Big Little Lies season 3 could draw on Big Little Truths

Big Little Truths has put Big Little Lies season 3 back on the school run, but readers should keep one key fact in view: the novel’s events are possible source material, not a confirmed HBO plot.

Variety reports that author Liane Moriarty has said the sequel will provide groundwork for a third season. As of Variety’s Aug. 27 report, HBO had not formally ordered the season, started production or announced a release date. People separately reported that Moriarty called the project in active development and said its producers had read the book.

Spoilers follow for Big Little Truths, published Aug. 25.

What happens in Big Little Truths?

Moriarty moves the story forward 10 years. Madeline, Jane, Celeste, Renata and Bonnie are raising children who are now about 15 and dealing with high school, while the mothers face the long-held secrets surrounding Perry’s death, according to Variety.

The book’s central crisis builds toward a student presentation led by Jane’s son, Ziggy. It exposes history teacher Melody’s alleged scheme to steer high-achieving pupils toward work connected to her husband, Seth Montclair, who Variety reports is a predator. The report says Melody had used the arrangement at other schools over several years.

There is also a grisly opening clue: a finger delivered to the school principal. Variety says it was sent by Melody’s former student Clara Long, a cremation consultant, who removed it from local man Ewan Drew after he had died to turn attention toward Melody.

Madeline and Jane face family crises

For Madeline, the decade jump brings a 50th birthday, a part-time job in a hotel events department and a frightening health scare. Her breast-lump test comes back clear, Variety reports, but her husband Ed is diagnosed with cancer. He later develops memory problems and enters a psychiatric ward; by the novel’s end, his chemotherapy has worked and he is on the way to being cancer-free.

Madeline’s daughter Chloe also becomes entangled with Melody and Seth after being hired to help Seth learn to read, according to Variety. Chloe later tells her mother about a sexual encounter with him.

Jane is married to Tom, the owner of Blue Blues coffee shop, though they are under strain over Jane’s decision not to have biological children together. Ziggy learns from Amabella that Perry raped Jane, and Jane discusses the assault with him without naming it as rape, Variety reports. Ziggy ultimately delivers the presentation about Melody.

Book continuity is not TV continuity

The HBO drama is set in Monterey, California, while Moriarty’s novels take place on the fictional Pirriwee Peninsula in Australia. Variety also reports that the sequel includes Mary-Louise, the character played by Meryl Streep who was created for the show’s second season.

That overlap leaves room for an adaptation, but it does not establish which, if any, of the book’s events will make it to HBO. The detailed individual arc for Celeste in a possible third season remains unknown.

This story draws on original reporting from Variety.