Character Studies – Part Four

The infamous former cop Lee Anne Marcus of the CBS drama Reckless is convincingly played by Australian actress Georgina Haig. In the top picture, we see the victim Lee Anne Marcus on the stand in another embarrassing exposure with Detective Terry McCandless. The second picture displays more of who Lee Anne truly is after spending the night with Terry. With just the right amount of sympathetic victimhood transforming into the intensely manipulative sexual strumpet, Lee Anne Marcus is able to use men for her personal sex slaves in order to complete her agenda. She fools us as viewers - or some of us – right up until the Series Finale. We can't decide who she really is which is exactly what Roy Rayder asks the jury in his closing statement at her trial. And right up until the Series Finale, it seems Roy Rayder is one of the few who knows exactly who Lee Anne is.

Turning her sexual charm on high for Detective Terry McCandless, he's hypnotized into believing she might actually run away with him to escape the strain and humiliation of the notorious trial. She continues to reel him into her web to insure victory in her lawsuit.

Whenever she needs to pull out the victim card with her attorney Jamie Sawyer, she dons the necessary pitiful expressions and pours out excuses while fostering just the right lies to bring Jamie back to trusting her. She turns on her southern difficult upbringing, uneducated, lower working class shtick when she's really a savvy, scheming vixen, using everyone to attain her well-strategized goal.

We don't fully realize until the end how Lee Anne's sexuality is her major skill, and she wields it like an effective tool to build her agenda.

Lee Anne Marcus doesn't miss stride when Jamie discovers she's been taken in completely by her client. Lee Anne both insults Jamie's slowness in finding out about her and threatens her with "precautions" should Jamie decide to quit her case or expose her. Lee Anne's objective about wanting to have what she'd need to care for her paraplegic husband Arliss, who is missing and presumed dead after seeing the televised sex tape of his wife with several police officers, rings as untrue as all of the concocted tales she's told to put herself in position for a huge payoff.

If you enjoy symbolism, as I confess I do, in the confrontational scene with Jamie, Lee Anne luxuriates by the pool with her porcelain white skin contrasting to her blood red bikini. The "purity" of her skin clashes with the symbolically evil and/or passionate red of the bathing suit. And when she dives into the pool, the water which can symbolize cleansing or purification, only serves to hide or immerse her in her own rebellion. There is no holiness in her water.

When it's revealed in the Series Finale with whom Lee Anne has been secretly linked to set up this trial, the depth of the deception is well past scandalous.

Finally when she is confronted by her husband Arliss at Jamie's office, she seems to actually struggle with his request, but he knows immediately from her response that she's put everything ahead of him. Even his encouraging words to her no longer can reach the hardened heart of the woman he loves. Her wickedness has consumed her and the shred of decency she could cling to with him is gone.

As viewers, we're left slack-jawed at the amazing turn of events. We wonder if Lee Anne's story is finished when Roy promises the City will appeal the ruling. And will she continue to pursue Terry McCandless as she suggests in their final contact? Is she really a sociopath?

More fine casting of Georgina Haig who was able to convince us to hurt with her and then to detest her at the end.

Lord, we're all immersed in sin without you. We're desperate for you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.