In Plain Sight: 1.7 ‘Iris Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ Review
Original Air Date: July 13, 2008
Whoa! Talk about a bummer. You’re hanging out with your boyfriend, albeit in South Central Los Angeles, and he gets shot right in front of you for mouthing off at one of the most violent gang members in the country.
Worse, you see the coldblooded criminal commit the crime, which puts you and your entire upper-class family at risk. So it goes on this episode of In Plain Sight when 17-year-old Iris McBride witnesses her boyfriend Lawrence Parker’s shooting at the hands of gang member Mendoza Ruiz.
I’m with Iris’ father, an OB-GYN named Warren McBride, who blames the incident on Lawrence. When the gangbanger tells Lawrence he’s in the wrong neighborhood, instead of shutting up and walking away — especially since Ruiz is correct — Lawrence responds that at least he’s in the right country. Not nice, even if the guy isn’t obviously hardcore violent.
It’s Warren who has the hardest time becoming accustomed to the family’s changed circumstances. His difficulty is understandable at first since not only do the family members have to go into hiding and sever all ties with their old lives, but Warren can’t even practice medicine anymore. The doctor’s rage is so great, he’s no longer able to look at his daughter, whom he blames. The emotions on this episode — and there are a lot of them — are incredibly ugly and realistic.
Despite his clear dislike of the man, Marshall tries to help the doctor out by setting him up so he can practice medicine after all … for free at an inner-city clinic. One of the best scenes occurs at the facility when, after getting the big tour, Warren grumbles about his academic pedigree and how he can’t demean himself by working in a third-world clinic.
Marshall simply glares at Warren with a blank expression and informs him the doctor that just gave the tour has an even better academic background — Harvard Medical School trumps Johns Hopkins in their world, I guess — but has still devoted his career to helping the underprivileged.
Meanwhile, at the end of the girls’ first day at school, stupid Iris tries to get the entire family killed by calling the hospital where Lawrence is. But Mary is sympathetic, and when she and Marshall take Iris on a trip to Los Angeles to identify Mendoza, they detour to the hospital so Iris can visit her boyfriend. There, Mary gets to marvel at the cosmic crap — and I do mean crap, such as stuff about the universe wanting them to be together and so on — bed-ridden Lawrence gets away with.
This episode shoots on all cylinders, which means in addition to the Iris plot, we also have Marshall getting stern with stuck-up Warren, who, as his wife says in a more elegant way, thinks the world revolves around him. Still, the doctor refuses to stop being self-centered, until his youngest daughter reveals Iris was really in South Central to pick her up after she went to the neighborhood to feed her obsession with Latino guys.
Iris ordered her sister not to reveal she witnessed the violence, too, so their father would only hate one of them. When Iris endangers her place in WITSEC, not to mention her life, by returning to Los Angeles, Warren finally comes to his senses.
The storylines involving Rafael and Brandi are equally interesting on this episode, although momma Jinx is still nowhere to be found for the second episode in a row. Brandi continues to nurse her crush on her sister’s neglected boyfriend, which only grows when she calls her own boyfriend Chuck and a woman answers the phone.
Chuck later tells Brandi that the suitcase of dope — I was wondering when that would come up again — is everything, which prompts Brandi to throw it off of a bridge into the water below. It doesn’t go in all the way, which raises some concern and a conviction that we’ll be seeing Chuck when he finds out Brandi doesn’t have his goods anymore. The reunion will not be pretty either.
Mary also gives her relationship with Raphael some long overdue attention, and things go well before she learns just how much he knows about Brandi’s personal business these days. While she sees it as having too much information and inviting Brandi’s problems to become your own, Raphael, perhaps correctly, points out that Brandi could use a little encouragement and help instead of the constant criticism Mary offers.
No matter which one is right, Mary gets angry, and the relationship ends up at an impasse yet again. Mary’s voice-over goes on and on about forgiveness, but the only people giving any of that on this episode are the McBrides.
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POSTED IN: In Plain Sight, Recaps
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