The HBO series Big Little Lies has had the audience hooked since it first premiered and is only getting intense with every passing episode. The seven-episode series which airs on Star World Premiere HD in India, is based on Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel about three mothers of first-graders whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder.
The upcoming episode will now see the Oscar winning actress Nicole Kidman go topless in an emotional shower scene. The flesh-baring display is not intended to be tantalising, instead the moment is intensely vulnerable in the episode underscored by the very real terror of domestic violence.
According to Daily Mail, the scene sees Kidman's character Celeste taking a shower when her husband Perry (played with intensity by Alexander Skarsgard) interrupts her. Perry watches her for a moment before giving her a consolation present, an expensive necklace following an altercation earlier in the episode. The nudity only exposes the reality of her marriage: she is being abused and her body, when naked, tells the story of her plight through bruises.
The scene has a terrifying quality when Perry performs a sexual act on her that while not forbidden by Celeste is also not entirely welcome. In an earlier scene Perry forcefully grabs her by the shoulder and later when in the shower the bruise is visible. Following the incident (not the first instance of physical abuse seen on the show) the couple goes to counseling to deal with the problems in their marriage.
While Celeste at first attempts to protect her husband by claiming he never physically abuses her, the truth (at least partially) comes to light. 'There's a line between passion and rage,' Perry tells their therapist. "And, I don't know, sometimes we cross that," he admitted. Perry then goes on to confess he has physically assaulted his wife.
Big Little Lies airs on Star World Premiere HD every Tuesday at 10:00 PM.