Margaret gets ready to attend an interview to get admission into the Portland Preservation Federation. It is culturally unique and she needs more social time with women her own age. Her interview, though, does not go according to plan as Joan, one of the Board members, rudely dismisses a server, Judie Cusack. Margaret stands up for her but knows that it has cost her admission. Outside, Felicity, another Board member, praises Margaret for standing up to Joan and both see Judie being arrested and taken away. Margaret is determined to find out the truth and goes to the police station with Todd. Judie explains that every Saturday, she is sent by the Board of the PPF to bring in specially crafted handmade soaps for the building. The long runs see her car being left alone for long stretches of time and Margaret senses foul play. She decides to take up Judie’s case to help her. Although she is unable to strike a plea deal with the DA at the motion hearing, she is confident the tides can be turned around. Todd goes to investigate the organization and gets in pretending to be Colin, a server called in Judie’s absence. Olivia, another server, lets him in and Viktor, the event manager, puts him to work. Margaret and Susan visit the same event as the latter is a member of PPF. The former meets Felicity to discuss the issue but notices something odd with Olivia. Todd spots Viktor collecting money from the staff. He also reports to Lyle that night about the building. They see that someone has been working late nights in there on the camera Todd put in to spy on them. Todd goes to investigate but finds Viktor staying there after he was evicted from his apartment. As for the money, he was selling the leftovers to the staff at a discounted price. Viktor mentions Devina Richards, the person whom Judie replaced, and how she overdosed on heroin and went into a coma. Todd goes to Allison to get more information but she cannot due to her ethical obligation. When she is called away to the ICU, Todd takes her coat and visits Devina. He learns that someone sends her flowers every three days and that Devina had not taken drugs ever before the day she took them and went into a coma. When Joan visits Margaret, Todd notices her wallpaper. Olivia is actually Joan’s daughter. This raises suspicion that she might be involved in drug peddling. Olivia was previously ousted from her college for distributing drugs and has been working at the PPF. He tries to bait Olivia into giving him evidence that Margaret can use, but he is unsuccessful. Felicity gives Margaret some information about an unknown person making out thousands of dollars in blank checks from PPF’s ledger. Todd devises a plan with Margaret to catch the person who put Devina in a coma. They send out emails to employees and staff that Devina has woken up from her coma. This would draw out the culprit and help them solve the case. Margaret and Todd wait in the car outside Devina’s home. The former gets emotional about how lonely she is after Harry left. She has not been able to cope with the stress and wants to get out for this reason. Todd reassures her that he will always be there for her in need and that she is not alone. It is a tender moment between the mother-son duo, who have been getting closer as the episodes fly by in season 1. All of a sudden, a car pulls up and they confront the driver. It is Joan. She explains that she and Devina were actually lovers. She is the one who has been sending her flowers and waiting for her to wake up. In the bag of her belongings, Todd notices a strange piece of plastic that he associates with something he had seen before. He rushes back to the PPF building and confirms to Margaret that he has found the culprit. The next day in court, Margaret calls up Felicity to the witness stand. The lawyer explains how Felicity owns a dry cleaning place next to the shop that makes the handmade soaps. Whenever Judie used to go for these runs, Felicity’s men would pack up the drugs in the dry cleaning material and hide them in the car. It was Felicity all along who was using Judie as a mule. At the PPF, the police find bundles of heroin where Felciti9y said they would be. The case is solved and Judie is freed. Joan admits Margaret into the organization but she declines the offer. The episode ends with another heartwarming moment shared between Margaret and Todd, who now promise to spend more time together.
The Episode Review
This episode perhaps corrected some of the misalignment in the show’s promise and delivery. So Help Me Todd had a dramatic flavor that was somewhat lost in the previous episodes after the initial flare. We finally saw some of the bonding that Todd and Margaret’s relationship has gone through in action. Like other episodes, the standalone story did not offer many sparks. It was sufficiently enough to make up the outer structure, within which we once again saw Todd’s brilliance and Margaret’s big heart. While the stories themselves are written to provide support to the core story, they can be quite complicated at times. Here, that was not the case. But the core story of the Wright family was served well. There is hope that we will get to see more of these tender moments of vulnerability to give us real characters instead of derivative, plastic caricatures.
