Laura Dern has become the best thing about Big Little Lies Season 2

The Washington Post

"Renata is cutthroat and exacting, but Dern gets below the surface to explore what’s lingering behind her character’s ever-accessible wrath," says Bethonie Butler of Dern, who won an Emmy and Golden Globe for her supporting performance in Season 1. "Last season, we saw that Renata’s high-powered career often set her apart from many of the women in her luxurious, beachside community, a disconnect that caused rifts between her and several of the women with whom she now shares an uneasy, but treasured, alliance. As Renata continues her perpetual battle to be seen and heard, she fights, ferociously, for her young daughter to be seen and heard....In some ways, Renata evokes the clumsily heroic protagonist of Enlightened, the critically acclaimed HBO drama Dern led for two seasons before its untimely cancellation in 2013. Dern played Amy Jellicoe, an executive whose on-the-job meltdown lands her in rehab and, upon her return to work, a low-level position that leads her to a more promising calling: whistleblower. The show’s tagline — 'a woman on the verge of a nervous breakthrough' — is the perfect description of what Dern does best. Her characters may be prone to intense emotions, but they are never unwarranted. To write these women off as crazy is to miss the point."

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