‘Palm Royale’ Season 2, Episode 3 Recap – Maxine Solves A Murder… Sort Of

In hindsight, Palm Royale delivered one of its best ever episodes last week, setting a high bar for Season 2, and it was very unlikely that Episode 3, “Maxine Solves a Murder”, was going to clear it. You won’t be surprised to learn that it doesn’t, then. But that isn’t as much of a criticism as it seems. There’s still plenty to enjoy here, lots to laugh at, and a good amount of setup for the rest of the season involving Maxine and Norma, aka Agnes, that makes the hour well worth a look, even if it lacks the demented comedic energy of its immediate predecessor.

A very, very long time ago – the show’s words, not mine – Agnes and Norma were training to be nuns. The latter fell down a flight of stairs and, well, her family fortune had to go somewhere, didn’t it? What might have started as a reluctant assuming of an identity has, over the years, evidently calcified into something more than that. It is, presumably, harder to let go of that identity that it was to claim it in the first place, especially once one has gotten used to all the copious upsides it provides.

This story is being told by Norma – yes, technically Agnes, but it’s just easier if I keep saying Norma – to Robert, who it turns out she wasn’t plotting to kill Robert after all. She was simply giving him his medication. But she does remind him that his life depends on his discretion, which is a pretty unambiguous threat to kill him if the story of the poor diabetic girl who made good ever leaves that room. In the meantime, she’s throwing a party.

This is a party that Evelyn isn’t invited to, which Mary takes great pleasure in reporting to her. Hilariously, when the Feds turn up to raid the place on account of Evelyn supposedly harbouring a fugitive, she immediately tries to rat Mary out to the authorities. But they’re looking for Linda, since her being sprung from captivity in the previous episode has solidified her perceived guilt and left Evelyn’s considerable assets viable for seizure. Mary’s therefore off the hook, and no longer hiding out in the tunnels.

Maxine, meanwhile, after discovering that portrait of Douglas’s mother Stella via those very same tunnels, is divorcing Douglas and getting out of Dodge, but has to lurk around Palm Beach for a final day before she leaves. In typical Maxine fashion, when Douglas demands Stella’s engagement ring from her finger, she attempts to remove it with her mouth and inadvertently swallows it, leading to a funny recurring gag about her being fed prunes to try and grease the wheels of its reappearance. It’s one of several indignities Maxine suffers in this episode. Another is described by Douglas as a “betrothal portrait party”, a tradition among the founding families of Palm Beach to have a portrait published on the front page of the world’s newspapers when one of their number is getting engaged.

While Maxine helps a furious Evelyn to protect her assets by withdrawing them all as the conservator, the two of them, plus Dinah, brainstorm about Norma’s potential wrongdoings, which include killing Dinah’s late husband, though nobody really pays much mind to that theory when she floats it. The hook here is that Norma must have had help to get rid of as many people as she clearly has, and the prime candidate is Sidonius, her right hand. There may be a serial killer on the loose. And serial killers tend to pocket trinkets from their victims, which might explain why the ring Maxine swallowed doesn’t match the enormous emerald one Stella is depicted wearing in the portrait she found.

Maxine and Evelyn work different leads in Palm Royale Season 2, Episode 3, with the former trying to open the safety deposit box at the bank and Evelyn following Sidonius around, both tracks proving less fruitful than either expected. The safety deposit box contains naught but a note for Maxine from Norma, and Sidonius isn’t moving a body around, as Evelyn suspects he might be. But he is very much in debt, which gives the ladies an idea to purchase the Palm Royale, which he has remortgaged, in order to consolidate power in Palm Beach.

But this is easier said than done, since Norma is always a step ahead. Even after Maxine finds her trophy room and trinkets – including Axel’s cufflinks – she makes the mistake of confronting her instead of going to the police. Norma’s ready for it, and stages her own death by operatically sliding through a trap door and disappearing. Now, Maxine’s on the hook for it. She might have solved one murder, but she’s suddenly on the hook for another.

RELATED:

• Palm Royale Season 2 Episode 4 Recap