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Mandie wrote:

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My prob is I watch this show because i like the family dynamic and find it interesting and the conflict with the Juniper Creek people is enough external conflict. But I just don't care about these business ventures. Usually the business stuff is kept more in the background but it was so forefront in this episode, I found it difficult to pay attention because my mind just kept wanting to wander.

I like the show better when they're dealing with the prospect of a 4th wife, not when they're doing weird business deals.

Yup. I completely agree with this.

It's the relationships that are interesting, and also, I am usually kind of amazed that they portray the nuances of SLC (and Sandy) life. They get so many subtle things right that I, having grown up there, am usually amazed. When they get something like this gambling casino so wrong it's really annoying. The Blackfoot reservation, just past Pocatello is over 2 1/2 hours away, not "85 minutes." (and that is if it's not snowing)

But the bottom line is that, although the politics of this whole thing, the bank, the church, even the polygamy raids and roadblocks at times have been very "true" and interesting--in small doses. This episode just didn't deliver for me.

Barb was a hot mess, and they almost justified that--but missed. Nicky was compelling, as usual, but they left so much dangling and it felt far too contrived. Marge is radiant, and I guess they were showing her checking out of the family and into her own life. The parents trying to kill each other was funny, but slapstick, and I kept telling myself that the bird wranglers are taking care of those birds (in other words, distracted, not what I think the writers were going for.)

For the first time I was seeing far too much, "I don't buy this" instead of "wow, this is so good." The garage band being a welcomed substitute for Kenny Rogers was just icing on a messy, messy cake. If this had been the first episode I ever saw, I wouldn't be tuning back in. Luckily, it wasn't--and hopefully they will get back on track.

The gambling nonsense was only part of why I found the opening kind of disappointing. The whole episode felt more annoying that intriguing. I mentioned those issues (which I have been aware of and easily ignored or accepted up to now) because the climax scene was pathetic, and the whole damn show revolved around it. As others have said, less business, more character focus please.

Pathetic tent in a deserted scrub-brush and dirt setting, everything looked low-rent, even the pricey and non-iced crab legs. Barb, who is usually compelling, was just annoying. Roman sitting in that chair, or hell, even being in the freezer, seemed to be going for cheap laughs--but either thing could have worked, but, for me, it really didn't.

As I said, I hope they were just trying to set up a bunch of future good stuff--but as a season opener? With proper editing, it could have been much better--but it's as if they didn't want to leave anything out, (parents slapstick murder attempts, for example, boy band for another) and in doing so--they just didn't give the rest of the scenes enough emotional payoff or context. The mother collapses and scene. ?

There was some good stuff in there too, Nicky and her daughter, for just one example. It just felt frantic, sit-comish, and out of balance.