Palm Royale Season 2 Episode 7 Review: All Roads Lead to Switzerland

I’d pretty much forgotten how annoying Maxine’s impulse control issues can be. Color me reminded. On Palm Royale, Season 2 Episode 7, “Maxine Plays Dead,” she’s really really bad at it. Playing dead, that is. The woman needs eyes on her to breathe, I swear.

Meanwhile, and less irksomely, some huge puzzle pieces fell into place, and Mirabelle’s voice from beyond the grave leads us to her killer. Because that’s the kind of show this is now. Yup.

But, seriously, I love a canonical reference that reaches back so far that I have to rewatch early Season 1 episodes. Gold star to the writers’ room. And to tie it into Mary’s virile bootlegger is a certified chef’s kiss.

Palm Royale, “Maxine Plays Dead”

I know that it’s the episode’s title and the central plot element, but the “Maxine Dellacorte is dead” ruse really annoyed me. Probably even more than it frustrated Virginia. I’m honestly not sure why she didn’t just handcuff Maxine to a radiator in the motel room.

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The best part, hands down, about Maxine playing dead is that Evelyn, Dinah, and Ann had absolutely no trouble identifying that the body in the morgue wasn’t her. Loved that for Maxine. Real friends know you well enough to identify your corpse.

The fact that they weren’t even curious who the body was speaks to how binary their thought process is. If it’s not Maxine, it doesn’t matter, and that’s the end of it. I thought at least Ann would have some journalistic curiosity, but no.

Of course, if it had been Douglas — who couldn’t even tell the difference between Maxine and Mirabelle when they were both alive — it would’ve been a totally different result.

Making Friends and Influencing People

Considering her twin sister was probably killed because someone thought she was Maxine, you’d think Maxine would have some sense of caution about being seen in public.

Perhaps it’s the fact she’s been stashed at a West Palm Beach motel full of gay men. Perhaps it’s a reaction to losing her sister. Maybe it’s a subconscious anxiety about being thought dead. In any case, Maxine is completely unable to follow the simple instruction to stay out of sight.

I have a niggling sense that Bruce’s presence is meant to be significant. Is he Maxine’s new Mitzi to mentor? Does she truly believe she can replace Robert so easily and superficially? Is he the key to the new community? Will the pool people be her salvation down the road?

Him cross-dressing in Norma’s clothes and inadvertently foiling the FBI sting was an unlikely, if amusing, comedy bit. Of course, by that point, I’d stopped believing that Norma shot Mirabelle.

With Raquel’s comment about what it would take to take down the Palm Royale and her epic fight with Mirabelle, as well as her Russian connections, I had turned my suspicions to her.

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Jedebedaiah, What?

Jed is the hot ticket here. Before “Maxine Plays Dead,” he was a vaguely peculiar staff member with a knack for getting in front of Evelyn, much to Eddie’s annoyance.

He continues that strategy, sans most of his clothes, here, schtupping a very willing Evelyn, and once again putting off his pool-cleaning duties. Even after she dismisses him, I still only thought of him as an obstacle to Evelyn and Eddie’s marital bliss.

All that changed with Evelyn finding his wallet and Mitzi’s photo.

Now, assuming that Jed was the boyfriend Mitzi was dating when Maxine first came to Palm Beach, here are some refresher notes on what we learned about him from Mitzi:

1. On Palm Royale Season 1 Episode 2, “Maxine Saves a Cat,” when Mitzi told Maxine about her dreams of becoming a model, she also told her that her boyfriend wasn’t supportive of the idea. He had told her that she didn’t have a face for catalogs. Furthermore, he’d said, “Shit for brains. You got the grace God gave a sea bass.”
2. On Palm Royale Season 1 Episode 3, “Maxine’s Like a Dellacorte,” Maxine finds Mitzi crying in the salon. Mitzi shares that he dumped her after they’d had sex and gone for hot & sour shrimp at the Great Wall of China for which Mitzi had paid.

And then, in the final minutes, the mind-blowing reveal that Jed is Mary’s virile bootlegger. This means that he was hiding in the tunnels under the mansions and the Palm Royale in the weeks after the Beach Ball.

No Matter How Improbable

Furthermore, Mary’s now-established reliable psychic medium skills point to Jed as the shooter who killed Mirabelle. As a new player on the field, the possibility exists that he was actually trying to kill Mirabelle. They could have a history yet to be revealed.

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But, he could’ve been trying to kill Maxine to curry favor with Evelyn or on Norma’s orders or at the behest of Pinky and Raquel. Or maybe he blames Maxine for Mitzi ending up with Douglas. Stranger thoughts have caused extreme actions. There’s even the possibility that he tried to kill Maxine to make Mitzi’s life easier.

Whatever the motive, unless Jed’s hopping on board a plane with the rest of the gang, they’re about to leave him behind as they travel en masse to Switzerland.

The Alps are Alive with a Lot of Answers

Considering you could fit the entire country of Switzerland inside the state of Florida multiple times, the Palm Royale contingent is about to implode the historically-neutral country’s sense of calm in a most dramatic way.

Norma and Robert will probably be set up in her Alps hideaway. Whether Sanka leaves his new digs to pursue Robert in some grand romantic gesture is up in the air for the moment.

Norma will be keeping an eye on the Dellacorte generation-skipping Swiss trust account with Douglas, Mitzi, and Maxine on their way to activate it. Can’t imagine how she plans to snatch that from the baby’s grasp, but you never count her out.

Meanwhile, Dinah is on her way too, in search of Axel’s Fabergé egg. Marjorie Merriweather Post’s obsession with completing her collection isn’t even the quirkiest eccentricity we’ve encountered among the Palm Beach elite.

The reveal that she’s behind the threatening letters wasn’t that far-fetched if not necessarily expected. It’s honestly easier to believe Norma to be behind everything, but that would be logistically improbable, wouldn’t it? I mean, she’s NINETY.

I’d be intrigued to see a flashback of Norma, Madge, and Axel in their hey day. Marjorie’s description of Axel’s tortuous teasing seems out of character for the wheelchair-bound romantic we got to know so briefly.

Shout out to Patti LuPone for really leaning in on the caricature they’ve created around MMP’s persona. I definitely didn’t have her growling and barking at Dinah on my bingo card this week.

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