Recap: Mary Kills People 1x2

The River Styx

Ben proves that he could do with an ‘Undercover 101’ refresher and a few boxes of tictacs, Mary goes to the creepiest dress-up house-party and Des has a near-death epiphany about dying in style.

As the episode starts, we are introduced to Nora, a nice lady whose time has arrived. She goes to her water-aerobics class for the last time and, later, meets MARY and DES at a beach where she drinks her deadly cocktail and drifts off to a peaceful sleep - “The way it should be.” No pillow smothering, just peace and a $5 tip [did she also pay the $10,000 along with that?]

JOEL on the other hand, is not having an easy death - probably because he is not actually dying, but Mary doesn’t know that. After their last unprofessional encounter, Mary and Joel agree to meet at a diner where she tries to convince him to join a clinical trial [left unsaid: “I want you to live so I can have sex with you again.”] Joel pretends to be upset by her refusal to kill him and leaves. Later, his partner calls Mary, pretending to be Joel’s doctor and basically tries to convince her to kill him. Mary doesn’t just goes “OK” without even asking any medical questions [which I am assuming a cop wouldn’t be able to answer].

Anyway, back at teenland - NAOMI is totally milking her ‘brush-with-death’ experience and using it as an excuse to party. And how does she celebrate NOT dying of an overdose? You may wonder. Well, taking cocaine. JESS, who is a more sensible teen [not that Naomi was setting the bar particularly high], feels uncomfortable with her friend’s behaviour [and her flirting with boys].

But it is time for the DEATH OF THE WEEK, Nurse Annie introduces Des and Mary to YVONNE, a lovely dying woman who lives with her teenage son - CHARLIE. Mary promises Annie to put Yvonne’s death on top of her ‘to do’ list, however she is forced to take care of Joel first.

Basically, he calls her and implies that he is about to shoot himself. Mary immediately rushes to his apartment; she doesn’t want him to die like that, she would rather KILL HIM SOFTLY, I guess. Not saying she shouldn’t have gone, but out of all the people who could threaten to kill themselves, the guy you are about to kill is probably the least alarming, wouldn’t you agree?

When MARY gets there, JOEL is all “kill me, kill me now”  in a scary, very pushy way. Something about it doesn’t sit right with Mary, so goes to his bathroom where she rummages through the cabinets and drawers, and discovers they are COMPLETELY EMPTY. Again, Joel is a TERRIBLE UNDERCOVER COP. 1) He is clearly pushing too hard [instead of making Mary believe it is her idea like any good con-man would do] 2) He couldn’t be freaking bothered to dress up his fake apartment? Get some empty medicine bottles and fill them with tictacs at the very least, dude!

Since Mary is not a complete idiot - she was just briefly dazzled by Joel’s soulful eyes and raspy voice - she figures out he is a cop and flees, throwing all her pento in the sewers, which wouldn’t be SO BAD, except they needed it for Yvonne.

DES - who is already at Yvonne’s - breaks the news to her son. The poor kid is so desperate to end his mother’s suffering, he points a gun at Des. At this point, I was thinking pillow smothering wasn’t the worst idea ever, but Des tries to talk his way out of the predicament instead. And… he gets shot - sort of unintentionally, but still.

Without any other options [*cough* pillow smothering *cough*], MARY is forced to pay a visit to GRADY THE DRUG DEALER, but he doesn’t welcome her with Greek mythology trivia, instead, he chooses to be creepy as hell. As soon as Mary walks in, he asks her to take off her shirt - to ‘check’ for bugs, - he remarks on the lack of track-marks, makes it clear that he knows where she  and her family live and takes an insurance picture of her wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of mouse ears [yes, mouse ears, Grady just had those lying around - told ya, creepy]. Man, what a girl has to do for a few ounces of lethal drugs.

It all works out in the end, Mary goes to Yvonne’s and helps her ‘transition’, Des gets patched up and it wasn’t all bad, while he was agonising in pain he had an epiphany to buy property and build a beautiful death retreat. An English guy can dream.

Later, Mary confronts Joel - who is in fact OFFICER BEN. Basically, she points out that he doesn’t have any concrete evidence against her and since he is the WORST UNDERCOVER COP EVER, he ain’t getting any. It seems like a win for Mary; but, we also find out that one of Mary’s victim-patients was the young son of the police captain (Ben’s boss), so they are not dropping the case any time soon [which means more Ben, so yay!]

I thought this episode was an improvement on the premiere, I even enjoyed the story of the week [if you know me, you know I’m not big on procedural elements]. And Des cemented himself as my absolute fave.

Random Thoughts

• I thought I had this series all figured out and I was expecting Mary to be fooled by Ben until the very end so I was [pleasantly] surprised when they threw that curve-ball.
• I really like nurse Annie and think that she should date Des
• I love that they wrote a ‘greedy’ ex-HUSBAND! I don’t think we’ve seen that before.
• Naomi looks like a young Natalie Dormer. Also, she’s clearly a bad influence on Jess, Mary should do something about that.
• Ben/Joel needs a new shirt ASAP