Last night Allison and I watched the premiere episode of In Plain Sight. The show is about Mary Shannon, a U.S. Marshall with WITSEC, witness protection. Mary’s job is to help witnesses adjust to their new lives in Witness protection. However Mary is not exactly a team player and does things very much by her own rules. Mary also goes above and beyond in her job and is very dedicated to it plus she is tough and cold and very difficult yet endearing.
Mary certain is a character and since USA Networks’ tagline is Characters Welcome they have certainly embraced that as a more than a motto. Along with shows like Psych and Burn Notice, In Plain Sight is full of quirky characters. Mary’s partner is Marshall Mann who comes from a family of U.S. Marshals. They really like being Marshals. Mary also has a boyfriend named Raphael and a mom named Jinx and sister named Brandi. They are all a bit wacky.
The show started off with a hitman really screwing up his latest hit and then entering the witness protection program. We are introduced to Mary as she and Marshall are discussing how she hates that her car is named Probe. Marshall and Mary debate a bit and we learn a little about their dynamic. Mary is definitely one of those people where the phrase “To know her is to love her” because if you just meet her she is very abrasive. Mary and Marshall pick up a new witness and end up taking her to a crime scene. At the crime scene we find the son of the hitman and a girl that he went to school with. They are both dead. Mary meets a police detective, Bobby D, he’ll be a regular.
The rest of the episode had to do with establishing characters and their relationships. This all took place while Mary tried to track down who actually killed Frankie’s son and the girl. We learn a lot about Mary and how she operates. She does not tread lightly, she barrels in with both guns a blazing kicking butt and whipping soap bars at guys crotches. That was a particularly funny part.
Ultimately Mary does her job while keeping it secret form her alcoholic layabout mother and her drug smuggling younger sister who likes to steal cars. I’m not sure if her boyfriend knows about her job or not.
I think it will take me a little time to find my rhythm for these reviews. There were certainly many memorable moments from the show and there were points where Mary is cold as ice and then she can be wonderfully compassionate. Marshall is awesome with his expansive knowledge of trivial things. He know a lot about everything but not a lot about all those things. And apparently he knows a little Russian and some ASL. But not very much of it because each time he used the languages it blew up in his face. I like the characters, the mother and sister making Mary’s life more difficult seems contrived and will remain to be seen if it is worth giving them screen time. It makes me think of Michael Westen’s Mother and brother on Burn Notice but they are much better characters in my opinion. I do think that USA will have another hit on their hands though. Check out In Plain Sight Sundays at 10 on USA Network.
