In Plain Sight: 1.1 ‘Pilot’ Review
Original Air Date: June 1, 2008
So, after watching the extended pilot for In Plain Sight, we know lots about main character Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), a U.S. Marshal attached to the Federal Witness Protection Program, or WITSEC, as viewers will eventually come to call it instinctively.
Mary is devoted to her job: When Frankie Junior, the teenage son of her Mafia hitman witness Frank Santoro (Al Sapienza), also known as Frankie “Nuts,” turns up dead alongside an equally deceased beautiful teenage girl in the New Mexico desert, Mary becomes determined to find the killer before her witness reverts to his killing-craze days. She gets the job done, too, if only by a stroke of luck when her sister gives her a necklace for her birthday with a Native American symbol on the pendant.
Mary is very, very good at her job: She not only solves the murder of Frankie Junior and helps get another mafioso, Ritchie Mastro (Yorgo Constantine), arrested in the process, but her family remains none the wiser about her true job duties — they think she’s runs errands for the most part — and she remembers to bring her other new witness, Ukranian bookkeeper Tasha Turischeva (Angela Sarafyan), the promised groceries, plus a Playboy to help the young woman pick out the new breasts she requested as part of her federal deal.
Mary’s family is dysfunctional, annoying, and unnecessary, a dreadful combination: This is truly the worst aspect of the series thus far — Mary has an airheaded nympho of a mother, Jinx (Lesley Ann Warren), and a petulant, know-it-all younger sister, Brandi (Nichole Hiltz), who’s fast on the way to becoming either a drug addict or a drug dealer; it’s not clear which yet. Please get rid of both characters ASAP, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to do the same with Paul Ben-Victor’s pitifully smitten and ineffective boss character Stan McQueen.
Mary has an earthy sense of humor: When she busts into the hotel room of New York mafioso Ritchie Mastro, who’s in town to get rid of Frankie Nuts before the traitor can testify against his father Dominic, one of the first things Mary says upon pinning him facedown on the bed goes something like, “You better not fart.” And that’s not to mention the simulated orgasm she puts on earlier to determine that Ritchie’s in town. Sure, the fake scene is a bit too When Harry Met Sally — and not nearly as funny or raunchy — but it does demonstrate Mary’s perceptiveness when it comes to hardcore crooks.
Mary’s not as tough as she wants everyone to think: After her cute casual boyfriend Raphael Ramirez (Cristián de la Fuente) bluntly informs her he’s not coming to her “surprise” birthday party later that day since they just did what they wanted to do when they had sex moments before, Mary pretends not to care in front of him, and then (briefly) fights back tears while sitting in her car afterwards.
All in all, I like Mary, but I really want to see more of her partner Marshall Mann (Fred Weller), who seems to have lots of potential to be much funnier and more deeply involved in the plots if given better lines and a chance. Just as he says at one point after Mary barks a litany of orders at him — he isn’t her assistant. Let’s not treat him like one just because Mary’s the star.
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