Hmm, I wasn’t as crazy about this episode, so I don’t have a lot to say. After the awesomeness of the past few shows, this one felt a bit off. It felt as if they re-booted Mary back to her bad-tempered S1 version. Plus, the witness of the week, who I thought Mary would bond with didn’t quite pull me in. Anyways, read below for my not-so-finely honed opinions on Mary’s family life and witness of the week.
Mary’s Family Life
I love Mary’s honesty and when she gives blowback to well-deserved blow-hards, but what was up with her attitude towards Scott and Squish? Serving as a masseur is the best thing that Brandi could do as a life choice. I love how realistically affirming Mary was towards her mother last week. So, Mary’s anger seemed unnecessary.
It turns out this is the first episode that Matthew J. Lieberman wrote for In Plain Sight. However, he will also pen the second to last episode for this season. Considering the show finally re-gained its balance towards the middle, I would’ve preferred they used new writers at the beginning. I feel as Matthew has thrown off the maturity Mary gained in the past.
Clearly, Scott will become a bad egg. I suspected it considering how frequently he stayed at their place, despite describing his office as in crisis. However, since Mary always pointed it out I didn’t have to. But, I will return to my original questions. How did Scott find them? I thought Lauren hid them from her other family. And, why reach out to Squish in particular? Mary is the one who’s on the grid with a house and a job. How could he trace Squish who has a roaming address and a cell phone number? Clearly, he’s turning out as a chip off the old block, but, didn’t they discover a bug in the house? Is it possible that Lauren left that to figure out who served as the easy mark in the family? Finally, if he’s a day trader, why does he need someone else’s money to get back in the game?
Mary’s Witness of the Week
This is the second witness (after the one who switched to Marshall) that Mary lacks a connection with. However, it’s odd. I thought Mary’d love having a witness who didn’t lie and told the truth. Seriously, after, Mia, this is the second witness I thought Mary’d lap up. After all, in the words of her fellow marshals, “She has Asperger’s” and, “You’re you.” However, I did love the bit of self-aware writing. After Mary gave one of her usual speeches; Judy replies, “That’s called monologuing what you just did.”
Random Thoughts
Thanks for your comments last week, All. I’m always looking for feedback but as there are only three more eps left. I’ll try to stick to the weekly posting.
The only good thing is Marshall’s dialogue remained insightful: “She absolutely cannot grasp the lifeblood of your repartee — bitter sarcasm. So, every second you’re with her try being someone other than you are.”
Clacked by An Nicholson 
on Jun 14, 2010 @ 17:00 EST5EDT
I like your theory on Scott and Lauren – maybe they are a family of con artists who are all working the Shannon family.
I took the home scene as Mary already having had a miserable day at work, and taking out her bad mood on the two reprobates in her kitchen at the slightest provocation. On the other hand, knowing her sister as long as she has, Brandi should have pegged that immediately and saved the good news for a better time.
I have to side with Mary on the pineapple pizza, though. Absolutely sacrilegious.
BTW, “personae” is the plural form, while “persona” would be the singular. And while I’m not sure they’re strictly separated by gender, in common usage a masseur is a man, and a masseuse, a woman (massage therapist could be either, obviously).
*POST AUTHOR*
@Kara – Thx, Kara, we’ll see. They seem to have dropped the bugging incident altogether, but I keep wondering why/how Scott found Squish and why he’d arguably ask the poorest member of the Shannon family for assistance –
@Ryan – Although I secretly believe you google half the words in our posts, do you know how many academic papers I’ve written where I’ve used ‘personae’? Now, I have to go back and tell my committee they’re utter crap! And, tenured professors don’t take that too kindly :) Regarding Mary’s miserable day I’d believe it, if we (the viewers) didn’t follow Mary on a 60-min basis. Also, I remember a similar scene a few episodes ago where I felt Mary’s anger was unwarranted.
Heh, I know the declension of “persona” from six years of Latin classes (from which I’ve retained such other useless minutiae as i.e. = id est and e.g. = exempli gratia) and masseur/masseuse from general knowledge, as I’ve never learned French (“oeuvre” always gives me a bit of a headache). Perhaps the differing forms are used interchangeably in academia? I’ve never been immersed in that world, so hopefully your professors would know better than I.
The vocabulary is exclusively my own, though I find that I frequently employ in print words that would never occur to me in speech. If I think I see an error, though, I do always do some rudimentary Googling in order to fact-check myself before offering a correction. Sometimes I’m wrong, remain silent, and learn something.
I’m sorry; I was unclear in my above comment. I wasn’t suggesting that, because Mary was in a bad mood, she must have had a hypothetically miserable day to which we were not witness. I was suggesting that, in watching the parts of her day we did see, in which she scoffed at the reformed gambler Scott being down $17,000 this week, while up $30,000 last week, while spending the entirety of each of his days in Albuquerque sitting in her living room “working,” followed by her incredible frustration (“Oh, my God”) with her new witness during their initial review of her file, I already expected her to be in a foul mood when she walked in the door to Brandi laughing with Scott (“ooh, besties!”).
Upon reviewing the scene, I found I was mistaken on one point. Brandi did know better, wasn’t going to tell Mary, and literally said, out loud, “she’s in a bad mood,” but Scott pushed it and told Mary himself, which led to the argument. Further, it’s my speculation that Mary perhaps thought the idea didn’t originate with Brandi, but was another thing that Scott was cajoling her into doing.