Scene 1: Establishing shot of Easter Cove, Maine. Some fishermen gutting fish and singing: "When boys become greenhorns, and greens become mates, give me some time to blow the man down."
Sure, take all the time you need. Once it took me 45 minutes to...um.....
Meanwhile, a man chases a woman through the snow, while Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life watches from her window.
Scene 3: The wake. The Town Biddies discuss how much Mom helped them over the years, and advise Priscilla to attend the U. of Maine in the fall, where "they have the hottest boys."
Let's see some. So far this is a community of women.
They argue. Mary Beth gets mad and leaves.
As they're driving home, they crash into the town statue. She opens his trunk, sees bloody sheets and ropes, and changes her mind. He turns violent, she kills him in self defense.
Great, there goes the only guy in town.
Scene 5: Mary Beth and Priscilla start to call the police, but change their minds, for some reason. They go back to dispose of Sleazoid's body, but they have to cut off its arms so it will fit in the cooler.
A Greek chorus of singing fishermen serenade them.
Scene 6: Officers Hunk (Will Brittain, top photo) and Gordo are investigating the town statue mishap. Meanwhile, Blond Girl rushes to work at the Oceanview Bed and Breakfast, the town brothel, where Mrs. Garrett is the Madam. They wonder why Sleazoid hasn't shown up for work.
Was he a male prostitute? Is Oceanview an equal opportunity employer?
Scene 7: Officer Hunk stops by to ask Priscilla to borrow her boat to go pick up a body that washed up on the beach. Uh-oh. But it's not Sleazoid == it still has arms! It's a woman....
Scene 8: The Biddies discuss their disapproval of the brothel. Then they accost Mrs. Garrett at the hair salon, and inform her that the dead woman is one of her employees, so she's crossed a line and needs to shut the brothel down.
This is just a little Peyton Place, and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites.
Scene 9: Mrs. Garrett goes to Sleazoid's house, and finds the knife the girls used to dismember the corpse. It has their name embossed on it. Stupid!
At home, Mary Beth hides a huge bag of cocaine. What?
Scene 10: Blond Girl has an appointment with the Biddies. But they don't want sex, they want een-for-mation. Did her boss at the brothel, Mrs. Garrett, kill her coworker?
They interview Mrs. Garrett about the dead girl and the missing Sleazoid ("Weirdo, not from Easter Cove"). She gives them a lead: Declan, who runs the Desert (the docks, where lots of things "go in and out").
Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more. The town has both a brothel and street...er, dock...prostitution. Is it all sex, all the time?
Paulie, Hunk's high school friend, shows up (Played by Owen Burke, who may or may not be this guy). He says: "I love the sexy cop outfit. Where's your stripper pole?"
Implying that Hunk is a male prostitute working the docks. Yep, an equal opportunity sex town.
Scene 13: Blond Girl gets a "thoughts and prayers" card from one of the Biddies. Then she goes home and lies on the bed and thinks about Dead Girl ("I love you so much..."). Blond Girl is a lesbian!
Scene 14: At the Easter Cove Pancake Breakfast, Priscilla and Mary Beth discover that their mother had a long history with Mrs. Garrett. They "made a lot of money together." They opened the brothel together! But were they lovers?
The girls argue, the officers argue, Blond Girl argues with Mrs. Garrett., Mrs. Garrett argues with Declan. Everybody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Mrs. Garrett visits the girls, and offers to exchange the knife implicating them in Sleazoid's death if they hand over the cocaine they stole.
Wait -- how could she prove that she found the knife in Sleazoid's house?
Scene 15: Officer Hunk drops by and Columbos the girls about the night Sleazoid disappeared ("there's just one thing bothering me...why did someone from this house call the police, then hang up?"). Then he goes to the bar and discusses them with Paulie: Mary Beth has quite the reputation for hooking up with sleazoids...like...um..Sleazoid! She was with him that night!
Meanwhile, Blond Girl tells the Biddies that Mrs. Garrett killed her girlfriend. They all confront each other.
Scene 16: The girls arrive with the cocaine, and get their knife back. Blond Girl sees the whole transaction.
Scene 17: Blond Girl steals the cocaine and leaves town with another brothel girl. Meanwhile, Officer Hunk has breakfast with Biddie, who happens to be his grandmother, and tells her that the case has been solved. They are on their way to make an arrest.
Later, the girls walk by, and see Biddie hosing out the chest that contained Sleazoid's body. She smiles at them.
Wait -- does this mean she turned them in, or didn't turn them in?
Or did she implicate Mrs. Garrett, who is actually innocent?
I'm lost.
Beefcake: None.
Other Sights: Exterior shots of small-town Maine all the time.
Gay Characters: Blond Girl is a lesbian. Priscilla doesn't display any heterosexual interest. The other characters all seem rather hetero-horny.
Sex Scenes: None. Not even a kiss. For a town with a brothel, street prostitution, and bar hookups, this is odd, but welcome. No hetero-romance.
Plot Holes: Mrs. Garrett comes across as sympathetic, and then villain. Likewise Mary Beth. The Biddies start out as tiresome small-town gossips, then become sympathetic. Make up your mind!
And what's with the annoying Greek chorus? This ain't Euripides!
My Grade: B for the scenery and the surprise lesbian.
It's cash not cocaine and I liked the sea shantys.
ReplyDeleteLooked like cocaine to me, a big white bag, and the background song was "White Lines," about cocaine use, so....
DeleteThe stacks of money kinda gave it up for me. As it's free I'shall watch it again.
DeleteThe girls did say "Here's your money. We spent some of it."I thought a reveal of the mada being into the drug trade as well as prostitution was an indiction of her increasing villainy, as well as giving the sleazoid a motive for killing the first girl, Dee.It didn't look like a hookup gone wrong, since they were coworkers, and it took place in the early morning right outside the brothel where they worked.
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