And In The End, Reese Witherspoon Was The Biggest Meryl Streep Stan Of Us All

Reese Witherspoon has a secret, but unlike her character on HBO's Big Little Lies, she has no reason to keep it to herself: She stans hard for "living legend," Meryl Streep.

"Happy Birthday to this living legend!!!!" Witherspoon tweeted Friday morning along with a stunning black-and-white photo of Streep in honour of the actress' 69th birthday. "Meryl - It was such a dream to get to work with you on #BigLittleLies."

Streep sent fans into a frenzy in January when she announced that she'd joined Monterey's troubled high society for the second season of BLL as Perry's (Alexander Skarsgård) mother, who travels to the coastal town in search of answers following her son's death. Her arrival will surely be inconvenient for Madeline (Witherspoon), Celeste (Nicole Kidman), Jane (Shailene Woodley), Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), and Renata (Laura Dern), who have worked hard to conceal Perry's true cause of death from the authorities.

While we don't have too many details yet about how Streep's character will fit into everything (will she behave more as the loving grandmother of Celeste and Perry's twins, or will she go full-on Miranda Priestly?), we do know that if it weren't for her, there might not have been a second season at all.

"We wrote it as a one-off and we ended it in a way that was very lyrical. But we ended on a lie," BLL writer David E. Kelly told The Hollywood Reporter in May. "I get so protective of characters and series, too, that I don’t want to damage them in any way, and I so loved how we ended year one and I thought, 'Let’s just leave it at that.'"

He happily changed his mind, however, when he learned Streep was interested in helping continue the series and created "a delicious character" for her.

"I felt bringing her in was both liberating and daunting," Kelley continued. "Daunting because she sets a high bar and you have to measure up, but liberating in that now the show's not going to be compared to last year. There was freedom in that."

But will that freedom be short lived? In her birthday post, Witherspoon used the past tense — "It was such a dream to get to work with you" — to describe her experience on set with Streep. Could she have unintentionally revealed that Streep won't be returning for a third season and, if so, what does that mean for Big Little Lies? Is it possible that she uncovered the cause of Perry's untimely death and turned in her daughter-in-law, effectively ending the series? Or, did she pack up her bags and head out after an unsuccessful dig into Celeste's past?

We'll be clutching our glasses of Central Coast Sauvignon Blanc while we anxiously await answers.