In Plain Sight: To Serge With Love
By fred | August 4, 2008
(S01E10) I think I’m conflicted over what I think about this show, or more precisely how I feel about it. There’s a couple of things that have me unable to really stick with a definite position I think. First of all it is made out of different stories, about each episode contains at least two main plots : first, we have a new witness situation for Mary (and Marshall) to take care of; and secondly we have Mary’s private life, and that means her little sister and her mother.
Like most of everyone I think, I don’t like the later. Not that developing Mary’s private life is a bad idea per-se, but the use of family relatives was a clear mistake here. It never really brought anything to the show, but they’re here and as long as long are it’s a problem, because those plots are usually pretty lame and boring and take the entire episode down.
This week no mother, but Brandi was still around. At first it looked like she’d leave, but she didn’t, and for some unbelievable reason it seems that her “boyfriend” has no problem giving her all that drug and letting her handle everything on her own. In other words, she could sell the drug, get the money and disappear, leaving him with absolutely nothing, and that doesn’t seem to worry him one bit. Even after she refused to take her calls not so long ago…
Anyways, that whole drug situation still isn’t resolved, and not only that but - and who didn’t see that coming? - by the end of this episode of course Mary came back to her boyfriend, only to find him with her sister, sister she thought was gone as she drove her to the airport earlier on. I know this is all happening because the end of the season is near, only a couple episodes left and it will all be addressed : the “love triangle”, the drugs, everything. (I just pray Brandi doesn’t end up in the program as a result of it, cause that’s be kinda lame and predictable, but you know what, anything to get ride of her, and take the mother with you, please!)
I know everything ill be addressed soon, but that’s kinda my point : we’re focusing more and more on those plots and those characters that are the show’s weaknesses, the boring and useless elements of it. That is not good.
That is especially not good when, to give more screen time to Brandi, we get to see Marshall sent back a few episodes back : now he’s not really that much as a partner to Mary anymore, despite some nice scenes between the two this week, especially as he made fun of her. Because truth be told, he’s back being a sidekick, he’s sitting at his desk taking orders and waiting for Mary to do the job. There had been so much progress on that part, and now it’s all going away… Sucks.
Bringing is to the second “problem” I have with the show : while it was able to get better week after week, it now seems unable to keep up with that newly reached level of quality. Marshall is back being a secondary character at best, Mary is doing all the work, and in a pure 80’s tradition she was of course right. Of course there was a problem with the two witnesses hooking up, and of course if had to come from Serge, aka not her witness, because she’s always right. Would have been so much better to get something different and more complicated going on here… and for Mary to be wrong (and Marshall right).
Other than that, it was a good episode, filled with humor. I loved how they got stuck together at Serge’s and tried to escape in the back, and Marshall making fun of Mary was pretty funny, too. That said, them fighting over the USB stick like 5 years old was not so good, and also what the hell did Mary use to do her “copy” of Serge’s hard drive, looks like “visual effects” straight out of the 80’s !
But it was fun to see a new kind of situation, not dealing with someone trying to kill a witness or anything, a story a bit more “light”, and of course bringing the girl who wanted new boobs out of WITSEC was a pretty nice thing (and quite surprising, given how consistency with previous episodes has never been a strong point of the show).
All in all, if you take all the Brandi stuff out of it, I liked this episode. Adding the Brandi stuff in, it wasn’t as good, really. And when I think about what’s coming next, which might be Brandi-centric, I’m getting worried… I just pray that both her & her mother will be gone by the end of it, so season two can focus on Mary & Marshall, bringing him back to his full partner status.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: In Plain Sight
