Mary Kills People Season 2 Finale Review: So Triggered
Diana Keng
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Miracles do happen. The first half of the finale, Mary Kills People Season 2 Episode 5 conveniently titled "Come to Jesus" manages to make me believe that the teen storyline is possibly worth caring about.
Typically, anything to do with Jess, her pouty demeanor, and her entourage causes me some amount of physical pain as the whiny drama screeches in my ears.
Instead, we get Naomi trying to make things better between Jess and Heather, even resorting to quoting prayer. The girl makes crazy stupid choices with her life but isn't actually dumb by any means.
And then, in a moment of total unfamiliarity, I actually felt sorry for Jess when Mary up and ditches her during the dinner which was meant to be the beginning of their reconciliation.
But when Heather finds her all boozed up and comforts her as she cries about feeling battered by Mary's treatment... yeah, well, then the moment was over.
So when Naomi reverts back to form in the second half, Mary Kills People Season 2 Episode 6 "Fatal Flaw", after hearing Jess and Heather talking about her in the washroom (first rule of high school: NEVER talk until all the stalls are checked), it's the catalyst I've been waiting for.
With Mary forced to come clean to Jess about her side job (which at this point has become her central job) the true revelation is that Jess is more averse to the lies her mother has fed her than the truth that she kills people in her spare time.
When Jess appears as part of Brendan's death procession, it took me a moment to process that THIS is what this family does as mother-daughter bonding time. Once that idea settled with me, it kinda made sense and rounded out the overly drawn-out Jess angst nicely.
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As for someone who was actually mistreated, when last we saw Larissa, she was being thrown out in humiliating fashion by a spiraling Des. I'd predicted that she'd come back for revenge but I was obviously wrong.
I actually laughed out loud when she punks Des with the possibility that he's her baby-daddy. In a show so full of potential catastrophe, these funny little moments come across as absolutely hilarious.
We also met her grandmother, Beth, last season when Mary and Des used Larissa's regular visits to Beth's care facility to lead Ben and Frank on a wild goose chase.
Remember to always love as deeply as you can.
Beth
Juxtaposing Grandma Beth's final moments against that comical reintroduction of Larissa was another elegantly drawn relationship.
Watching Larissa grieve that her child will never know Beth reminds me that it's often these client stories that stick with me after the season's done. Their stories are the foundation upon which Mary and Des dance around with their crazy shenanigans.
Of course, the final client of the season was Salvatore Antonio's Brendan Challis whom we have seen from diagnosis, through treatment, to final party planning.
Brendan: Marigolds. They're the flower of The Day of the Dead.
Germaine: Well, that's on point.
Brendan: They're perfect. It's okay, babe, I'm only dying.
He and Germaine have been a beautiful presence in the story, the twin flames of a deep friendship, soul mates to the end.
There's an echo of Morgan's spectacular burning boat farewell from Mary Kills People Season 1 Episode 6 in Brendan's marigold-draped, candlelit procession.
They say in the moment before you die, you see your life, a span of film strip, bad, good, nightmares, and dreams unfolding before you.
Brendan
I love how decentralized the finales of this show can be. All the action happens in the crazy-zone but all the eye-candy is in the client's arena.
Nicole takes quite the wild ride from start to finish of the finale.
How great was her no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to confronting Mary about how much her relationship with Jess had deteriorated? Even their sisterly discussion about Mary's booty call benefited from her quirk.
Nicole: You sneaky little bitch. You got laid, didn't you?
Mary: I don't want to talk about it.
Nicole: The best part about bad sex is actually talking about it.
Mary: It wasn't bad. It was great. But it's complicated.
Nicole: Because of your side job?
Mary: And his day job.
Nicole: You're lovers... in a dangerous time.
Even better was how she holds Des' feet to the fire at the bar about what he and Mary do.
Despite the fact she recognizes that they provide a needed service to those, like Estelle, who lived a full life and faced their end with a clear decision, she questions how they don't question themselves.
Nicole: How do you know when it's the right thing to do?
Des: Because... we don't decide. Our patients do.
As great as she is as their own personal devil's advocate, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed when she didn't immediately jump right into Team Death like she proposed in the first season.
So when she comes down to the retreat to sign up, I stood up and cheered even if Des didn't.
Besides, it's just good business sense to have a stylist on site when clients want to look their best in their final pose.
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The resolution to Mary's hospital administration nightmare seemed overly simplistic. To be fair, it was a ridiculous kink in an already cluttered season of problems in the world of Dr. Harris.
Although Dr. Dunn's smarmy bureacratic-speak gives Mary a pretty easy and dramatically noble way out of the system, I'm a little surprised the board investigating Betty's death wouldn't insist on questioning her further even after she'd decided to resign.
And it's nice to know that we'll still be getting a regular dose of Annie in the future.
Mary: You know where to find me.
Annie: Yeah, but I'm not dumb enough to go there.
Mary: So is this goodbye?
Annie: Hardly. You and Des still owe me fifty grand.
Olivia's storyline is very much two separate tales in the finale.
One thing we know is that she's a survivor. It's nice that she's got a sixth sense for danger. It's unfortunate that she's not a quicker draw. It's really confusing how the heck she got home after taking a bullet in the gut.
And that's where the crazy kicks in (Round One) with Mary and Des attempting surgery on Olivia poolside.
First of all, it breaks my heart that Maya has seen enough in her eight years of life that she's able to follow the directions her heavily bleeding mother gives her about going inside and watching TV. And then puts herself to bed? Huh, that's one damaged kid.
Secondly, where does Des get surgical equipment? Pento and syringes, I could understand. When in their end-of-life counseling do they require scalpels and stitching materials?
Lastly, how the heck does Olivia survive all that blood loss without a transfusion?
Then we move to Recovering Olivia who seems genuinely grateful to Mary and considers giving up her life of vice. Yeah, that doesn't last.
Quite honestly, Mary's big plan is not a very good one. Unless her plan was just to get the lifetime supply of pento.
Olivia: How many people are you planning to kill?
Des: As many as possible. Gonna kill them by the bucketload.
Mary: With their consent.
Olivia: Your compassion is inspiring.
Everything goes pear-shaped when the wire gets brought in. Des is uneasy. Ben is patronizing. And Olivia's sixth sense gets super perky.
Mary's a terrible mole and she just can't resist trying to change her story about Grady to redeem herself when she knows Ben heard that she let Grady bleed out.
And, again, I'm not sure how she's allowed to go to the cops, volunteer to wear a wire, and then flip to Olivia's side before handing said wire back to Ben.
Finally, we get to Ben who may be regretting his decision that Mary and cigarettes are things he just can't quit despite their bad influence on his life.
I maintain that he isn't a very good cop. And I've never bought into this irresistible attraction he and Mary have for each other.
But being each other's "fatal flaw"? Well, yeah, that totally works.
It was a brave choice to run with a cliffhanger question. It was a stroke of brilliance to interweave the scenes of Ben possibly drinking poisoned bourbon alone with Brendan's pento champagne toast and laying down to a well-witnessed final rest.
Where else do you see a giant open-ended story blended with the ultimate moment of closure? Epic.
Be sure to watch Mary Kills People online and see if you can un-Inception those final Ben scenes. Is he dead or not?
There are a lot of possibilities looming on the horizon and I'm pretty excited to see which threads they choose to play with next season.
Will Camp Death (aka Joy's) be able to function as they imagine?
When will Olivia reappear? Is there another sibling waiting in the wings?
How will the police screw up the next investigation into Dr. Harris?
Are Jess and Heather going to break up over the euthanasia issue? (No, I'm totally kidding. Don't care.)
Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.
