Alby Grant
Alby Grant | |
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Mormon Fundamentalism | |
Nationality | American |
Albert "Alby" Grant, played by Matt Ross, is a fictional character from the HBO series Big Love. The character is loosely based on the real life polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
Overview
The character of Alby Grant was first introduced in the show's pilot episode. He is a hard-line member of the fictional
Both Roman and Alby dislike protagonist Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), whom they view as morally wayward, anti-compound, and disloyal, among other things. Bill is a successful business entrepreneur, owning the popular home improvement warehouse Henrickson's Home Plus. After Bill refuses to give Roman a percentage of his income on his second store, Roman dispatches Alby to help him take care of the situation. Alby engages in many schemes to intimidate Bill, including scaring his kids.
After failing numerous times to persuade Bill to submit to his father's payment demands, Alby loses his father's favor, which results in him taking a sabbatical. During his sabbatical he has an encounter with a street hustler (Kevin Alejandro) at a market, leading the man to believe he was being hired for sex. The man then makes a sexual advance on him, which Alby reluctantly, and dramatically, rejects by shrieking loudly and banging his head against a hotel wall. In the second season, Alby's closeted homosexuality is alluded to again by him checking out the bodies of other men and comments made by his sister Nicki.
During the final episode of the first season his father asks him to find new methods to punish both Bill and his ally brother Joey (
The second season shows a fully recovered Alby set for implacable vengeance on those who wronged him, particularly Bill. Although Alby knows that Wanda is responsible for his poisoning, he does little to punish her for reason that he is aware of her
After his father's assassination attempt, Alby made a power move, and to Bill's horror, successfully maneuvers himself to the sect's number one position. With his bullet-ridden father in the hospital, Alby became the series' primary villain. During the third season Alby is shown to run the UEB with an iron fist, crushing all dissent with exile and excommunication. One of the main plot lines of the third season revolves around a Mormon document that implies that the LDS Church faked their renouncement of polygamy in order to get Utah formally recognized as a state. Bill acquires the document, hoping that it will set the LDS church straight. This leads to problems in the Henrickson household, culminating in Barbara Henrickson (Jeanne Tripplehorn) being excommunicated from the LDS Church. Hollis Greene (Luke Askew) (the "Prophet" of a rival polygamous group) also wants the document and resorts to kidnapping the adopted daughter of Ted Price (Patrick Fabian) (Bill's brother-in-law; a respected member of the LDS church) to force Bill to give it up. However, upon being given the document, they reveal that it is a forgery and that Alby faked the document in order to con money out of the church.
The situation of Alby's family betrayal and power move causes his mother to put herself in a self-imposed exile, where she hires a
The start of the fourth season shows Alby fully recovered from the explosion. He learns from Nicki that his father is no more (Roman was murdered by Joey via
The start of the fourth season also shows Alby having
In the meantime, Alby forces his mother to marry JJ (Željko Ivanek), Nicki's first husband and father of Nicki's first daughter, Cara Lynn.
The affair with Dale goes on, one day Alby sneaks into Dale's house and surprises him with a gift and home-cooked meal, but when he spies papers about Dale's work with the UEB he sees again Roman Grant insulting him and takes off. He returns later and confronts Dale about cooperating with Bill to break up the compound. Alby defends the Principle and Dale convinces him they can reform, not destroy. Alby seems now to accept his feelings for Dale, considering him the answers to his prayers and starts to live their relationship with much more serenity (he stops seeing his father, he rents an apartment in Salt Lake City) than Dale, who has always struggled consciously against his sexuality. Alby's wife Lura observes Alby's change of attitude and decides to investigate and finds out about his homosexual affair. Rumors start to spread, and Bill confronts Dale, who admits having seen the de facto Prophet just to convince him to cooperate. When Lura tells Bill that Dale is gay, he confronts him one more time, and this time Bill asks Dale if he's having sex with Alby. He admits it and asks to keep it private. Bill passes no judgment and admits to him that he also struggles with demons. Unfortunately, Lura tells everything to Dale's wife. Realizing that his life is now destroyed, he kills himself. Alby shockingly finds Dale's body hanging from the roof beam of their apartment.
During the trial on Dale's death, Alby is questioned about the apartment where the trustee was found; as a matter of fact it had been rented with the
In the fourth and fifth seasons, Alby becomes a fugitive as the FBI indicts him on various crimes, including
See also
- Bill Henrickson
- Mormon fundamentalism
- Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
- Warren Jeffs