A Friend Indeed

In Plain Sight is not supposed to be sad!  Mary's biting and charming wit is supposed to be cracking me up on Wednesday nights.  Instead, her tears were causing my own eyes to well up there at the end.  Having said that, it was nice to see the show's more emotional side this week.  We're used to seeing it employed for Mary's personal story, but this episode's sadder notes dealt with the witness-of-the-week.  Learning that Mia was dying from a terminal brain tumor certainly put a damper on things both logistically and emotionally.  The prosecutor dropped her testimony and WITSEC sent her on her way, but Mary wasn't willing to leave her out in the cold.  Mary always cares about her witnesses, but this one was special and she left a huge impact on Mary's life.  Maybe that's why the ending was just so darn sad.


Mia had lived the life of a mobster's daughter.  She was almost killed by her family (but killed one of them in self defense) and now, she was dying from a brain tumor.  That's a lot of tragedy for one person, and yet, the only thing that she was concerned about was the future of her niece.  She didn't want her niece to have the life that she had.  She wanted her to get out of "the life."  So when she had a bad nose bleed and realized that she didn't have a lot of time, she took off back home to see her niece and convince her to run as far as she can from the family.  Hopefully, her niece took her advice.

Mary felt a real connection to Mia and grew very close to her during their brief time together.  They shared the same smart allylic sense of humor and loathe of others pitying them.  They related to each other's family issues.  Mary knew Mia's ending -- it had already been written -- and this led her to conclude that she's probably meant for some therapist's couch somewhere.  Mia's death was tragic, but that scene with Mary at the morgue was heartbreaking!  Thankfully, Marshall was there for her as her knight in shining armor, and this time, she actually let him.

My one complaint about this season is this recent trend toward having Mary and Marshall work different witnesses simultaneously.  I don't like it.  I don't like it at all.  The two best elements of this show are: 1) Mary, and 2) Mary and Marshall working as partners.  Things haven't felt the same since they started these parallel cases and it's taking away from the charm of the show.  Hopefully, we've seen the last of these sorts of episodes.  Fingers crossed.

In Plain Sight airs Wednesday nights on USA Network. If you missed this episode, check it out for free at Hulu.com.  And for more on the show, visit USANetwork.com.