Mistresses Recap: Nanny McFlee
Wilson in a Wig and Caftan (TM pending) returned to Mistresses this week (via flashback, thank Wilson in a Wig and Caftan (TM pending) returned to Mistresses this week (via flashback, thank goodness), reminding us there’s sometimes a thin line between summer soap and full-fledged horror show.
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I mean, remember when Elizabeth Grey brought a gun — and a thirst for cold vodka — to Karen’s house (and wound up killing her sexy-but-creepy-but-still-sexy son in the process)? Or that time Savi went code blue right after a Maury-esque “Dom is the baby’s father!” moment in her hospital suite? Or when April said goodbye to Daniel’s swoon-inducing abdominal muscles in an episode that caused the Mistresses fandom to engage in hardcore blackout drinking? (Remind me again why she did that to herself? Something about her not thinking his status as an undercover FBI agent actually made him all the more desirable?)
Certainly, as we speed toward a season (hopefully not series) finale — only two episodes left, people! — there’s a shadowy figure lurking behind the thick, rococo curtains: Is it the possibly psychotic nanny? (Who doesn’t love a Hand That Rocks the Cradle homage? Or are we calling it When the Bough Breaks nowadays?) Could it be the nasty, homicidal boyfriend of Joss’ late gym buddy, reeling from a recent pistol-whipping? Or could awful Aussie Kate return to detonate a bomb that leaves every resident of Melrose Place in summer cliffhanger jeopardy? (Whoops… right idea/wrong show!)
Let’s give those theories a think as we recap the action from Season 4, Episode 11, “Fight or Flight.”
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UPPING THE VIGILANTE | “I can’t do this. I can’t do us. I don’t think that we should get married,” exclaims a panicked Joss at the top of the episode, seconds after last week’s long-delayed but inevitable confrontation in which Harry found her pilfered anxiety meds. Joss makes a good point, though, about Harry leaving the country right as she needed to testify against her assailant — “You abandoned me during the most vulnerable and harrowing time of my life.” — and the look on his face says he realizes he should’ve ignored his lover’s casual attitude and held her hand when she needed it most.
Joss has bigger problems, though, as Marisol’s ex Lee shows up at Impact and threatens Joss, Jackie and the group of women who helped Marisol learn self-defense. The cowardly monster thinks the training escalated his relationship from light abuse to deadly abuse, and since the police can’t find enough evidence to indict him, Joss decides the Impact chicas need to serve up some Death Wish-style street justice. Karen and April think the plan sound crazy — and when Karen calls you crazy, it’s time to spend a week off the grid and check yourself (before you wreck yourself).
Joss ignores the advice, though, instead luring Lee to a dark alley — with the promise of handing over Marisol’s incriminating (and also nonexistant) diary — grabbing the dude’s gun and vigorously pistol-whipping him ’til Jackie pulls her off. When Joss points her gun at her spiritual mentor, she realizes she’s at a tipping point, goes home to Harry and tells him she needs help. She tells him all about Wilson, and (yesssss!) the luster finally begins to return to the love for which the couple sacrificed almost everything. Please, let’s not make this an excuse for Kate to come back to Los Angeles and burn their house to the ground? Who’s with me?
THAT’S HOW SHE BECAME THE (UNEMPLOYED) NANNY | Is there anythikng worse than Karen attempting babytalk? How about Karen finding out that new beau Adam “met” her via an online dating service for which she never registered, and learning this information right in the middle of a “meet my BFFs” dinner with April and Joss? How this is more alarming than Adam’s screen name (AdamDesiresEve?!) or the name of the dating site is the real cliffhanger of Episode 11, if you ask me, but Karen winds up dumping Adam (“You didn’t see me — you saw a cheatsheet!” she whines) and firing Lydia (with the threat of a 911 call if she ever again comes near baby Vivian). That makes sense, really, as long as there’s a deleted scene in which Lydia teaches Karen how to extract Vivian from the carseat in which she spends 90 percent of her life.
Later, though, Karen realizes she’s being daft — in a bad way — and leaves an apology for Adam. She was a jerk, she says, and ultimately, what counts is that when she’s with Adam, she’s happy. Maybe the happiest she’s ever been. “This is Karen, by the way,” she says, at the end of the message, AS IF THERE’S ANY POSSIBILITY ADAM IS ALSO DATING A SECOND WOMAN WHOSE ONLINE PROFILE WAS SURREPTITIOUSLY CREATED BY THE WOMAN WHO CARES FOR HER INFANT DAUGHTER. (Sorry, Karen, but for a fully licensed psychiatrist, sometimes you’re as coherent as a stick of glue at the bottom of a first-grader’s bookbag!)
ALL CHANGE, SHE’S HAVING A BABY | April gets all gussied up for Lucy’s debate competition — but mainly as a guse to woo back Marc. They’re on the brink of flirtation when Blanky McWhatsherface (aka Marc’s ex) pulls up in a convertible and yells “C’mon, baby! We gotta get back!”
Do I need to mention Michael returns briefly — this time in “just a friend” mode — to console April, and to tell her it’s “sexist, archaic and downright weird” that she thinks she can just wait around at home and not fight for her man. And so April sends a sexy invite to Marc, fills the house with candles and — insert the sound of a needle screeching across a record — makes turducken! Good thing he shows up way late, after returning the key that Blanky gave him in an attempt to solidify their relationship/prevent Marc from sleeping on a park bench. (“A scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly, and is also known as a busta.”) April apologizes for being so grouchy throughout Season 4 the last few months, and sounds sincere when she says she’ll support his music dreams — despite the fact that he’s in a duet with his ex, despite “the lack of income,” despite the travel. “I will keep my mouth shut,” she says, and Marc hears the compromise, the hollowness, the way this won’t really work in the end. “Even if you don’t say it out loud, don’t you think I can hear you?” he tells her. “I can’t carry the weight of disappointing you, too,” he adds, before making his final exit. Too bad, then, that April ends the episode staring at the positive sign on her ClearBlue Easy. Oh, yeah, she’s pregnant. And if she doesn’t get on the phone and tell Marc immediately, then I hope her future teeanger turns out even surlier than Lucy!
What did you think of this week’s Mistresses? Who’s most likely to create a horror-movie Season 4 finale? Sound off in the comments!
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