Villainess Review: Betsy Gray (Chronicle Mysteries)

A Hallmark Movies and Mysteries film series I have immensely enjoyed is Chronicle Mysteries, which brought Allison Sweeney back into the fold. Sweeney, best known for playing scheming Sami Brady on Days of our Lives, portrayed Hannah Swensen on the Murder, She Baked film series, but this series casts Sweeney as podcaster Alex McPherson, and the second film of the series, The Wrong Man, featured Alex getting involved in investigating a murder that occurred three years prior to the events.

The victim was Tara Thurman, a lawyer, and her disappearance resulted in her husband, Mike Thurman, being accused of killing his wife. Despite a body not being found, Mike was put on trial for Tara's murder, but he ended up acquitted--though the court of public opinion still felt that Mike was guilty. In the film's opening, Tara's body was found, and that re-opened the case--as well as antipathy towards Mike. As for Alex, she located and spoke to Betsy Gray, who worked with Mike and had been rumored to be Mike's mistress; however, Betsy claimed that no affair took place, and she revealed that she was engaged to be married.

Betsy also claimed that Tara had become so convinced that she and Mike were having an affair that she became unhinged and started stalking Betsy, and even resorted to keying Betsy's car and breaking into house. Alex's investigation with Drew Godfrey uncovered a case that Tara was working on involving a local mobster, leading to the belief that the case got her killed. As for Betsy, she refused to talk more about Tara and Mike, voicing her refusal during both times that she was approached by Alex. However, in the film's climax, that suddenly changed.

Betsy visited Alex in her office, where Alex had all of the details regarding the case, and it was during this visit that Betsy admitted that she lied about not having an affair with Mike. According to Betsy, not only were she and Mike seeing each other, but Mike often talked about getting rid of Tara; however, Betsy looked at Alex's board and pointed out a photo of a medallion--which was a piece of evidence that Tara inspected, as well as the same one that was on Betsy's purse. At that moment, Betsy took a gun out of her purse and pointed it at Alex, revealing that she killed Tara to be with Mike. Before killing Tara, Betsy attempted to portray Tara as a deranged villainess by keying her own car and staging a break-in to her own house, and by Betsy's own admission, she committed her actions to force Mike to see that Tara didn't care about him.

So if Betsy cared about Mike so much, why is she suddenly trying to frame him? Betsy stated that she wasn't originally going to frame Mike, but after realizing that Mike wasn't going to be with her anymore, she decided to set him up, even using the medallion as a symbol of her focus on her current life with her fiancee. Betsy's villain rant ends with Alex subduing her with the glass board, leading to a pursuit that ended with Drew holding the villainess at gunpoint. Alex revealed the full details of Betsy's crimes on her podcast; after staging the vandalism and the break-in, Betsy tracked Tara to a nearby gym and ordered her to drive to an isolated forest, where Betsy shot and killed Tara. Mike ended up accused and arrested, leading to Betsy taking Tara's phone and sending texts to create the ruse that Tara was alive, while leaving the phone in Mike's house. Mike ended up acquitted, but he later dumped Betsy, who--after Tara's body was found--broke into Mike's house to get the phone. As Alex was giving the details, Betsy was shown being fingerprinted in prison.

Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man aired on February 24, 2019, and featured Kaylah Zander as villainess Betsy Gray. Betsy's another HM&M villainess who I just adore; she brought scorn to a whole other level. I just can't help but be fascinated by Betsy's rationale: she's moved on and engaged, yet she's framing Mike out of scorn for being dumped by him, but in her mind, it's her way of moving on and not pining over a man who doesn't want her. Wow! That's a high level of twisted delusion, and Zander played Betsy's vengeful and insane demeanor very, very well during her character's reveal. This was the first project of Zander's that I had seen, and I loved what I saw from her, she is an amazing actress. Since then, Zander has recurred on shows such as iZombie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

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