'Big Little Lies' premiere recap: 'Somebody's Dead' 

Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgard, Laura Dern

Do all good shows now have to start with a murder? It worked for Shonda Rhimes and Viola Davis and it appears to be a fine device for HBO’s new miniseries

, based on the best-selling novel by Australian writer Liane Moriarty. Of course, the 7-episode series is about much more than a murder. With compelling nuance, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, and Reese Witherspoon play complex, disparate women confronting motherhood, domestic abuse, and identity. Set in the posh community of Monterey, where one beachfront home is bigger than the next, their interior lives are worth exploring. And weekly, right here, I’ll be exploring them with you.

Let’s start this week at the beginning. “Somebody’s Dead” opens on the flashing police sirens of a mysterious crime scene. A murder has taken place at an elementary school, where the women’s Audrey Hepburn-styled costumes accentuate the lunacy of grade-school fundraisers. (It’s gonna be amazing for the Monday-morning gossip hounds.) We don’t yet know who the victim is, only that this person suffered a broken pelvis and a fracture at the base of the skull. A slew of witnesses set up the politics that will be sure to play out throughout the series.

This is a show about jealousy, secrets, and lies. The politics here play out among the mothers of the first-grade class at Otter Bay Elementary, where you get “a private school education at public school prices.” On one side, you have Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Witherspoon in all her grown-up Tracy Flick glory, the school’s queen bee, stay-at-home mom who at first appears to represent all you could possibly hate about that type of person. Early on she befriends plain Jane Chapman — Woodley, as the young single mother to Ziggy — who in contrast to Madeline seems to want to blend into the scenery with her oversize clothes and survival-mode disposition. Madeline explains to Jane how things work in Monterey, the hard divisions between the stay-at-home/part-time moms vs. the career mothers. “The over/under in this town is $150,000,” says Madeline. “I work in community theater, so I’m definitely an under.”

They are joined by a third crew member: Madeline’s best friend Celeste, the aloof Kidman, who never seems to actually be in the moment she’s a part of. She’s the seemingly perfect mother of twin boys, who gave up her lucrative career as a lawyer for her doting, handsome husband (Alexander Skarsgård) and a glorious home. But she may be hiding the biggest secret of all.

These three are each grappling with their own demons, and director Jean-Marc Vallée (

) uses his signature music stylings and flashbacks so effectively to convey their turmoil. Jane keeps flashing back to a night involving a ripped blue dress, a stumble on the beach, and a man’s footprint. Madeline is confronting the real pain associated with her children getting older. Her youngest, Chloe, is starting first grade while her oldest, teenager Abigail, seems to be enjoying her once-absent father, Nathan (James Tupper). He left Madeline when Abby was a baby, but he’s now returned with a younger, free-spirited, soulful, peaceful wife Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz) and a first-grader who happens to be in the same class as Chloe.

Celeste’s far-off look in the beginning of the episode indicates all is not well.

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