Regarding last week’s case, who just hands a check to their realtor? Is that the initial deposit? Have all parties (the bank/seller & home buyer) waived all rights to representation and inspection? Considering the arduous process of home-owning, I find it hard to believe that any new buyer, even those with limited funds, would fall for that scam. Here’s a pseudo-Mary-ism, if something’s too easy, it probably is. Also, have we run through the gamut of possible international terrorists only to return to Russia again as catalyzing/taking advantage of the housing crisis?
Clearly, they’re going ahead with the Faber relationship. Although Faber fit into the episode a bit more, I still don’t sense the connection. Also, I hated the let’s-send-the-sidekick-off-to-give-the-lead-time-to-bond-with-the-new-interest. Without Marshall the show felt empty. Plus, I feel sorry for him. He starts to like his partner right when she becomes serious with her one night stand. When the one night stand finally leaves, someone else slips in.
It seems like Mary meets guys that she isn’t interested in. Either they aren’t her type, she’s closed off, or both. Despite that, they pursue her, she gives in and three years later they wonder why she doesn’t care for them the way they care for her. Mary has never had a relationship where she wasn’t pursued or put first (see her relationship with WitSec male staff). Growing up with Jinx and Brandi, who probably either used or were used by their boyfriends, taught her to avoid bad relationships (see her advice this weeks), but not to pursue good ones. Until Mary realizes that even if a guy’s ‘nice,’ if she really isn’t interested, she should just walk away early on.
Wow, so the boyfriend actually played Natalie? Who knew? Nice end flip –
Things I didn’t understand:
- Season three shows more of Mary’s disdain towards her witnesses. Yet, they always thank her in the end.
- If the motel owner knows Mary and what she does, how could she not have Mary or WitSec’s number?
- What is Mary’s appeal? I can see why Stan/Marshall like her, but, why do Rafe/Faber keep chasing her when she keeps pushing them away? I’d like to see Mary in a relationship where she actually wants to put in the effort.
- Mary was married already? Isn’t that a Brandi thing? While that might explain her hesitation towards Rafe, considering her speech 2 eps ago to Marshal about viewing marriage as the ultimate partnering of soulmates, it doesn’t make sense. Then again, I’ve always hated ret-conning.
Things I missed:
- Dershowitz at the jailhouse.
Things I noticed:
- Even Mary’s apartment is dark now. When her family lived there the overhead lights were always on. Now, it’s just lamps, which adds a shadowy overlay.
- Faber shooting a rubber band at Mary while Marshall watched from a distance.
Great Moments in Paraphrased Quotes:
- Faber: Are you mad at me? You seem . . .
Mary: Like me. I seem like me.
- Mary: Check fraud. Grand robbery. You couldn’t squeeze in murder or prostitution?
Faber: Maybe she’s just going alphabetically
- Marshal: OK. I’m leaving. This is where normal people say goodbye, I’ll call you . . .
Mary: You still owe me 9 bucks for lunch last week so don’t get shot and die (also nice meta ref to S1)
- Hessie (motel): She seems sweet
Mary: Yea, well, count your towels before she goes
- Stan: Your hair is a little distracting
Mary: Well for you, I imagine any hair can be (nice Stan/Mary bonding moment)
Great Quotes from an ’09 Fred Weller Interview:
- On working with Mary (which sounds like Marshall’s relationship with Mary): “Well, we try to get drunk together as often as possible when we’re not working. And our kids play together, and we’re friends. I think that helps. And also, on the set, Mary’s very professional, and so she doesn’t, both of us try to adhere to the unspoken codes of conduct on the set, so I don’t think that we give each other any cause for irritation in the work environment. “
- On his daughter: “She’s a little bit of a social butterfly, something that I want to nip in the bud if I can. I’m hoping to eventually groom her into a very bookish child who doesn’t date boys at all . . . “
- On hiding his career from his daughter: “I’m going to try to keep the secret from her that I’m an actor at all. It’s going to be tough. Obviously, you want to have publicity as an actor, but I’m going to try to persuade her I’m a professor of something, maybe, I don’t know, something really nerdy, comparative literature.”
Photo Credit: USA Network
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Great review!
And I completely agree — I don’t see why these guys chase Mary so hard when they get nothing in return, Mary definitely hasn’t figured out that relationships are a two-way street and really should know by now that if she’s not interested in a guy she should nip it in the bud, not just keep allowing it to happen only because the guy wants it so much.
I’ve also noticed that the witnesses always thank Mary for changing their lives, no matter how rude and dismissive she is with them. They also almost never thank Marshall. Even when he also played a big part in keeping them safe and is standing right there while they thank Mary.
*POST AUTHOR*
I never thought about Marshall, but you’re right. I know Mary’s the lead and all, but she was pretty dismissive to each of her witnesses in the past three cases. I didn’t quite understand why the mob nephew or this week’s mob girlfriend, who she was ruder to, thanked her, especially considering the mob girlfriend could not have known what Mary did for her on the back end. We’ll see what happens to Mary’s relationships. Hopefully, we do see her interested in someone, who isn’t Farber, where it isn’t 1-way -
Wow, it’s like you’re channeling the spirit of Aryeh with all the curmudgeonly nitpicking. :) Not that I disagree all that much.
It wasn’t just the deposit check, as the property had cleared title, and Natalie was giving the buyers possession (the keys), so it seemed to be the closing. I’m not familiar with California law, but since it was a distressed property listing, perhaps that explains the shortcuts and lack of escrow? It’s unethical, but certainly not unheard of, for the seller’s agent to reduce their commission in situations where there is no cooperating brokerage to share the fee, so the seller will accept a lower offer from the buyer.
Natalie’s specialty was in getting the mortgage and title companies to line up so her victims would not suspect anything was wrong before she cashed out the full purchase price. If it was just the chump change of the initial deposit, any idiot, including her boyfriend, could have done it.
I think the witnesses probably thank Mary for her combination of brutal honesty and conscientious and strenuous protection of their best interests. Marshall also cares deeply, but he’s much harder to read and less conspicuous in his interactions. Other than those two, every other Federal suit the witnesses deal with probably shows very little personal interest or sympathy toward them or their situation, so the contrast must be stark.
I always thought Rafe stayed with Mary because the sex was amazing (they both always looked absolutely destroyed in postcoital scenes) and his saint/martyr complex. He wanted to fix her, which is both why he was drawn to Brandi even more, and why he was so dumbfounded when she refused to change to better suit his values/desires. Mary stayed with Rafe because, no matter that she absolutely did everything possible to make any sane man leave (like her father did), he stubbornly refused to take the hint.
As to Mary’s teenage marriage, that’s not hypocrisy so much as wisdom dearly bought through age and experience. She lived through that mistake once, and is not eager to repeat it unless it can live up to her ideal.
The rubber band bit was seriously annoying. We were too mature for that after sixth grade.
*POST AUTHOR*
Hey Ryan, welcome back. As curmudgeonly as Aryeh? Oh no! (although I wonder if we should have an A vs. A for the finale :) I understand what you’re saying, but I would still feel wary if there weren’t 50 million hoops to jump through, even if it were a steal and considering the contemporary housing market. I agree about R’s staying with Mary with a desire to fix her and Mary’s staying with him (b/c despite her use of aggressive-aggressive techniques still hadn’t learned how to say directly to a guy ‘it just isn’t working’).
I didn’t call her a hypocrite for her relationship naivete, I just thought it was odd. Although Mary seems hard on the outside, on the inside she’s vulnerable and tends to have a child’s ideals (she probably around the time her dad left), so if people don’t leave up to them, she’s disappointed. So, with someone with such a idealization complex going on (particularly concerning relationships), it seems odd she’d run away with a guy at 18. Then again, she probably wanted to escape her family and saw him in the ideal sense, but then realized he wasn’t. I like the new monologues as they show insight into Mary’s life, but sometimes I wonder if, in their search for new snippets – create things that don’t quite fit the character –
I’ll try to work on the criticism, but I assure you all of my critiques come out of love :)
*POST AUTHOR*
Hmm, Typographical Corrections for the quickly written Paragraph 2 :) : That’s ‘She probably froze around the time her dad left,’ ‘if people don’t live up to them,’ ‘with such an idealization complex’ and ‘they create things that don’t quite fit.’ Never type and vacay at the same time -
I’m not sure if I buy the scam either, but then there are people (particularly young couples) who are that desperate for a good deal and don’t know the standard practices and protections of the industry.
I think Mary might have said that she got married at 17, not 18, which would have been even less characteristic of adult Mary. Like you, I thought it was an odd anecdote, just not out-of-character, and I’m not sure if I ever want to find out more about her husband or not. I’ve said before that I usually like Mary’s voiceovers, but either this one or the following episode did seem too intellectual and a little too self-aware to actually be her own thoughts, unless she’s composing them forty years later. And I would prefer not to both open and close each and every episode with them, as they lose their potency if they become stale and predictable. I want the writers to surprise us a bit more.
Leave in all the criticism you want, but it’s good to balance it with whatever you did enjoy about the episode. It’s less alienating for those viewers who were not disturbed by said flaws, and avoids the false impression that you’ve made up your mind never to have anything good to say about the show. ;)