Best Beware My Sting
Katarina
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
- The Taming of the Shrew, Act II, Scene 1
An energy company tycoon is embarrassed when his daughter gets involved with an environmentalist group, and hires Shakespeare & Hathaway to watchdog her and keep her from ruining her younger sister's wedding.
This episode provides examples of:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Kate used to think of her father as the worst kind of Corrupt Corporate Executive. But after her younger sister is arrested for murder, she steps up to comfort him.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Bianca Minola is the apple of her father's eye, who wishes that her older sister Kate could get behind his energy company instead of wasting her time with a radical environmentalist group. Then Bianca turns out to have orchestrated a Faked Kidnapping to discredit the group and frame its leader for murder, because she "couldn't have" any kind of setback making a dent in her father's fortune, which she expects to inherit one day.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Bianca Minola comes off as a sweet, innocent Daddy's Girl, especially compared to her fiery sister Kate. She turns out to have masterminded a plot to discredit the environmentalist group harassing her father's company, murder her newlywed husband for his fortune, and scam her father out of a 2 million pound ransom payment. When confronted, she even laughs as she recalls stabbing her husband in the heart:Bianca: I know I shouldn't laugh, but you should have seen his face...
- Black Widow: Bianca.
- Bluffing the Murderer: When Frank says there is no way of finding the incriminating bag that Bianca must have buried in the woods, Kate drops by her father's home and casually lets slip that the police are close to finding it. Sure enough, Bianca and her Replacement Goldfish fiance rush to the woods to dig it up.
- Break the Haughty: Gordon Minola is so fixated on his youngest daughter that, after she is kidnapped, he accuses Kate of being behind the kidnapping. After the kidnapping is revealed to have been faked, and that Bianca murdered her newlywed husband for his money, he is badly broken and is much more receptive to his remaining daughter's environmental views. Kate, likewise, detests her father's corporate actions, but after Bianca's arrest, realizes that he is not the Devil, and reassures him that he is not responsible for Bianca's moral failings.Luella: We're sorry.
Gordon: Don't be. Maybe if I'd taught my daughter to value life more, she wouldn't have wasted hers... or poor Lucas's.
Kate: It's not your fault, Dad. - Broken Pedestal: Kate insists that Mortal Coil's leader, her friend Curtis, is a vegan and couldn't have kidnapped or killed anyone. She turns out to be only half right: Curtis succumbed to Bianca's charms and went along with the kidnapping ploy - including hiring a car and buying a sirloin steak for her enjoyment - but didn't kill Lucas.
- Clear My Name: Kate insists that her friend Curtis, who leads Mortal Coil, couldn't have killed anyone and hires Shakespeare & Hathaway to find the true culprits.
- Exact Words: Frank confiscates the bratty Kate Minola's book after she throws it at him. She apologizes, asks for it back and promises not to throw anything else. He opens the door... and she knees him in the crotch.
- Faked Kidnapping: What Bianca Minola orchestrates.
- Frame-Up: Frank ruefully agrees that the clues implicating Mortal Coil in Bianca and Lucas's kidnapping, and the latter's murder, are too convenient.
- Heel Realization: Gordon Minola decides to go green and hire the environmentalist group that was protesting against his energy company as consultants, after his own daughter tried to frame the group leader for murder just to preserve his bottom line.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: As much as she despises her father for being an environmental despoiler, and her sister for being a Daddy's Girl, Kate is genuinely frightened when Bianca is kidnapped, and at the end of the episode steps up to comfort her father, who is badly shaken by Bianca's exposure and arrest for murder.
- Honey Trap:Luella: How'd you get Curtis to go along with your plan?
Bianca: (smirks) How do you think? - I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: Bianca says it out loud, "men are pathetic", and in fairness none of the men in her life has done much to disabuse her.
- Implicit Prison: After Mortal Coil vandalizes his corporate headquarters, Gordon Minola keeps his daughter Kate locked in her room. Lu questions the legality of that, and Gordon clarifies that she is free to leave anytime she wants - just as he is free to have her arrested and prosecuted the moment she tries.
- It's All About Me: When she's caught red-handed, Bianca tries to play the victim, insisting that she's innocent and her new fiance manipulated her. Then Kate asks if their father was the true mastermind, and Bianca's wounded gazelle manner vanishes, and she scoffs that Gordon isn't that clever.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- After Lucas is found dead, Keeler angrily berates Frank for not calling the police sooner; Frank defends that their client was planning to pay the ransom, but given that Frank himself urged the client to call the police earlier, he can't argue the point too well.
- Frank is downcast when too many of the clues point to someone deliberately trying to frame Mortal Coil for Lucas's kidnapping and murder, which means Kate might actually be right.
- "Rashomon"-Style: Bianca narrates two flashbacks to the events in the barn, both of which are played out on screen: in the first, she loosens her bonds and tries to free Lucas, only for him to be stabbed in the struggle with Curtis; in the second, she calmly stabs Lucas herself.
- Rebuilt Pedestal: Played With. Kate never thought much of her father, but by the end of the episode has come to understand that he isn't the Devil and has actually done his best to provide for his family. Kate certainly acknowledges that he's not responsible for his youngest daughter growing up to be a greedy, murderous sociopath.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Kate. It drives her father batty, and her sister secretly despises her for it.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Downplayed. When Kate is caught vandalizing Minola Energy's headquarters, the security guards don't call the police, instead they lock her in a room and call the company's owner... who happens to be her father.
- The Sociopath: Bianca turns out to be one, which horrifies her father.Kate: You don't care about a single living thing, do you?
Bianca: What, like you? Crying every time an ant gets stepped on? You have to take what you want in this life. - Theory Tunnel Vision: Gordon Minola is sure that Kate is somehow behind the sabotage at Bianca's wedding and the kidnapping of her and her new husband, even though he has been keeping her under house arrest and cut off communications with the outside world. Kate, on the other hand, is sure that whatever Bianca did, she did at her father's instruction. Both of them are proved wrong.
- The Unfavorite: Kate Minola, as measured against her younger sister Bianca. Her father even accuses Kate of being involved with the plot to kidnap Bianca and her new husband.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The Taming of the Shrew gets remade with an aggressive, violent environmentalist as Kate, a spoiled Daddy's Girl as Bianca, and both are daughters to an energy tycoon.
- Widowed at the Wedding: Bianca Minola and her new husband are kidnapped between the ceremony and their wedding reception, and he is killed while they are trying to escape their kidnappers. At least that's what it looks like...
- Worthy Opponent: At the end, Kate thanks Frank and Lu for their help, and apologizes for her earlier displays of temper. Frank tells this to her in response.
