battle lines are drawn after an incident.

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Critics Consensus

Smart and stylish, "Somebody's Dead" introduces the intoxicatingly soapy delights of life in Monterey.

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Sharp Objects

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Reese Witherspoon

Madeline Martha Mackenzie

Nicole Kidman

Celeste Wright

Shailene Woodley

Jane Chapman

Laura Dern

Renata Klein

Zoë Kravitz

Bonnie Carlson

Alexander Skarsgård

Perry Wright

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Angelica Jade Bastién

Refinery29

08/30/2017

Pretty much every TV show can be called beautiful now. But the gorgeousness of Big Little Lies is what I like to call 'aspirational beauty.'

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Nate Waggoner

Observer

04/05/2017

The episode is graceful and kind of hypnotic, and its moments that seem to function in service of over-explanation or sentimentality inevitably end up subverted.

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Alex Abad-Santos

Vox

04/05/2017

Reese Witherspoon's performance as the queen of Monterey's mean girl contingent is delicious, as is Kidman's dangerously brittle Celeste. And thematically, I'm interested to see the heft it brings in future episodes.

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Gill Crawford

Radio Times

05/31/2019

Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard... you couldn't ask for a better cast for David E Kelley's absurdly high-class dramatisation of Liane Moriarty's novel.

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Lacy Baugher

The Tracking Board

06/25/2018

Big Little Lies is the prestige drama version of a soap opera. It's Desperate Housewives mixed with The Night Of. It's this-close-to-shallow TV that you can still feel good about watching.

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Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

Tom & Lorenzo

06/19/2018

That combination of high-quality work surrounding a slightly dishy, soapy, and even vaguely satirical plotline is what's making this show so much fun for us right out of the gate.

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Synopsis

In an affluent community, a suspicious death at an elementary school fundraiser draws attention to the friction amongst some of the mothers; Madeline and Celeste welcome Jane into their inner circle; battle lines are drawn after an incident.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Executive Producer: Reese Witherspoon, Bruna Papandrea, Nicole Kidman, Per Saari, David E. Kelley, Jean-Marc Vallée, Nathan Ross, Gregg Fienberg
Screenwriter: David E. Kelley
Network: HBO
Rating: TV-MA
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date: Feb 19, 2017