8 Super Dark 'Big Little Lies' Season 2 Theories

Tonight's episode of Big Little Lies, "She Knows," took an even darker turn: Mary Louise is seeking custody of Celeste's boys, and Bonnie's mother suffers from a stroke. Even though Perry is long gone, his actions clearly still have consequences. Mary Louise tells Celeste she's "a mess" and punishes her grief by trying to take her sons away from her. It's true that Celeste is going through a lot—it would be more surprising if she didn't let her late husband's death affect her state of mind. It feels more like Mary Louise is blaming Celeste for the death of her son than watching out for the safety of her grandkids, and that is *so* hard to watch.

And Bonnie's mother clearly senses something is very wrong with her daughter. Right before she has a stroke, she sees water, and later in the episode when she wakes up from her coma, she sees Bonnie fully submerged. Earlier in the season, the show hinted that Bonnie's mom could be clairvoyant—is she able to see what happened?

It's true that the Monterey Five are all drowning in their own ways, and not just literally. These Big Little Lies theories prove that Season 2 is still all about Perry and how his actions live on even after his death—and how they affect everyone around him and those who they love.

As we know, Bonnie is not only traumatized by Perry's death, but she feels immense guilt (since she was the one who pushed him down the flight of stairs) that seems to be consuming her. Granted, her response feels healthy—we'd be more concerned if she carried on pretending nothing happened at Trivia Night. But do we think Bonnie's emotional response to the death would lead to her own self-destruction? 

Reddit user dawnGrace seems to think so, claiming that the character's depression, guilt, and maybe even rocky past with her mother could lead to ending her own life:

"I've been getting the feeling that Bonnie will (or attempt to) take her own life this season. The drowning visions, her intense depression, the guilt, coupled with whatever she may have done/gone through in her past, all add up to nothing good! Sure she seemed chipper for a few moments this last episode, but I'm not buying it. She may have been feeling secure in her decision to end her life," dawnGrace wrote.

There *has* been a lot of drowning imagery this season. From Bonnie's flashbacks to learning how to swim with her mom (her mom violently dunked her daughter's head into the water in order to teach her how to hold her breath) to adult Bonnie walking into the ocean fully clothed, to Bonnie's mom's recent visions of her daughter in the water right before and after she had her stroke, we get the sense that something bad involving water might happen before Season 2 is over.

Did Perry learn about violence from his own mother's actions? Seems like a stretch, but one Reddit user seems to think so. 

"I think Perry got his power/abuse problems from Mary Louise. I think we'll be shown that in the final episodes that she killed Perry's brother in a fit of rage or something," sognidistelle posted. 

We know that Perry's brother died when he was five years old, and that it was an "accident." Is it a real accident, or is it an "accident" like how Perry's death was "an accident"? Could Mary Louise have accidentally killed her own son? We don't have enough evidence yet, but we have a feeling there's more to the story than Mary Louise lets on.

If Mary Louise didn't kill Perry's brother, did Perry? This is more plausible than Mary Louise being the one who purposely or accidentally murdered her own son. She may be strange, but she doesn't seem like a killer. We know that Perry is capable of cruelty and violence—and we know that Mary Louise has always turned a blind eye to it. 

Redditor invalidusername119 wrote, "I feel like Perry killed his brother when they were children. Maybe while playing or something, his inner monster came out (maybe because his father physically abused Mary L. too). Just as we see in the twins now, how one of them is violent."

They added, "Mary L. hid this fact and continued to love him and protect him as he was all she had left (as Perry’s father died too). He probably went through a lot of therapy and pushed this memory down and became a respectable man and married Celeste. But eventually his true persona came out." 

The idea of violence being inherited is brought up several times in both seasons. In Season 1, both Jane and Celeste worry that their boys will end up like their father—that violence is not only learned, but passed down through DNA. In Season 2, Celeste literally screams at one of her boys, "No! You will NOT be like him!" after he shoves and curses at her. There's a growing fear that while Perry is very much dead, his disease still lives on. It lives on in Celeste, who misses him (and in a sense, the way he treated her), and in her boys (who are violent with each other and with Amabella). 

If we were to learn that Perry did, in fact, kill his own brother, it wouldn't shock us.

We don't know very much about Perry's upbringing with Mary Louise. All that has been shared with viewers is that Mary Louise loves her son so much, that she refuses to believe that he was a wildly cruel, abusive man. We also know that Perry had a brother who died in an "accident" when he was five, and that their father left Mary Louise because he blamed her for it. This situation seems too fishy to not be something bigger and much worse than what Mary Louise is sharing. Since we know that learned and inherited violence is a big theme in Big Little Lies, could Perry's own father been abusive, too? 

Romper writer Candace Granger seems to think so. She writes, "Mary Louise could've been the subject of abuse by her husband. Perry could've learned about abuse through him, and maybe Mary Louise snapped one day the same way Bonnie snapped when she pushed Perry down the stairs."

But if this is the case, why would Mary Louise treat Celeste as though she were the one to blame for Perry's abusive behavior? While we understand why should would want to know the truth about her son's death, why would she treat the Monterey women with such disdain if she herself had been in an abusive relationship before? Why would she hurt Celeste so much by trying to take her children away?

Then again, we're learning that the way we process violence is complicated. If Mary Louise's husband hurt her, did she blame herself? If Mary Louise learns the truth about his death (and we're almost certain she will), will she side with the moms after everything is said and done? 

Did Bonnie and Perry have an affair? One Redditor seems to think so. Juicycouturexoxo2006 hypothesizes that Bonnie may have snapped at Trivia Night because of her own experience with Perry. Perhaps they had an affair that turned to violence—and maybe, just maybe, Skye is actually Perry's, not Nathan's. 

"I'm convinced that Bonnie had some kind of relationship with Perry. She killed him and the show keeps flashing back to her at the Elvis party. I would think that Perry raped her, but that would be a big risk on his part considering that they were in the same circle...I think they had an initially consensual affair and Perry started to beat her. She cut it off, but not before he got her pregnant with her daughter. When she saw Perry beating the women at trivia night, she was reminded of her own experience with him and pushed him down the stairs. The reason Bonnie so guilty is because she knows she killed her daughter's father, even though it was justified," Juicycouturexoxo2006 wrote.

This one seems a bit more on the far-fetched side, since we never saw any hints to a relationship between Bonnie and Perry. Plus, Perry just doesn't seem to be Bonnie's type. 

We know for sure that Mary Louise is extremely suspicious of the Monterey Five. She's hinted to anyone who is willing to talk to her that she doesn't think that her son just slipped. She knows that he was hurting Celeste, that she was planning on leaving him, and that she found out about his affair with Jane right before "the accident." She's 100 percent on to the moms, and even wants to hurt Celeste by taking her children away—but will she actually turn them in? As in, help them get arrested?

The show's promotional poster has some interesting word placement, and a Reddit user seems to think it foreshadows Mary Louise's betrayal of the Monterey Five. See how all the letters cover the characters' mouths? 

The Reddit user wrote (in a thread that has now been removed), "Just noticed this little detail in the poster for Season 2. The title letters are covering everyone’s mouths except for Meryl Streep. Symbolizes the vow of silence between all the ones directly involved. May have been pointed out before but I thought I’d share!" 

The second episode of Season 2, "Tell-Tale Hearts," opened with a disoriented Celeste behind the wheel. Before she crashes her car, Celeste experiences either visions or flashbacks that show her having sex with a man who has a very large back tattoo. There were a lot of things wrong with Perry, but a bad back tattoo was not one of them. So...did Celeste take her therapist's advice and start dating again? Did this lead to steamy car sex? Does this mean anything nefarious, or did Celeste simply allow herself a good time? Judging by tonight's episode, "She Knows," which showed Celeste spending the night with a bartender after taking Ambien, we think that Celeste probably is sleeping with men—whether she does it knowingly or not.

Redditor fingertoes135 wrote, "Maybe this is more obvious than I thought but is Celeste having rough sex with strangers now? While driving before her accident she had a flash back to having sex with a man with an awful back tattoo and then she was in the kitchen rubbing a bruise on her wrist."

While the bruised wrists may have been from breaking up a fight between the twins, it could actually be evidence that Celeste is seeking out violent relationships with men to cope with the loss of Perry. While Celeste knew that how Perry treated her was abusive and wrong, she clearly still yearns for this kind of dynamic—something that she's trying work out with her therapist. 

A writer for PureWow doesn't trust Corey, Jane's new love interest. Corey is Jane's co-worker at the aquarium, and the two most recently shared a really important moment: Jane shared with Corey that she was raped and impregnated with Ziggy. While Corey seems pretty harmless (he respects Jane's needs to take things slow after she jumps away from his kiss, he loves Ziggy, and he can't stand the thought of eating a farm-raised fish), Greta Heggeness thinks he knows a lot more than we think. First of all, Corey *may* have been at trivia night. How else would he know about "The Monterey Five" nickname? The second theory is that he could be related to Perry. 

"I think that Corey knows more about Trivia Night than he’s letting on," Heggeness writes. "He was the one who originally told Jane about the group’s nickname, The Monterey Five, but no one ever questioned how—or why—he had that information." The explanation for that could be that Monterey is just a really close-knit place—and we know everyone is keen on some juicy gossip. 

"My second theory is a stretch, but it’s a good one for Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) fans. The internet is already predicting the late character might have a twin—or another relative?—lurking in the shadows of Monterey, and I can’t help but feel like Corey somewhat resembles Perry," the PureWow writer hypothesizes. 

While we love a good twin drama, we feel like Mary Louise would have mentioned the fact that Perry has a living twin.