BLOW THE MAN DOWN

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Alex

In a small Maine fishing village called Easter Cove, fishermen sing the sea shanty “Blow the Man Down”. A man chases a screaming young woman through the snow.

Meanwhile, sisters Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) Connolly attend their mother’s Mary Margaret’s funeral. At the wake, Mary Beth angrily confronts Priscilla after she finds out from a mourner that the girls are going to lose the house, explaining that she came home and stayed in the tiny, crappy town to take care of their sick mother. Priscilla tells her since their mother is dead, she can leave now. Mary Beth storms out, heading to a bar where she meets Gorski (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).

The two get drunk, and so Mary Beth drives his car for him, eventually crashing it. When they get out to survey the damage, Gorski pops his trunk and Mary Beth sees blood inside. He claims it’s fishing-related, but Mary Beth had seen a gun in his glove box – Gorski quickly becomes menacing and Mary Beth flees into the night. Gorski follows her, and Mary Beth pops up behind him and spears him in the neck with a harpoon. Still alive, he grabs for her, and she kills him with a brick in the head.

Mary Beth returns home covered in blood to a shocked Priscilla, who calls the police, but changes her mind when they pick up. She takes Mary Beth and the two load Gorski’s body into a cooler. When it won’t fit, they cut his arms off, fit him inside, and throw the cooler off the cliffs into the ocean. The next day at the local Oceanview Bed and Breakfast, a secret brothel run by Enid Devlin (Margo Martindale), working girl Alexis (Gayle Rankin) is chastised for walking back in broad daylight, but she explains Gorski never showed. Meanwhille, Sophie can’t find the knife they used and knows it has “Connolly Fish” written on it.

Officer Justin Brennan (Will Brittain), an old classmate of Priscilla’s, asks her if he can borrow a skiff to use to look around since a body washed up on the shore. Priscilla takes him out on the water, nervous and scared. To her shock, the body is that of a young woman, Dee, killed by gunshot. Elsewhere, Mary Beth returns to Gorski’s and finds a paper bag full of cash.

Gail (Annette O’Toole), Susie (June Squibb), and Doreen (Marceline Hugot), friends of Mary Margaret’s, discuss the body being found. They know Mary Margaret always used to have a handle on Enid, but now they feel lines have been crossed, and without Mary Margaret around it’s up to only them to handle it. They confront Enid about the body, encouraging her to clean up the business, but she rebuffs them.

Enid then goes to Gorski’s, where she finds the bloody Connolly knife. Later, she sees Mary Beth pay for a drink at the bar with a hundred dollar bill. Gail, Susie, and Doreen try to get information on Enid’s trade out of Alexis, who tells them off, fully trusting Enid. Susie later tells her she’s sorry about her friend Dee, whose death has devastated Alexis.

Brennan and his partner, Officer Coletti (Skipp Sudduth) interview Enid and the Oceanview girls to try to get to the bottom of the murder. Brennan finds Enid suspicious, but Coletti, having known Enid for years, shakes it off. Brennan keeps following his leads, interviewing Alexis – Brennan tells her that he thinks Enid had something to do with it. Later, Mary Beth tells Priscilla she found the knife and threw it into the ocean.

Enid brings dinner to the Connolly girls, telling them how close she was with their mother and that they made a lot of money together, and sneaking around and finding blood under some boots. They go to Doreen, who explains the past – that since Easter Cove is a port, sailors were constantly coming through and messing with the women of the town. and so Enid had the idea to start a whorehouse, and Mary Margaret and the other women supported her – better working girls than their own daughters.

Brennan and Coletti find Gorski’s car, including multiple guns inside, and are sure that he must be the murderer they’re looking for. Brennan thinks Eden misled them, but Coletti demurs. Meanwhile, Alexis confronts Enid about the suspicions that she had something to do with Dee’s death, and Enid manipulatively tells her that Dee never liked her and was only out for herself. Alexis, knowing Enid owed Dee money, refuses to believe it.

Enid goes to the Connolly sisters and tells them they need to bring back the money they stole, and she’ll return the knife she found. Priscilla is furious at Mary Beth for lying, and wants to call the police, knowing a young girl is already dead. Mary Beth thinks they should just flee town. Eventually, Mary Beth tells Priscilla she will go to the police and tell them everything, and the two girls make peace.

Brennan comes over to the Connolly’s, who invites him to stay for dinner. He asks about the 911 call from the house, and Priscilla lies and covers it up, surprising Mary Beth. When he leaves, she tells Mary Beth she changed her mind, and they’ll just give Enid back her money. Alexis plays back an old voicemail from Dee revealing the combination to Enid’s safe, which she opens. She goes to Susie, who had been kind to her after Dee’s death, and reveals what she found: one of Dee’s press-on nails… she knows Enid had something to do with her death.

Gail, Susie, and Doreen confront Enid while Alexis eavesdrops, telling her they need to stop this now, that it is wrong what they’ve done to the girls. Enid ignores them and calls them catty bitches. The Connolly sisters go to Enid and return the money. She tells them how much she misses their mother, and how she left the business for the two of them. She offers them some of the money, and when they refuse it, she turns angry, calling them spoiled, screaming and then collapsing. The girls get the knife and leave. Alexis, having overheard the whole thing, enters Enid’s room and smothers her to death with a pillow. She takes the money and leaves town with some of the other girls.

The next day, Gail goes to Coletti to reveal the truth of Oceanview, Brennan, shocked that Coletti has turned around, tells his grandmother Susie that he’s going to Oceanview to make an arrest for murder. When he sees the Connolly sisters in town, he points out Sophie, Brennan’s crush, but having grown suspicious of her, he says he doesn’t have a crush on her anymore. They then walk by Susie’s and see her washing out the cooler they put Gorski’s body in. She smiles at them, knowing, and they return the favor.

In a small fishing town in Maine, Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) bury their mother. After the funeral, Mary Beth goes to a bar where she meets Gorski (Ebon Moss-Bacharach) and they go off together. She discovers a gun and blood in his car and flees, and when he chases after her, she kills him. When she finds a sack of money in his things, she takes it.

Priscilla helps her cover up the murder, and when another young woman’s body washes up on the shore, they slowly unravel the seedy history of the town: decades ago, their mother along with several women in the town led by Enid (Margo Martindale) started a brothel so the men coming through the port would leave their daughters alone. Gorski was working for Enid and murdered one of the call girls. The other women urge Enid to end the brothel, but she refuses.

The girls, threatened by Enid, return the money. Alexis (Gayle Rankin), one of Enid’s escorts who has realized that Enid had Gorski kill one of her friends, smothers Enid to death and leaves with the money. The other women turn Enid and the brothel into the police, and aid the sisters in hiding the murder of Gorski.