AWESOME! The Year in TV
SCENE STEALER
MERYL STREEP BIG LITTLE LIES
Playing a grieving mother in Season 2 of the HBO drama, the three-time Oscar winner veered from passive-aggressiveness to pure primal rage— and it was downright terrifying. Her outwardly timid, inwardly furious Mary Louise Wright, mom to lawyer Celeste’s (Nicole Kidman) late abusive husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), arrived in Monterey to “help” with her twin grandsons. Probing for information on Perry’s death, Mary Louise’s own cruel streak began to show. She insulted Celeste’s bestie, Madeline (Reese Witherspoon), and then, with chilling calculation, tried to take custody of Celeste’s boys. In the finale’s courtroom scene, she finally publicly, irrevocably lost her surface cool. Streep, who donned false teeth that gave her an overbite fitting for a mousy predator, could win a Golden Globe for it. —Kate Hahn
NIFTIEST NEW IDEA
ABC’s LIVE IN FRONT OF A STUDIO AUDIENCE
Take one timeless script from two classic Norman Lear comedies. Enlist new casts, including Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei as ’s Archie and Edith Bunker. Go
