Big Little Lies Season 2: The Monterey Five Have Some 'Splaining to Do

HBO first presented Big Little Lies as a limited series, but the show's initial septet of episodes still ended with enough dangling threads to justify that second season fans started to clamor for. From the first few episodes we've seen of Season 2 so far, there's still plenty of story left to tell about the "Monterey Five," and we're all gonna need a cool glass of chardonnay to get through the intense scrutiny these women are going to face in the season ahead.

The first season was based on Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel of the same name, and luckily for the creatives involved, the author was willing to pen a sequel novella for the producers to draw from as the women face the fallout of Perry (Alexander Skarsgard)'s "accidental" death. Thanks to that framework, no doubt, the atmosphere of the new season is refreshingly familiar.

Despite all that happened, some of our heroines have now reclaimed their old (often, worst) traits. Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) still has crushing concerns about her place on the social strata of her kid's school, for example, and Renata Klein (Laura Dern) continues to exhaust with her insistence that her daughter is the cream of the crop and must be tended to with the utmost care. Meanwhile, they're far less attentive to the happiness of their homesteads, so they will not get to ride those high horses for long before their lives start to crumble.

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Celeste (Nicole Kidman) has also returned to form, in a way, as she remains unable to grasp the toxicity and danger of her late husband. Her ability to approach that truth is severely hindered by the looming presence of her mother-in-law Mary Louise (Meryl Streep), who is ostensibly around to help with her boys but really just wants to peel back the layers surrounding the circumstances of Perry's fateful fall and throw up blinders to any possibility that her son was a monster. She has a sympathetic enough demeanor, but she is also incisive and relentless in her misguided search for justice. Her hawkishness affects others as well, particularly Jane (Shailene Woodley), who's still processing her own pain and what it means for her son.

The person who has changed the most by the time we see her again is Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz), whose zen-like composure has disappeared as she wrestles with the outcome of that night and the fact that the others decided to conceal the truth of what happened, instead of claiming self-defense. She feels guilty and isolated, and it doesn't help that no one around her seems to understand that anguish, even those who know the circumstances of it. Eventually, though, other shoes begin to drop around all of the women, and even the most strident among them must face some bitter truths, with their marriages, children, and very freedom all on the line as their webs of lies begin to unravel.

There are 'No Plans' For Big Little Lies Season 3

Whatever concerns might have existed about Big Little Lies' ability to transcend its limited source material are for naught, because there are still plenty of consequences of the legal, social, and emotional varieties to be dealt with here in its sophomore run. The esteemed cast -- including the endlessly watchable Streep -- is also still firing on all cylinders as they navigate the complicated tide changes ahead. As with the first season, there's a nimble balance of both petty problems and extremely heavy ones for the gals to grapple with, and their performances are as engrossing and evocative as ever, and maybe even moreso.

In its second season, Big Little Lies remains the same moody suspense-drama that fans fell in love with during its initial run. There are no jarring formula changes or new gimmicks to keep it going; this is simply the second half of the same story, with a very slight break in time, and it works. Even though it is a bit too heady to truly serve as an avenue of escape for audiences, Big Little Lies Season 2 will still transport you right back to Monterey, wherein the water is warm but the wine is chilled.

Big Little Lies Season 2 premieres Sunday, June 9 at 9/8c on HBO.