'Plain' Old Truth

Who would have thought that Mary would find herself in her latest witness?  The woman, Judy, had Asberger's (it must be the special needs du jour for the TV world) and Mary was told to handle her with kid gloves, no sarcasm, and to keep everything fair.  So basically, she couldn't be her usual sarcastic, hard truth self.  After taking this advice for most of the hour, Mary finally ditched it and decided to be herself and let Judy know what was really at stake no matter how hard it was to take.  It worked, and the realization allowed Mary to see that she and Judy aren't that different.  Mary likes the truth -- not sugar-coated or twisted -- just the straight truth.  She doesn't appreciate BS and doesn't want people shielding her from the hard truth.  It was an interesting parallel and made for an excellent story line. Despite the great Mary story, there was still one downer about this episode and it's the same downer that has been hanging over the show most of this season.


When I read at the end of last season that In Plain Sight was getting a new showrunner, I was nervous.  I thought the show was coming off of its best season yet, and I didn't see the point of shaking things up by bringing in someone new to run the show.  My main concern, that they would change the character of Mary, proved to be the only thing that didn't change one bit.  The show made some great changes -- making Mary's mother a small part of the show, putting Brandi on the right path and getting rid of Raph -- but they also made some not so good changes.  The worst offense: splitting up Mary and Marshall.  I could write an entire post about how much I HATE HATE HATE this new direction.  The show did not need two witness stories per an episode.  The two stories break up the momentum and short-change each witness.  But worst of all, they split up Mary and Marshall!!  Why, why, why??!! This is a HUGE mistake and it's making the show less engaging and not as good as it once was.  I really, really hope this is a temporary disruption.  PTR reader John mentioned in the comments last week that this could be some sort of precursor for putting the two of them together, and I don't disagree, but I wish they'd find another way of doing that if they're bent on moving the show in that direction.  The best scenes this week were the ones with Mary AND Marshall.  Ugh!

Annoying 2-witness format aside, the stories this season are good.  I enjoyed Judy's case (when it wasn't broken up by Marshall's much less compelling immigration distraction), and I was glad that she and Mary found some common ground to bond over.  And I loved the way Mary found Judy a job working for a stock broker.  This show always weaved in between the witness-of-the-week and personal drama for Mary, so including the Brandi stuff this week didn't bother me.  I've had my doubts about this brother (even though I want to believe him), and this week things seem to be pointing in the bad news direction.  There's always the possibility that the brother isn't really their brother, but for now I'm going under the assumption that he is and he only wanted to reconnect with Brandi and Mary because he needs something.  This week, we might have learned what it is -- money.  Brandi is an easy target because she's so trusting.  She wants to see the good in people and this sometimes blinds her to the bad.  I just hope she doesn't give him back that money.  Poor Brandi, just when she gets a business plan in place it might all get taken away.

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.