Falling in love takes time for me. With USA’s In Plain Sight, it took longer than usual. As much as I love Mary McCormack, I just didn’t much like her character Mary Shannon.
I didn’t say she wasn’t hot, mind you. I just didn’t care about her.
But Sight‘s AfterEllen.com fans are a passionate lot, so I gave the show another chance. Sure enough, Mary got under my skin. By season’s end, I was as anxious about Mary Shannon’s kidnapping as her fellow Federal Marshals were.
Sunday, Season 2 begins (10 p.m. ET) with the characters dealing with the fallout of the kidnapping. (Script continuity is alive and well on TV after all.)
When one of Shannon’s witnesses is killed, she ditches administrative leave to solve the case.
In an interview with Fancast, McCormack talked about the importance of being Mary:
I love that I get to sort of kick ass sometimes and carry a gun and stuff. But I love that David [Maples, executive producer] refuses not to look at the flip side of what carrying a gun means and being a bad ass means … it’s not badass to kill somebody, it sucks. And then it’s horrible for you for probably for the rest of your life. And I just think it’s wonderful that he makes the show sort of adult enough to acknowledge that, you know? I just like that there’s consequence and cause to everything and, that because we’re the leads of the show, we’re not some crazy two-dimensional superheroes.
She also is quick to credit Maples for creating a strong female character in advance of the success of shows like The Closer and Saving Grace:
I’ll set the record straight because I know he would do it because he’s a score keeper – he wrote the show long before either of those shows were written. So he sort of proudly goes ‘I wrote it a long time ago.’ But, I think absolutely those shows are excellent and very successful. And, audiences have responded to those female characters being strong and complex and not always girly and not always what is seen as traditionally feminine. So I think for us we’ve benefited from that certainly and I’m grateful to both those ladies for that.
We can look forward to more shenanigans in the Shannon family in Season 2, especially from Mary’s mom Jinx, played by the ever-delightful Lesley Ann Warren. McCormack says of the mother/daughter dynamic:
My mother hits a pretty new low early on in the season and ends up getting in a physical fight with a cop and she’s loaded obviously when it happens. And she decides that that’s just as low as she can go and she goes to rehab. So that changes – obviously I’ve only ever known her drunk my whole life. So for this family dynamic, that creates something new all together. She’s all 12 steppy and using slogans.
Mary McCormack is making the talk show rounds this week to promote In Plain Sight, but I doubt she can top her hilarious appearance on Ellen. I wish the video had a higher definition so you could see all of the little red dots, but you’ll get the idea.
I’m ready to see Mary strutting her stuff again, preferably looking like this.
How about you? Will you be watching Season 2 of In Plain Sight?
