I capped last nights episode of Big Love. If you haven’t seen it I think it’s one of the most drama-filled episodes of the season yet. I won’t give anything away, so if you want to know what happened, go watch it!

Four episodes into the series’ fourth season, the cable network has renewed the Playtone-produced show for a fifth season.

Big Love which centers on Utah native Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) as he balances the needs of his three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin) and their broods, drew 1.7 million viewers for its season premiere last month. That was up 49% from Season 3’s opener.

Despite facing the NFC Championship and the Grammys the past two Sundays, the modestly rated series is tracking 13% higher than last season.

“Love,” whose current story line centers on Henrickson running for office, will be getting “deeper and darker” in the second half of the season, according to creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer.

With four eventful seasons, the fifth cycle will take a breather, “settling into the stortytelling,” Olsen said. Added Scheffer, “We want to take the temperature of the marriages.”

With the exception of the departing Amanda Seyfried, the series’ core cast will come back for Season 5, with Olsen and Scheffer also mulling a possible return for new additions Zeljko Ivanek and Sissy Spacek.

“Love,” which earned its first best series Emmy nomination last year, is executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, David Knoller, Bernadette Caulfield, Olsen and Scheffer. (THR)

I’ve added caps from episodes 2.01 to 2.05 and Christine uploaded 4.04 caps. I’m sad that Amanda is gonna be gone from the show. It won’t be the same.

Amanda Seyfried decided to quit Big Love because she felt the TV show’s producers weren’t maximizing her potential.

The actress shot to fame in 2006 after landing a lead role in the series as a member of a polygamous Mormon family – but she announced last month she will be leaving after the fourth season.

And Seyfried admits she made the decision so she can focus on landing more film roles that will allow her to show off her talents.

She tells Britain’s OK! magazine, “I was frustrated because I wasn’t really working that much on it and it was six months of my life. My career is going places and I wasn’t able to do the things I wanted to. And I had to live in L.A.”

Hello everyone, I’m Holly and I’m the new co-web over here at Amanda Seyfried Network! I’m really excited to be a part of it and as a start I have added this weeks Big Love screencaps. Amanda had a very small part but none the less it was pivotal.

After The Sopranos and Sex and the City ended, HBO lost a lot of its buzz as the place for appointment television. It even stupidly turned down Mad Men.

But now the cable network is back in a big way, with True Blood (the popular vampire soap now between seasons) and Big Love, which returns Sunday night at 8 p.m.

If you’re not familiar with the first three seasons of Big Love, check out a five-minute recap below to catch up on the lives of everyone’s favorite polygamists.

According to what we’ve read, Season Four gets more political as patriarch Bill Henrickson’s (Bill Paxton) runs for public office and wife Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) finds success hawking goods on the Home Shopping Network, much to the chagrin of the other wives. Sissy Spacek, one of our favorite Texas actresses, joins the cast for an extended story arc as a political consultant and there are reports that one of the central characters, a member of the fictional fundamentalist church, will have a homosexual experience. A lot more plot twists are also promised — all in only nine episodes.

It will also be the last season for Amanda Seyfried, who plays Bill’s secular daughter, Sarah. Seyfried will leave the show at the end of the season to pursue film projects full time.

Also on HBO, repeats of Hung, the oddball comedy about a well-endowed basketball coach who uses his greatest asset in the world’s oldest profession. It premiered in June and will be kicking off a second season this summer. The first season starts all over again tonight at 9 p.m.

Be sure to check back for episode captures and stills.

The Henricksons will have to do without Sarah soon, as Amanda Seyfried is set to leave the HBO series Big Love to focus on her burgeoning movie career.

“She’s been exploring her movie career for a couple of years now, and we’ve been giving her a lot of room to do that,” says Big Love creator Will Scheffer. “I know having a commitment to a show for six months definitely cuts into her ability to pursue that career.”

Seyfried, 24, has played Bill’s (Bill Paxton) eldest daughter Sarah with first wife Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) since Big Love’s 2006 debut. After Mamma Mia and Jennifer’s Body, she is set to appear in the forthcoming film version of A Woman of No Importance and Gary Winick’s Letters To Juliet, which she’s shooting in the Italian city of Verona.

Seyfried was supposed to play the lead in Zack Snyder’s new film Sucker Punch, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Big Love, who recently snagged its third straight Golden Globe nom for Best Drama Series, something that apparently is not enough for the young actress.

“She’s moving away,” confirms Scheffer, adding that Seyfried’s character, who’ll get married on the third episode, will bid adieu on this season’s eighth and penultimate installments. Her pregnancy arc last season, which ultimately ended in miscarriage then later a wedding proposal, was one of the season’s best. The question is, with her departure, who’ll step up to fill her shoes? Teeny? Cara Lynn?

Nevertheless, Sarah is still in attendance when Big Love returns to HBO January 10.