Villainess Review: Lydia and Natalie (Blue Bloods)

The Blue Bloods episode, "Another Look," sees Danny Reagan and Maria Baez investigating a case of sexual assault, as a young woman--Natalie--was accusing a married man by the name of Mark Forman of assaulting her at a bar. According to Natalie, she and Mark met at a bar and had drinks with him, but afterwards, Mark invited Natalie to his room, and became violent with her when she refused. Both detectives visited the Forman household and spoke to Mark's wife, Lydia, about the charges against her husband, with Lydia appearing to be concerned and shocked regarding Mark. As for Mark, he stated that he only talked to Natalie and added that it was nice to experience a friendly conversation with a woman, as he never got that with Lydia. According to Mark, Lydia only spoke to Mark with venom in her voice.

Despite Mark's claim of innocence, Natalie identified him as her attacker in a lineup, resulting in Mark being arrested. However, Danny was approached by fellow detective Mike Gee regarding Natalie, with Mike showing Natalie's social media accounts to Danny, which revealed that Mike wasn't exactly Natalie's type. It was also uncovered that Natalie worked as a fitness instructor, leading to Danny and Maria heading to the gym where Natalie work, with appearances seeing the pair of detectives finding Lydia at that same gym! Coincidence? I think not.

So Danny and Maria visited Lydia, who stated that her husband's arrest would bring shame to her and her two children. As the pair revealed, the shame was exactly what Lydia was counting on, for not only did Natalie falsely accuse Mark of assaulting her, she did so under Lydia's orders. Lydia, as it turned out, was in the process of divorcing Mark, but wanted to make sure that she had full custody of her children, so she paid Natalie (her instructor) $10,000 to seduce and drug Mark, as well as accuse Mark of sexual assault. Lydia attempted to deny the claims and eject the pair out of her house, only for Danny to present video of Natalie confessing to everything, which included Natalie admitting to being paid to set him up, but she wasn't originally supposed to put him in jail.

Natalie added that she was supposed to recant and confuse things, but after Lydia offered Natalie another $30,000, Natalie identified Mark in the aforementioned lineup. Lydia continued to attempt to deny everything and lambasted Natalie in the process, but it was futile, Lydia was fully exposed and arrested.

"Another Look" was the fourth episode of the show's tenth season, and aired on October 18, 2019. This was an amazing episode that gave us two terrific villainesses in the form of Lydia Forman (played by Kerry O'Malley) and Natalie (played by Erica Pappas). Starting with Natalie; we see her play the distressed victim at first, but of course, the climax revealed her as a greedy and deceptive opportunist. In either regard, Pappas (who I was watching for the very first time) played her emotions very well, especially her reluctance to identify Mark in the lineup. Despite Natalie's reluctance, there was no redemption or remorse, as she was willing to accept loads of money to continue to help ruin an innocent man's life.

As for Lydia, she was quite an evil mastermind; definitely the more villainous of the cohorts in this episode. Mark pretty much said it himself in his interrogation, Lydia hated him with a passion, and that same hatred motivated Lydia's heel turn and her villainous plot against her husband. It appeared that Lydia solely wanted full custody of her children, but as the climax (especially Natalie's confession) revealed, her main objective was ruining her husband's life, and the fact that she was willing to pay even more money to have Mark locked up truly showed that she just flat out hated her husband. O'Malley played Lydia's feigned concern very well, and she really delivered with her villain rant after she was unmasked as the mastermind, portraying Lydia's aforementioned venom very brilliantly.

Shortly after her villainous appearance on Blue Bloods, Erica Pappas recurred as Patricia Klein on the short-lived CW series, Katy Keene. She is set to recur on the upcoming series, Heels, which has Mike O'Malley as a producer and showrunner. As for Kerry O'Malley (Mike's sister), she has also played villainous roles on Bones and The Orville (though--IMO--her Blue Bloods character is her best villainous role), and she has also guest starred on shows such as Monk, Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, and Young Sheldon.

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Both villainesses are featured on Villainous Beauties Wiki! Click here for Lydia Forman's profile, and click here for Natalie's profile!