Frankie Drake Mysteries Review: A Family Affair (Season 4 Episode 10)
Frankie Drake Mysteries Season 4 Episode 10, “A Family Affair” is, sadly, the end of the line for our favorite group of lady detectives. The news that the Season 4 finale would in fact become the series finale broke just before the episode aired several months ago in Canada, well past the point at which the show could have been rewritten to accommodate the change.
As a result, it’s glaringly obvious that this episode was not meant to conclude the story of Frankie Drake and her friends, leaving viewers with a potentially deadly cliffhanger whose resolution we’ll now never get to see.
I think we all have to assume that Trudy would have survived being shot by the fake lady doctor who’s helping her husband run insurance scams — and to be fair — she probably would have, but having our last image of the show ever be one of its leads getting show, well. It’s hardly the happy ending that we wanted for any of them.
In fact, it’s not a happy ending for anyone at all. (Save Flo who, after threatening to go public with her performatively pious sister’s drinking problem appears to get some sort of guardianship over her niece.)
Mary chooses to go public with what she knows about corruption in the Toronto police department after her boyfriend’s newspaper office is firebombed, essentially throwing away the chance she’s been offered to become a real member of the force.
Frankie’s brother returns with news that their father is actually alive — having apparently faked his death when she was a child — which leads to the revelation that he’s also a former member of a secret (extremely weird) cult whose members now maybe want to kill him.
And, because the show was clearly pushing Frankie toward her carpenter neighbor Sebastien, romantically speaking, adorable Alessandro acts like a whiny brat when the sudden return of her presumed dead father means that she can’t go to Europe to support him on some kind of racing tour for three months. (Ugh, yawn.)
Also, Trudy has decided to leave Drake Detective Agency to go work as an in-house investigator for a local insurance company. Of course, she almost immediately discovers they are fraudulent grifters, who are denying medical claims on false evidence (and occasionally outright lies).
Trudy, being Trudy, immediately investigates but I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed that the show doesn’t really do much with her initial decision to leave Frankie’s practice behind.
Throughout Frankie Drake Mysteries’ run, the show has been surprisingly honest about the fact that money is a real concern to Trudy, and I’ve always appreciated the honesty of that fact, as well as the fact that despite their close friendship Frankie and Trudy’s lived experiences are wildly different.
Yet, it feels wrong that the show would just treat Trudy moving on — and from a business where she was ostensibly a partner at that! — with so little explanation or exploration. (If this is because she needs more money, for her new house, for her mother, for whatever, well. Maybe make that a plot point?
As episodes go, “A Family Affair,” is action-packed, full of the sort of character twists that would have likely led to a very different sort of Season 5, one that pushed all its female leads in new directions.
Sure, the decision to basically kill Frankie’s dad off again immediately is kind of lame, but how the fact of his existence — and her ignorance of it for all these years — would have surely impacted both her (and Nora’s) character in intriguing ways. Frankie is not often a woman who is forced to be terribly introspective, but surely this would have changed that?
Plus, her father’s death on top of what happened to Trudy? As I said, I think we can assume she would have lived…but what would have happened next? And how far would Frankie have gone to get justice for her friend?
Plus, Mary’s now persona non grata at the police force and Flo may or may not now have responsibility for her niece. How would that have impacted their abilities to help with cases?
I don’t know, but I’m heartbroken we won’t get the chance to find out.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- The idea that no one would notice Frankie was a woman simply because she had a cloak with a hood is hilariously terrible, IMO. Like…do none of these brothers look each other in the face ever?
- Mary and Steven are deeply adorable and I love them together. (Even if all I want for her is for someone — in an official capacity — to recognize what a good cop she already is.
- I think one of the things I’m saddest about is not that this is episode is the series finale — which, don’t get me wrong, I am because this show could have easily kept going– but that it forces the show to end on an episode where its ensemble got so little to do together. Other than the opening scene where the group toasts Trudy’s new job, the friends basically spend the rest of the episode off on their own subplots.
What did you think of this episode of Frankie Drake Mysteries? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
Frankie Drake Mysteries airs 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.
6 comments
maybe trudy can still work with frankie, isn’t mary working 2 jobs sort of?
p.i. and a cop? and flo as well. who knows… i just hope trudy is alive; didn’t she died in a episode about a ouiji board.
that is all frankie needs, her dad and best friend to die? could be a cliff hanger, maybe the lady won’t kill trudy; and needs to talk to her, as to why the lady and her husband are doing what they are doing; i might be wrong here, but i think the lady who came in to talk with trudy and the people she work
with is the one to watch out for… frankie would be hurt if her dad died, but i think she would lose it more if it was trudy.
frankie needs to get away… go with alesondro, nora could always invesigate and tell frankie about frankie’s dad, when she returns.
good luck to flo, having her niece live with her. hope everything turns out well; flo and her sister have got to work together… sad that this had to happen with flo and her sister at each other’s throats; although her sister did start.
where is greyson these days, the police that mary are working with are just plain mean; greyson would never do what they are doing. hope mary and steven work it out; they make a great couple.
are the writers really putting sebastian and frankie together? i could see him with trudy; he wanted to help trudy with her boxes and with the pipes in suite justice… i know the show is about frankie, but come one people-flo and mary and trudy should have some one.
didn’t sebastian tell alesondro he doesn’t like frankie in that way, in one of the episodes where alesondro was fixing frankie’s car (life is a cabaret(?) let me guess, the writers are gonna do it any way. that is if we find out what is going on in the office when trudy is there.
please, bring this show back, if any one knows the address to the writers, let them know how we feel about this show.
say it ain’t so? that’s it? the end of fdm; i doubt it, with these
writers, they’ll probably cooking up something else. I do not believe
trudy is going to be hurt; something else is going on about the
case, with the doctor and that patient that came to trudy’s new work
place. (don’t kill of trudy/she’d died already). Is that man REALLY frankie’s father?
Is that guy REALLY frankie’s brother? she needs to do a background check
on both of them. She needs to get away with alesondro.
Flo’s sister has got some nerve. where is greyson?
This show stinks now with her blond hair and modern clothes
i know right. i wish this show could return.
if anyone knows the address to the writers,
of frankie drake mysteries…. can you let them
know, the fans want the show to return?
Bring back Frankie Drake & colleagues!!
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