Frankie Drake Mysteries Review: School Ties, School Lies (Season 3 Episode 3)
Frankie Drake Mysteries Season 3 Episode 3, “School Ties, School Lies” is a story all about exceptional women. Which isn’t particularly strange, that’s kind of this show’s entire brand, after all.
But between a precocious preteen detective and Mary dressing up as a man to smoke the police department’s physical fitness test, it’s a lot of girl power in one episode.(And spoiler alert, that’s not a bad thing.)
It may have taken the show a few episodes to find its feet, but “School Ties, School Lies” is Frankie Drake Mysteries at its best.
There’s a twisty mystery to solve with lots of suspects and fake-outs; every one of our four leads gets something significant to do,
When a popular school science teacher turns up dead, a go-getting twelve-year-old named Roya seeks out Flo for help after a school presentation. Miss Hemming was her favorite instructor, and she’s sure she didn’t get drunk and fall down some stairs the way the folks at school claimed.
Naturally, Flo takes the child straight to Frankie, and little Roya is a natural fit at Drake Detective Agency. (There’s definitely an internship in her future, tbh.)
For the most part, there’s not much that’s particularly groundbreaking or interesting about this episode’s mystery of the week. While a handful of memorable suspects emerge, including a love interest who turns out to be gay, a coworker who thinks teaching evolution is against God’s will, and a black-market ring focused on selling grades, the solution ends up being fairly simple.
A mom wanting the best for her child — so much that she’s ultimately willing to kill for it.
The revelation that Gwendolyn’s mom killed her teacher because she wanted her obviously not science-minded daughter to make the honor roll is a story that feels fairly familiar today. Or, at least it’s a story we’d still see today.
But the best and most interesting moments in “School Ties, School Lies” all center around the depiction of what it’s like to be a woman who is exceptional in some way, and who gets ignored or passed over despite her ability (and usually for a man).
Roya may only be 12, but she’s experienced plenty of this herself already, and has witnessed it among the students and teachers around her. She fits right in among Drake Detective Agency’s other women who refuse to be what society thinks they should be.
That she already knows about Dr. James Barry, a woman who lived her life as a man in order to become a doctor, was precisely the sort of little feminist narrative tidbit this show does so well.
“School Ties, School Lies'” B-plot focuses on Mary’s ongoing struggle to be taken seriously within the police force. Even though she physically stops a runaway robber, her male coworker takes both the collar and the credit, providing a blow to our girl’s dreams of being more than a morality officer.
It’s infuriating, obviously, because Mary’s so darn good at her job, and dedicated to police work, and yet the most lazy, slovenly men are automatically considered her betters.
Watching her work so hard to train for the physical fitness competition and beat the very man who sneered at her earlier? Well. It’s very fun for those of us cheering for Mary at home, let’s just put it that way. And not just because that guy deserved to lose.
No, it’s because Mary’s friends never stopped believing in her — either that she could best the boys or be a great cop. The know what she’s capable of, even when she doesn’t.
Flo’s insistence that Mary, and the rest of the Drake Detective Agency women, right down to little Roya, claim their power and own the things that make them different from everyone else is downright cathartic and, honestly, a joy to watch.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- As much as I did enjoy this mystery as a whole the idea that Georgia’s BFF Mabel would keep not telling Frankie and friends the whole truth after being found out on various lies repeatedly is a difficult one to believe. Why wouldn’t she just come completely clean about everything she’d lied about when they discovered the gay boyfriend?
- It’s honestly baffling that a man could send multiple death threats to a woman — a colleague even — and blithely declare that threatening her isn’t illegal before sauntering off to his job he apparently will never be fired from.
- Mary Shaw is honestly the best character on this show and I can’t say enough great things about Rebecca Liddiard’s delivery of that line about helping start her boss thinking about change for the other women who come after her. Protect this woman at all costs.
- BEARCAT!!!
What did you think of this episode of Frankie Drake Mysteries? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Frankie Drake Mysteries airs Saturdays at 7/6c on Ovation.
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.