The Show:Mary Kills People, Season 1, Episode 2
The Moment: The stoop
Dr. Mary Harris (Caroline Dhavernas) secretly euthanizes terminal patients. Her quietly smart teenage daughter Jess (Abigail Winter) and Jess’s minxy bestie Naomi (Katie Douglas) found a stash of Mary’s drugs. Naomi tried some. Jess, who loves Naomi more than platonically, didn’t like that. Now they’re sitting side by side on a stoop.
“I hate when you’re mad at me,” Naomi says, snuggling against Jess. “Where’d you go last night?”
“I left because I hate watching you be a train wreck,” Jess replies.
“The cocaine wasn’t even that good,” Naomi says. “Feel my heart.” She puts Jess’s hand on her chest and holds it there. Jess tries to hide her trembling.
Jess promises not to rat out Naomi if Naomi stops doing drugs. “You sound like your mom,” Naomi says.
“She knows about this?” Jess asks.
“Oh, yeah,” Naomi says. “She totally covered for me, too.”
What Grandbetting prevents the plot of this six-part miniseries from becoming repetitive — patients want to die so Mary kills them — is how imperiled Mary’s relationships are by her actions. The vibe between these two characters is especially fascinating, thanks to the nuanced dance Winter and Douglas are doing.
Naomi = Trouble and it’s not easy to play that without falling into clichés. But Douglas knows exactly when to make eye contact or touch Winter, and when to look or pull away. She draws her in with sincerity, then dominates her with her superior coolness. And that last little touch: undermining Jess’s trust in her mother, before flouncing off to breakfast? Perfect.
Mary Kills People airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Global and is available on demand. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.
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