Summary
“Practically Lethal In Every Way” was a stand-out episode full of humor, surprises, and fun developments.
This recap of Why Women Kill Episode 6, “Practically Lethal In Every Way”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
My favorite episode of Why Women Kill thus far opened with three minor characters in funeral attire lamenting their role in the murder of the show’s men. This happens a lot in CBS’s dark comedy, these slightly off-kilter prologues and epilogues. But this one was slightly different in that it featured two characters I don’t believe we’ve met before, though “Practically Lethal In Every Way” introduces us to both.
For the sake of variety, we’ll begin in the 80s this week, where Simone (Lucy Liu) stops by at the gallery to tell Karl (Jack Davenport) that she’s got a divorce lawyer. They’re supposed to be waiting until after Amy’s (Li Jun Li) wedding to untie the knot, but there’s no harm in getting the ball rolling early — except when your divorce attorney leaves a message on your answering machine when your daughter is present. Amy wants to know why her mother is getting divorced for the third time, but it isn’t worth going into — it’s what we Brits call “Tommyrot”, according to Karl, in a deliciously petty bit of “if you tell mine I’ll tell yours” oneupmanship.
The games continue in Why Women Kill Episode 6 at the swanky dinner with Amy’s future in-laws, who’re sitting on an oil fortune. Here we meet one of the men from the opening sequence: Hector (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez), Simone’s former hairdresser, who inexplicably dropped her as a client. It doesn’t take long for “Practically Lethal In Every Way” to reveal why — he’s in love with Karl, who Simone interrupts him smooching in the toilets. By far the best zinger of the episode is Karl’s response to Simone’s horror: “You’re surprised I slept with your hairdresser? That’s the gay sex equivalent of ‘the butler did it’.”
This news and plenty of chardonnay are not an ideal combination for a dinner party — especially one attended by a deeply conservative family whose son is marrying into the clan. Karl’s homosexuality is exposed, as is Simone’s relationship with Tommy (Leo Howard), among other things. During an argument back at the house, Karl, in a rare moment of seriousness, confesses that he was in love with Hector; he was the one person he could be his true self around.
In the present day, Eli (Reid Scott) is still popping pills. Taylor (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) is due home, and Jade (Alexandra Daddario) wants to tell her that they slept together while she was away. Eventually, she guesses anyway and they’re forced to admit it, but the good news is that Eli has — with chemical assistance — finished his screenplay. While Taylor has some nebulous “feelings” about her husband having slept with her lover in her absence, she has much clearer feelings about Lamar (Kevin Daniels), Eli’s agent, referring to Jade as Eli’s “muse”. She’s also not entirely thrilled that he let Jade read an incomplete script, which he has never let Taylor do before. Imagine how she might feel about the fact that Jade also unwittingly gave Eli pills, despite him being in recovery; later in Why Women Kill Episode 6 she confronts him about this but is talked around by his promises to make enough money to “take care of her” just so long as he’s high enough to write. Now, I ain’t saying she’s a golddigger…
The biggest revelation of “Practically Lethal In Every Way” came in the 60s timeline. As Beth Ann (Ginnifer Goodwin) unpacks the rest of the stuff leftover from the move, a guilty Rob (Sam Jaeger) insists that “the project he’s been involved with” is almost over. Pretty soon, he’ll be home in time for dinner every night. They also agree to display an old photo of the pair of them with a young child. The implication is clear: They had a daughter. And now they don’t.
While we don’t learn the exact circumstances of the missing daughter, we do learn by the end of Why Women Kill Episode 6 that she died, and that it was perhaps Beth Ann’s fault. But more on that momentarily. While planning a housewarming party, Beth Ann visits the neighbors, one of whom, Mary (Analeigh Tipton), is the second new face from the opening. She’s a nervous woman evidently hesitant around her husband. When Beth Ann laters goes to visit April (Sadie Calvano), the waitress insists that her husband hits her. She saw the same patterns in her mother and father. It’s awful, as Beth Ann says, but what was worse were the people who knew it was happening and looked the other way.
At the housewarming party, Beth Ann refuses to look the other way when Mary’s husband is physical with her for dancing with Rob (“You can cheat on your wife all you want, but you’re not touching mine,” he says. How many people know about Rob’s infidelity at this point?). And that refusal causes a big argument between her and Rob, whom she insists is a coward for not intervening. He, in return, suggests she was a bad mother, which Sheila (Alicia Coppola) overhears. When she presses the issue, Beth Ann admits that their daughter died because of her.
