Directed by: Andrea Arnold  |  Written by: David E. Kelley

Official synopsis: Celeste and Mary Louise go to trial to battle for the custody of Max and Josh. Celeste is completely shocked and hurt when Mary Louise’s lawyer asks her a wide array of personal questions. Celeste explains that she is coping with grief and intends to improve herself and get better. Just before the judge announces the verdict, Celeste interrupts to say that Mary Louise never took the stand and that is not fair. Celeste herself wants to question Mary Louise, and the judge agrees. Ed meets with Tori, who comes on to him and tells him that she has fantasized about him. Madeline approaches Ed again, and says that she wants to try to work it out. Jane questions Corey about his presence at the police station, and he tells her that he was just called in for questioning by the detective, who asked him if Jane has ever talked with him about the night Perry died. Corey claims that he told the detective nothing. Though mildly reassured, Jane stops answering his calls and texts because she says she is not ready for something new just yet. Bonnie confesses everything (including pushing Perry and her resentment toward her mother) to her mom while she is in a coma since she thinks her mother is going to die soon and that this may be her last chance to say anything.

It is noticeable that two of the characters who had the least exposure during Big Little Lies’ first season, Bonnie and Renata, have really come to the front of the story this time. Bonnie, naturally, because she was the one to push Perry down the steps and has been wrestling with her guilt since it happened. And Renata (Laura Dern) has turned into a brilliant outsider just circling the group, monstrous but sympathetic, losing everything at the same drip-drip pace as her grand mansion empties itself out. So far, Dern has been this season’s MVP. But this penultimate episode was all about having one’s day in court, and it seemed to play out as Perry’s murder trial, rather than the custody battle that it was. The Bad Mother balanced several “bad” mothers, across two key strands: Bonnie’s move towards confessing what she had done, and Celeste’s ordeal in court, where she was dismantled by an outstanding Denis O’Hare, trawling through her self-destructive behaviour with visual aids, thanks to Mary Louise paying for her daughter-in-law to be followed. In the same way that, say, Line of Duty’s interrogation scenes often go on long after they cease to be comfortable viewing, I found it excruciating to watch Celeste answer his increasingly intrusive questions, in front of the judge and in front of her friends. His repetition of, “Are you really over your sickness?” gave proceedings the ring of a nightmare.

Bonnie’s confession was a written one, at first, but she fantasised throughout the episode about the actions she thought about taking. This, too, has felt dream-like and uncertain, and her ambiguous mental state been one of the best parts of this season. She imagined smothering her mother, speaking to the detective, and standing up in court and simply saying: “I did it.” In the end, she spoke to her dying mother, and gave us a succinct overview of the struggles she had been through in her life. She told Elizabeth everything that she blamed her for, and said that her violence also inspired her to push Perry. Everything else seemed trivial by comparison, but I was pleased to see Ed and Madeline inching towards reconciliation, though surely she will break the Liars’ pact and tell him what truly happened in next week’s finale. Corey claims not to be an undercover cop – we’ll see – but he did sum up the situation for Jane, when he told her, via Detective Quinlan, that one of them will crack eventually. Perhaps they will, in the finale. It’s called “I Want to Know”, and don’t we all.