Almost All is Resolved in the 'MaryLand' Finale

Considering the oodles of family drama in the first two episodes, MaryLand had quite a bit to wrap up in its third and final installment. When viewers last left Rosaline and Becca, long-held family secrets were revealed, alcohol was consumed, and Becca’s husband, Jim, had just arrived to check in on his wife. Their reunion is unsurprisingly fraught. Jim tells his wife he’s been dealing with their younger daughter, who has taken off with her boyfriend. Becca finally tells Jim that Mary committed suicide.

That revelation doesn’t stop the two from having a huge fight. “I don’t want this life,” she yells at him. She feels ignored. He accuses her of micromanaging their life. “I can’t even go to the bubbly without you telling me how to piss straight.” He decides not to stay at the house and to check into a B&B. But we know Jim is basically a good guy because he says to his wife, “Call me if you need anything practical doing” before storming off.

Rosaline and Becca’s dad, Richard, also arrives at the Isle of Man with his granddaughters in tow. (Ed note: This is the boyfriend Becca’s daughter took off with? Perhaps Jim should reconsider his temper tantrum.) He’s refusing to have Mary buried in the Isle of Man. He wants her body back in England. “She cheated me out of the life I thought I might have, and she’s not going to make a fool of me in death,” he tells his daughters. Male temper tantrums all around then!

Mary has written letters to everyone in the family. Becca wants to read her letter with Rosaline. “No more secrets,” she tells her sister. In the letter, Mary claims not to want to burden her youngest daughter with having to care for anyone else. “I want you to be happy and free and not have another part of your lives taken over by worrying and caring,” she says in the letter. Mary’s intentions might have been in the right place, but her decision to keep so much from her daughters was ultimately selfish. 

Pete goes to see Rosaline and Becca and tells them that he wanted to care for their mother after she got her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. “My dad might have had something to say about that,” Rosaline tells him. He tells Rosaline and Becca that Cathy looks after people who are dying and that he fears Mary got the morphine from Cathy. Mind you, Pete could have gone to the police and chose not to. Personally, I’m not quite buying that Pete is the good guy in this whole scenario.

The sisters go to confront Cathy, who tells them that she is a “midwife for the dying” and an “end-of-life doula.” She confesses that Mary took the morphine from her cupboard, and by the time she realized it, it was too late. Mary had already taken her own life. Cathy shows them a video of their mother (the first time we see Mary when she was alive). In the video, Mary states her desire to stay on the Isle of Man after dying. Cathy tells them that Mary feared that when the day came when she was unable to advocate for herself, her husband would force her to leave the Isle of Man and bring her back to the U.K. Cathy denies that she gave Mary the morphine. “I wouldn’t have done it. I wanted her here. I want her here. I’m so mad at her,” Cathy says. A furious Rosaline thinks Cathy is trying to emotionally manipulate them and says she will go to the police with her information.

But Rosaline gets distracted by Jacob, the sexy cab driver. While in the car with him, she gets a call from her doctor that her results are clear and she doesn’t have cancer. They go for a walk in the woods. “You need to get out of your head for a bit,” he tells her. “Got any hard drugs,” she retorts. Jacob has a better idea, and the two go for a very cold swim in the lake. A post-swim smooch warms Rosaline right up.

Becca tells Jim she kissed the guy at the pub. “It was stupid, and it made me feel awful.” It’s clear that the two love each other but have years of poor communication to unravel. “We are a team. I just need to be let off the bench now and then,” he tells her. Becca thinks she’s just like her mom before her mom ran off to the Isle of Man and began an affair with another man. “I want us to grow together, not apart,” she tells her husband.

Becca and Rosaline inform their father their mother wanted to stay on the Isle of Man and that she should be buried there. “We need to respect Mom’s wishes,” Rosaline tells her dad. We are not going to let her leave the island.” Richard eventually acquiesces, but he’s not happy about it. “It’s not what I wanted, and don’t you ever try to fool yourselves that it was.”

Richard goes to see Pete. “I just wanted to get a look at you, and now I have,” he says and walks off, never confronting the man who had an affair with his wife. Of all the characters in MaryLand, he definitely gets the least amount of closure. We don’t know what happened in their marriage that made Mary treat him so poorly, even in death.

Rosaline decides she is going to stay in the Isle of Man. Becca is immediately suspicious that she’s staying for Jacob. She’s not, but she tells her sister she doesn’t mind him hanging around. Now that the siblings have confronted their childhood trauma and everything is out in the open, their relationship can begin anew.  “I don’t know how we ended up so far apart... I want you to know that I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Becca replies.