Summary
Palm Royale continues its Season 2 hot streak in “Maxine Unwrecks a Home”, which is full of madcap energy, funny lines, and soapy plot turns.
How do you prove you didn’t kill someone who has disappeared? How do you prove that someone who has disappeared is a murderer? These are tough questions to answer, as Maxine discovers in Episode 4 of Palm Royale Season 2. She’s probably not the best person to answer them, all things considered, but her future kind of depends on it, since after Norma’s disappearing act at the end of the previous episode, she’s on the hook for killing her. And she can’t inherit the fortune that she took with her.
The premise is so silly that it fits very neatly into the show’s kooky vibe. Tom thinks Maxine killed Norma for no better reason than Norma isn’t physically present anymore, although her “last words” were, admittedly, “Don’t kill me, Maxine”. But there’s no evidence. And it isn’t like Maxine is the only person who might stand to benefit from Norma’s “death”, since Douglas is already trying to declare her dead to take ownership of the vast Dellacorte estate and hand it over to Pinky. Unfortunately for Douglas, Norma bequeathed the property to Robert.
Norma didn’t disappear without help, of course, which is where Sidonius comes in. It’s obvious that her right-hand man helped her abscond, and Evelyn threatens to reveal his involvement if he doesn’t give her a majority controlling share in the Palm Royale, but it turns out not to be that easy. The process requires three signatures from Palm Beach’s three founding families – the Donahues, the Davidsouls, and, most troubling, the Dellacortes.
When Evelyn gets home to stew on this, Maxine is there, having been spirited from police detention by her new good Samaritan lawyer and part-time gynaecologist, Dr. Dusty Magic (not a word of that is made up for effect, if you can believe it). Evidence quickly mounts that Norma is in England, having left Palm Beach with Maxine’s stolen ticket and Evelyn’s money – the bag Sidonius was spotted carrying around wasn’t a dead body after all, but her luggage. Maxine uses a fake accent to determine that Norma – using her name – was staying at the London Ritz, since even on the lam, very rich people want the very finest things.
Armed with this new lead, Maxine nonetheless hits a roadblock. She’s still considered a murderess in the eyes of the press, a problem she attempts to solve by publicly kissing Tom in front of the assembled reporters, prejudicing his investigation. She quickly learns that there might be knock-on effects to that, though, since Tom is secretly seeing Robert. Oh, and since Robert has inherited all of Norma’s assets, Maxine won’t stand to get anything from Douglas. It’s a bit of a pickle.
While all this is going on, Evelyn still needs to find a way to get the signatures she needs. Perry seems easy enough to blackmail, since Evelyn, through her husband, comes into possession of Dinah’s saucy correspondence, leakage of which would threaten Perry’s mayoral bid. Mary proves a bit more challenging, but her belief in the occult allows Evelyn to claim that her late husband told her she should sign through a Ouija board. The same board also reveals that “Norma” died in the Alps, which is technically true, since the real Norma did, but nobody knows about that identity swap scenario, so the ladies take it to mean that the Norma they know, who was last seen in Switzerland, has bitten the bullet.
There’s a nice moment in Palm Royale Season 2, Episode 4, when Maxine turns up at Tom’s house after being confronted by his wife about their affair. She’s obviously initially intending to confess it was all a ruse, but to protect the fact that Tom really is having an affair with Robert, she doubles down. It isn’t a major scene or anything, but I think it’s worth mentioning because it’s such a neat capsule summary of Maxine as a character. She’s messy and fumbling, but her heart’s in the right place.
In this regard, she’s sort of the polar opposite of someone like Mitzi, who undergoes quite a radical personality shift in “Maxine Unwrecks a Home”, pushing Douglas to finalise the marriage and freezing him out of the bed until he does, snooping around Robert’s house, and just generally giving off an unpleasant, calculating aura. Mitzi has largely been an empty vessel throughout Season 1, but in Season 2, that vessel is being filled with something dangerous. She might end up proving a bigger threat to the old guard ladies of Palm Beach than any of them realised.
As is now standard, the episode ends with a double cliffhanger – Douglas is kidnapped, and Robert prepares to tell Maxine the Agnes story. Both developments should yield some fun fruits in the remaining episodes.
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