First Impressions: Mary Kills People

Mary Kills People tells the story of a woman named “Mary” who, you guessed it, “kills people” [Sometimes, titles are just obscure like that]. But no, this is not female Dexter or anything of the sort. Mary is a doctor on a mission to alleviate the suffering of terminally ill patients.  I can’t remember this being done since Al Pacino’s You Don’t Know Jack.

I found the first episode of this show quite interesting. The story is intriguing and well presented, the leads are well cast and I appreciate that even the secondary characters had purpose in the story.

Having said that, I had a few issues with tone. This is a very serious subject matter. In cases like this, the tone needs to either be darkly comedic (Fargo e.g.) or straightforward dark. From the writing, I could tell Mary Kills People was aiming for dark. Unfortunately, they didn’t give the director the memo. The shooting style was one of a much lighter show. Throughout, I felt like I was watching a broadcast show trying to be a cable drama.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, a lighter show will certainly appeal to a wider audience and not everything has to be dark, but I would have preferred it that way. [This show would have been perfect with a heavy vibe similar to The Red Road or UnReal]

Spoiler alert

I also had couple of issues with the character of Mary herself. It would be OK for her to risk her career and freedom for something in which she believes, but she has two daughters to consider… I am expecting this to be addressed at some point in the series. Her true motivation was not fully explained and I am assuming she has a very personal reason for doing what she does [and it better be a very good reason to justify putting her family at risk].

The other thing that didn’t click was Mary sleeping with her patient. Up until that point Mary struck me as a clever, cautious and calculating woman. But that was very careless and it made me question the character. Is Mary a determined, “all in the name of the end goal” kind of person? (Say, Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders) Or is she troubled and messed up? (Like Linden from The Killing or Rachel from UnREAL) Both good character choices, but the first episode didn’t make it clear.

End of spoiler

All in all, I enjoyed the pilot. I liked seeing a female antihero and I can’t ignore Jay Ryan’s general dreaminess [and yes, I did love everything he did]. I am also interested in the character of the daughter and charming side-kick doctor played by Richard Short [I thought he was a highlight], as well as the police element of the show. Perhaps the fact that watching this is not going to depress me is also a plus. [I have plenty of dark tragedies on British tele]

At the very least, this is a concept that hasn’t been done to death [no pun intended] and I’m looking forward to the next few eps. I just hope they dare to push the envelop enough.