So Help Me Todd Season 1 Episode 11 Review: Side Effects May Include Murder

So Help Me Todd Season 1 Episode 11 “Side Effects May Include Murder” kicks off with Todd bailing Allison out of police custody. Yes, you read that order correctly—and it’s just the beginning.

The details of how a drink too many leads to an unfortunate altercation with a cop are a little foggy, but they don’t matter so much as their reflection on Allison’s current state and the ongoing Wright family dynamic. The same can be said for Margaret’s assumption that Todd is the guilty party at the station.

Margaret is an excellent mom in many ways, but while so many of Todd’s shortcomings are wrapped in his failure to meet her expectations, Allison has almost been defined by adhering to them, and Margaret is inordinately outraged by this change in behavior.

Though this is about a lot more that her marriage to Chuck, that aspect certainly comes up again, and Allison’s previous insistence that the two are doing okay seems about as likely to hold up as the one Margaret previously made not to meddle.

It does lead to a genuine airing out between them, first in a tense argument and then in one of the most emotional scenes on the show to date as Margaret helps represent Allison in court. Yet while there may be some closure here, there’s a lot more that looms on the horizon of this storyline.

The moment also leaves me hoping we’ll get to see something similar for Margaret and Todd. Though he’s fully responsible for messing up his own life, her assumptions of him, seen again here, have created a sense of “self-fulfilling prophesy” I’m sure he feels.

One more disconcerting aspect of this storyline: we get the most mentions since the pilot of Margaret’s dead first husband/father of the siblings The disconcerting part is learning that their marriage wasn’t totally happy either. Why is this coming up now, and what does its disclosure mean?

With all this weight, the case of the week offers some welcome comic relief– at least as much as you can possibly expect from a trial for a woman who, under the influence of an experimental drug, goes into a fugue state and attacks another woman with a knife.

Todd cajoles Allison (apparently she doesn’t have enough on her plate) into signing him up for the trial as well. Mind, he’s really there for information and has no plans to take any weird pills. Then said drug is injected into him before we have any more doubts about the company’s unethical behavior.

Thankfully, he’s not overtaken by a murderous rage. Even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to do anything once his arms stop working. It does make his attempt to send off security footage while pretending to teach older generations how to send email a lot more entertaining.’

The scene is every bit the dumb slapstick it sounds, but its welcome in light of the rest of the episode, including more sobering information about what the drug has done to patients  when distributed over the objections of the doctor who created it.

That doctor is brought in as a witness but shows up drunk. It takes a hail Mary in the form of Margaret’s supreme skill to hold the company accountable for all they’ve done, including pushing him to alcoholism. At least the emotional roller coaster ends on a win.

With yet another two-week hiatus set after this episode’s first airing, I’m not hoping for much yet beyond a period with a reliable string of new installments. Any hopes or fears I have about where the Wrights go from here will have to wait until then.

What did you think of this episode of So Help Me Todd? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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So Help Me Todd airs Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS.

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