Mary Kills People

Network: Lifetime
Episodes: Ongoing (hour)
Seasons: Ongoing

TV show dates: April 23, 2017 — present
Series status: Has not been cancelled

Performers include: Caroline Dhavernas, Jay Ryan, Richard Short, Lyriq Bent, Greg Bryk, Abigail Winter, Grace Lynn Kung, Katie Douglas, Alexandra Castillo, Sebastien Roberts, Lola Flanery, Natalie Lisinska, and Jess Salgueiro.

TV show description:
A Canadian black comedy-medical drama, the Mary Kills People TV show centers on Dr. Mary Harris (Dhavernas). A physician and single mother, Mary also operates a mercy-killing business on the side.

She deeply believes people should be in control of their lives and their deaths. To Mary, that is liberty. Dying is not a crime.

Dr. Des Bennet (Short) was Mary’s co-worker at the hospital until he lost his license. Now he’s a co-conspirator in her secret practice.

He also uses his shady connections to obtain the drugs they use to euthanize people. Des is having a fling with Larissa (Salgueiro) who believes he and Mary work together to help sick children.

Grady (Bryk) supplies Des with the Pentobarbital he and Mary use to help their patients end their lives. When he grows suspicious that Des is re-selling the drugs, he waters down a batch.

The diluted barbiturate causes Troy Dixon’s (Adrian Holmes) planned death to go horribly wrong, and Mary ends up having to smother him with a pillow. When Des confronts him, Grady reminds him he doesn’t want Des selling it, and it becomes clear Des has allowed him to think he’s injecting himself with the drug.

Grady gives him a new, pure batch and insists Des try it out. Since, in truth, Des is in recovery, he demurs, so of course Grady assumes he’s lying about not dealing the drug.

Annie (Kung) is a nurse and Mary’s friend. She uses her position to pass potential clients to Mary.

Kevin Geller (Roberts) is Mary’s ex-husband and the father of her daughters, Jess (Winter) and Cambie (Flanery). Although they’re supposed to share custody equally, he’s frustrated that he has to take the children so often, due to Mary’s workload. On the other hand, she’s frustrated that she’s supporting him, since he doesn’t work.

One day, teenaged Jess sneaks off to Mary’s shed to smoke a joint with her girlfriend, Naomi (Douglas). As the girls are kissing, they hear a cell phone ringing and realize the sound is coming from underneath the floor.

Upon pulling up a lo0se floorboard, they find the box full of diluted Pentobarbital. While Naomi speculates that Mary could be an addict or a dealer, Jess knows her mother would never do either of those things. Consequently, her suspicion grows. Jess doesn’t notice Naomi pocket a vial of the drug.

Meanwhile, Naomi’s mother, Louise (Castillo) is dating Kevin. Mary is blindsided by this news, when Kevin — with an assist from Cambie — blurts it out at the older girls’ dance recital.

When Naomi collapses onstage, Mary rushes to help her and rides with her in the ambulance to the hospital. When Naomi regains consciousness, she confesses that she thought the stuff she took from Mary’s shed was alcohol.

Naomi says she only drank a little of it, to combat her stage fright. She convinces Mary not to inform her mother what she took, because Louise is a lawyer who will go absolutely off the rails.

Joel Collins (Ryan) is terminally ill and lethally handsome. When he told Annie he was dying and wanted to die more quickly, she passed along Mary’s contact information and said she and Des were “End of Life Counselors.”

Upon meeting Mary and Des, Joel tells them he wants something to help him with that. Des says if they were in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, they could. Although that’s not the case in the here, Mary says they can still talk about it — hypothetically.

After the consult, it’s clear to Des that Mary is warm for Joel’s form. He encourages her to go for it.

When Joel calls her back and says he wants to avail himself of her services, Mary goes to visit him. As she approaches his apartment, she gets a long side-eye from a man who passes her in the corridor.

After a tense exchange, in which Joel pushes her off of him and onto the floor, things get rather hot and heavy, until she mentions he doesn’t seem sick, which breaks the spell. Joel demands the drink then and there, but Mary doesn’t have it and informs him there is a protocol.

Joel wonders if the seduction is part of that protocol and says he’s ready, now. Stunned and in tears, Mary says she can’t and flees. He chases after her and pleads with her to come back inside, but she takes off.

Once she’s gone, we learn Joel is actually an undercover cop named Ben Wesley. His partner, Frank (Bent), spotted Mary in his building, so he turned on the surveillance cameras and caught them having sex, which could derail their whole case. Ben strong-arms Frank into getting rid of the tape.

Back home, Mary finds Jess in her shed. Jess tells her about finding the Pentobarbital and says she looked up its uses, and knows it is for insomnia, getting high, and euthanasia. Mary lies that she has it for their cat, Casper, who has cancer. Later, Mary brings Caper to Des and asks him to watch the cat, for now.

Will Mary and Des get arrested for their mission of mercy, quit the job, or keep getting away with it? Stay tuned.

Series Finale:
Episode #TBD
This episode has not aired yet.
First aired: TBD

What do you think? Do you like the Mary Kills People TV show? Should Lifetime cancel or renew it for another season?