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"  Big Love, HBO&amp;#039;s dramatic series about a polygamous family secretly living, thriving, and multiplying in a Utah suburb, returns on January 10 for its fourth season. ELLE spoke to cocreator Will Scheffer about the show&amp;#039;s exploration of feminism, Oscar winner Sissy Spacek&amp;#039;s guest role, and why the Hendricksons won&amp;#039;t be around forever. What can we expect for Bill&amp;#039;s wives, Barb, Nicki, and Margene?  The wives are finally beginning to question their subjugation to a man, to a religion, to a family. They&amp;#039;re really being challenged by patriarchal values. And this season, Bill&amp;#039;s making a choice to bring the family more into the public spotlight by...I don&amp;#039;t think this is going to be a secret, but Bill is considering running for public office this year.  It&amp;#039;ll be interesting to see how you pull that off.  Well I think we do, and there&amp;#039;re a lot of minefields with that, of course.  Last season there was an outcry from the Mormon Church over the show depicting Barb, who was in danger of losing her membership in the church, going through an endowment ceremony, which is a sacred ritual that non-Mormons are not allows to see. What was the reaction to it after it aired?  The endowment ceremony was a dramatization of Barb having to give up the things that she held most dear, which was her relationship with the Mormon Church, being held in the bosom of that church, a church that she deeply loved. Our decision to go into the endowment ceremony was to show that it was a ceremony of utmost beauty and sacredness and of utmost importance to that character, and we were very clear that we weren&amp;#039;t glibly showing it. The Mormon Church got really upset about it, and the membership was being whipped up. And then when the show aired, it all went away. Almost overnight.  Is it true that Sissy Spacek is joining the cast?  Absolutely. She&amp;#039;s playing a Washington lobbyist. She&amp;#039;s coming into the life of the family as a self-realized woman without a husband and with a very powerful career. She&amp;#039;s someone that I think Barb, especially, is looking at and seeing her own choices reflected in the choices of this woman.  In the season 3 finale, Roman Grant, the prophet of the Juniper Creek Compound, was murdered. Is he really dead?  Yeah, he is absolutely dead. But even as a dead person, his influence is felt.  You and your partner, Mark V. Olsen, have been writing this for four seasons now. How long would you like to see it continue?  I think we&amp;#039;re in the HBO mold, which has traditionally been a six-season show. [Pause] Mark just came in and was like, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t forget that Six Feet Under was only five seasons!&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a10727/big-love-returns-388103/>