First off, Bill and his clan are not Mormons, they are an off shoot that left the church way back when.

The word tithe means to levy one-tenth of something or an offering of a tenth of personal income, especially to a church.

In the Mormon (aka LDS) Church, a tithe is considered 10% or a person's income. The extra 5% that Bill is giving to Roman I would consider a modified law of tithing (or extortion).

The 15% was NOT A TITHE

The episode clearly stated the the prophet recieved 15% of the first store, and wanted 15% of the second store. Paxton stated that since the second store was a FRANCHISE, the prophet was only entitled to 15% of teh FRANCHISE FEE, and not all future profits.

Now what would contract law have ANYTHING to do with a tithe?!?

If its was a tithe...it would be 15%, reguardless of how the stores were set up in some corporate arrangement.

It is OBVIOUS that the prophet OWNED 15% of the initial store, and that Paxton jumped through hoops (paying HIMSELF a franchise fee) to cut the prophet out. Since there is no legitimacy to enforcing a tithe, if Paxton wanted to stop paying a VOLUNTARY fee, he would just stop.

You dont need lawyers to stop paying a tithe, you just dont pay.

Well you just explained both sides of their argument. The Prophet expects to be paid like a tithe and Paxton is trying to use "man's law" to keep a huge chunk of the money from the second store. So I expect that however the Prophet goes about tyring to get his money it wont be very lawful.

WHy would law have anything to do with it...and if he WAS paying a tithe, what the hell is his franchise argument about?!?!

Sorry 'bout the confusion Tommy, I was just trying to define tithing. Having never seen the show, I didn't know that the 15% was not tithing.

What you say makes sense... Roman is just asking for a cut (like a mob boss protecting his assets).

Thats exactly what the Roman said. The franchise stuff was Paxtons way of getting around paying all of the second 15%. Which is why the Roman went off about "gods law" and "mans law".

I took 'Gods law' as to mean 'Whatever I say goes'


Whatever, there gonna clear it up soon, possibly next week, so why do we argue?

Well there we agree then. Its nothing but thin pretext to get money out of people.

I just caught this tonite. It may have something to do with being under the influence, but I really enjoyed it. It really had a film feel to it, which i guess is a good thing.
And what the hell is Paxton's character thinking, i'm not talking about morals or ethics, but no wonder the guy was impotent, with the stress from three wives. One is hard enough to handle, with the emotions,nagging,physical,nagging,finances, and nagging. How can any rational man think that that is a good idea. Not even the sex thing is enough to make your average guy go into that kinda deal.
Still an alright start, looking forward to upcoming episodes.

I think your expanations were pretty clearly what was meant.

I typically love the HBO original shows, Sex in the City being the only one I can recall that I could not force myself to watch. That being said, I find little of interest in this show, and fail to see what is even the point of it. Are they trying to seriously explore the polygamist lifestyle? Somehow I doubt it. The characters are near universally uinlikable and disturbed. Is it supposed to be funny? As in, watching how nutty and creepy a bunch of nutty and creepy people can be? Well it's not. If it's anything, it's dreary and depressing. The main attraction seems to be that Bill gets to bed three women and since this is HBO we may get some extra T&A. Quite frankly I am disappointed to see Bill Paxton has sunk to doing something like this. Club Dread II would interest me more than this.

I saw it and I think it's going to be a great series. There's seems to be a lot to bdive into here.

Wife #3

Wouldn't all of those also describe Six Feet Under? I remember when Deadwood came out, it was instantly bashed for being too slow and too profane. It has since grown into one of dvdtalk's more followed shows. If you're on the fence, I would give this show a watch until episode 6 or so, to if the story has picked up.

Hell yeah.

Yes, surely starring in an HBO drama is as low as an actor can sink. His career is surely over.

I'll second the recommendation to check out this book. It's written by Jon Krakauer, the same guy who wrote "Into Thin Air". It's pretty amazing to find out some of the stuff that goes on in this country. I'm glad the series looks like it's going to at least touch on this.

Though in the face of such expertly drawn sarcasm my opinion means little, Paxton was once much bigger than doing a show like this, His career included some of the all-time cult favorite movies, and some of (including THE) largest grossing films of all time -- though I grant you being Jim Cameron's pet actor helped a lot. Big names that have been HBO series regulars have done so on their way up the acting food chain, while it appears Paxton is now reduced to soft core sex scenes with an actress semi-known for hard core scenes on his way down. The difference is obvious.

I forgot about Six Feet Under because for one reason or another I just never got around to try watching it. So I can't compare, though I'll take your word for it.

Truth be told, the ONLY reason I am giving this show a chance is because I am most always impressed with the HBO shows. If I had heard about this show and it was going to be on ABC I wouldn't have been interested in it at all. So I'll probably watch a couple more episodes, the DVR will see to that. But it's going to have to go a long way in a hurry to keep me around past that.