In the third season of Big Love, Bill pursues Ana, a waitress he met in season two, despite his pledge to Barb to end the affair. Barb warms to the idea after she spends time with Ana, and sees in her a confidante without Margene’s childishness or Nicki’s manipulativeness. After Barb agrees to allow Bill to marry her, Ana finds herself chafing at Bill’s authoritarianism and sees her presence causing Nicki, Barb, and Margene to fight repeatedly. At the end of season 3, Ana “divorces” herself from the family, citing her inability to deal with the polygamist lifestyle and her fear that her staying in the marriage would destroy the already fragile bonds among Bill’s three wives.

Another focus in season 3 is on Roman Grant’s trial, as Adaleen forces Nicki to infiltrate the prosecution’s office building as a clerical worker (using Margene’s name) to uncover the identities of the chief witnesses against Roman. The key witness is Joey’s intended second wife Kathy, who Roman forced to marry when she was only 16. Two of the witnesses are intimidated into not testifying while Rhonda (who now seeks to sue Roman and Juniper Creek in civil court) is given $30,000 by Adaleen and ordered to flee town after Adaleen lies to her about Roman no longer loving her. Kathy’s testimony is negated by her twin sister Jodeen, who lies on the stand to protect her son and tells the court that Kathy was married at age 19 and not 16. She argues that due to the Juniper Creek policy of not celebrating birthdays, Kathy is “unaware” of her true age. Roman is acquitted and Nicki — who the audience discovers was forcibly married off at 14 to an older man when her picture is seen in one of Roman’s “Joy Books” — shoves her father down a flight of stairs in an unsuccessful attempt to kill him. Nicki’s employment leads to a flirtation with the prosecutor Ray Henry (Chip Esten), who is prosecuting her father, but he does not know her true identity.

Meanwhile, Sarah is preparing to leave home for college at Arizona State when she discovers that she is pregnant. She tells Ben and Heather, but not Scott, the 28-year old father, or her parents. At first she plans to give her child up for adoption, but ultimately she decides to keep it. However, while on a family vacation, Barb finds Nicki’s birth control pills and mistakenly thinks they belong to Sarah. Barb’s tirade against her daughter leads to Nicki admitting that the birth control pills are hers, having purposely been on the pill for years while lying to Barb and Bill about wanting additional children. The commotion of Barb’s outburst leads to Sarah’s miscarriage the next day, with Nicki convincing Sarah to come clean about the pregnancy and miscarriage afterwards. While Bill attempts to be supportive of Sarah, by buying her a new car and refusing to judge her decision to be sexually active, Barb’s relationship with Sarah is severely damaged as Barb attempts to bully Sarah into becoming more involved with the family in light of her promiscuity and its consequences. Sarah decides not to attend college, much to the dismay of Heather, who changed her future plans to attend the University of Utah to attend Arizona State to help Sarah with the baby.

Joey has announced to Bill that he, Kathy, and Wanda are getting married, and he asks Bill to seal them. Furious at Roman’s acquittal, Kathy has been gathering resistance on the Juniper Creek compound against Roman, threatening his waning authority within the compound (due to Alby consolidating his own power base). Roman has Kathy kidnapped hours before her wedding in order to force her to marry rival Hollis Greene, who is revealed to be Roman’s brother-in-law and who will be immediately shipped off to Mexico, where Kathy will never see Joey or Wanda again. After stabbing Hollis’s wife Selma with a pitchfork, Kathy steals a pickup truck and tries to flee. Roman forcibly rams her vehicle from behind and it plows into an electrical pole. Due to the force of the collision and to Kathy’s braid being caught in the door, her neck is broken by whiplash and she is killed instantly. Her body is subsequently dumped in a ravine and her death staged to look like an accidental fall. At the funeral a few days later, Joey accuses Roman of murdering his intended wife. Joey later confronts Adaleen in her hotel room and tries to coerce a confession out of her about what she knows.

While Nicki becomes entangled with her boss, due to Ray’s attraction to “Margene”, Bill attempts to forge an alliance to bring down Roman for his part in Kathy’s death. Margene, furious that Nicki is continuing to see Ray in spite of promising to break up their relationship, ultimately outs Nicki and Bill, leading to Ray denouncing the entire family and vowing to prosecute Nicki for illegal actions during the Grant trial. Bill promptly demands a divorce from Nicki, forcing her to move back in with Alby. Meanwhile, Sarah reunites with Scott and after telling him about the miscarriage, the two decide to get married, much to Ben and Barb’s dismay.

Elsewhere, Bill and Alby broker a deal with Bill’s brother-in-law Ted, who is seeking a Mormon document implying that the Mormon Church faked renouncement of polygamy in order to get Utah formally recognized as a state. This leads to a war between Barb’s family and Bill/Barb, culminating in Barb being excommunicated from the Mormon Church (of which Barb is able to get her mother and sister to sponsor her for one last visit inside the temple prior to being excommunicated). The Greenes also want the document and kidnap Ted’s adopted daughter to force him 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.

In the season 3 finale, Alby ultimately plots to kill both of his parents, in order to consolidate his power over the compound and to avenge a prior attempt on his life that Adaleen arranged. He and his wife Lura create a letter bomb and he leaves it outside his mother’s hotel room; it explodes when a maid’s cart rolls over it and the maid and Alby are injured. Selma is arrested for kidnapping Bill’s adopted niece and reveals evidence to police about Roman’s involvement in Kathy’s death, and the DA plans to indict Roman for murder. But back at the compound Joey waits for Roman inside his home and appears to have suffocated him, avenging Kathy’s death.

Meanwhile Nicki, revealed to viewers as being Wanda’s sister-in-law, is reunited with her former husband, J.J., and their daughter, a 14-year-old named Cara Lynn. When she learns that Cara Lynn is about to be placed within the “Joy Book” in order to be married off, Nicki returns to the family with Cara Lynn in tow, announcing that she is her daughter. His family reunited, the season ends with Bill declaring the beginning of their own new church with him as the leader.

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