Villainess Review: Myra Edgemont (Medium)

The abbreviated (an affect of the writers' strike) fourth season of Medium featured some hard times for Allison Dubois. Her gifts have now been made public, and it's resulted in not only herself being out of a job, but Manuel Devalos was out as well. The first few episodes of Season Four have seen what Allison has done to deal with the backlash, but it was the episode, "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," that saw Allison back in the saddle, thanks to an unlikely person.

The unlikely person in question is defense attorney Larry Watt, who was the focus of a weird dream that saw Allison and her daughters as an impoverished family in a silent film setting, which sees them threatened with eviction by an evil landlord, played by Devalos' replacement, Tom Van Dyke. They are saved, strangely, by Watt, and that dream leads to Allison receiving a call from Watt, as he was recruiting her to help him with his client, John Edgemont, who was accused of murdering his second wife, Stacy Edgemont.

Allison takes the gig, because she needs it, but she suddenly has a dream about John placing Stacy's body in his car and sending it over a cliff. Before she can tell Watt, he already knows what she's about to say, and she is advised to keep it to herself. Yikes. So it does turn out that John and Stacy argued that day, and the central focus of the argument: John's daughters Myra and Chloe. Myra was a college student, while Chloe suffered from mental impairment, but despite this, Stacy wanted Chloe institutionalized and Myra to live off campus. Of course, John was against this. Myra was present as her father gave his side of the story, which also saw Allison drawing a sketch of a fairy before having a vision: this one featuring both John and Myra. In Allison's vision, Myra and John were discussing Chloe, with the former stating that "this wasn't the first time Chloe hurt someone."

So Allison was convinced that John was innocent, but the vision led her to believe that Chloe killed her stepmother, with John and Myra covering for her. She does tell Watt, who provides his own revelation: six years prior, he received a call from the Edgemont home regarding their live-in nurse being beaten with a baseball bat, with the suggestion that Chloe was behind that attack. Watt was paid to cover up that truth, but even so, Allison was left with the realization that Chloe was dangerous and the truth had to come out.

However, Allison's second dream saw Myra cleaning up blood in Stacy's room, with Chloe telling her sister that she wasn't supposed to be in their stepmother's room. It was followed by Myra telling her younger sister that she "made Stacy go away for good." That's right. Stacy's killer wasn't John. It wasn't Chloe. It was Myra, who revealed that she killed Stacy because she wanted to send the girls away and have John to herself. In addition, she told Chloe that she had informed her father that Chloe committed the murder, which also featured a revelation that Myra attacked the nurse six years prior and pinned that on Chloe as well. Myra claimed that John would be angry at her if he found out what she did, but he would not be angry at Chloe, whose hair was grabbed by Myra as she ordered her little sister not to tell their father. To cement the frame-up, Myra "sweetly" instructed her sister to touch the murder weapon: a fairy statuette, with Chloe doing so.

Before Allison could even think of telling Watt about Myra, she sees the following news story: John Edgemont confessed to killing his wife and pleaded guilty. Allison spoke to Watt and Myra about John's confession, but after Watt leaves, Allison begins to grill Myra, as she figured out that Myra used the fairy sketch and statuette to manipulate her father into covering for who he believed was Chloe, who Allison figured would be put in an institution anyway. Myra informed Allison that she and her sister would live together, but Allison figured that their harmony would end once Myra got sick of her sister, or a moment where Chloe could no longer serve as Myra's alibi. Myra simply walked off and thanked Allison for helping her family, smiling smugly as Allison informed the sinister sociopath that she would be watching her.

"Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," was the fifth episode of Medium's fourth season, and aired on February 25, 2008. The episode featured Paige Howard as the evil Myra Edgemont, who served as the first villainess of Season Four, and what a fiendish and psychotic woman she was. I tend to love villainesses like this; sociopathic madwomen who wear a veil of geniality and sweetness, only for that very veil to cover a vicious and violent demeanor. Other than her insane personality, Myra is clearly a sociopath; she uses her younger sister's mental impairment to set her up in both of her crimes, and she basically uses her father's care and worry over Chloe to manipulate him into taking the fall. To say that Myra was deliciously evil would be an understatement. Myra Edgemont is dangerously opportunistic, and I do agree with Allison's assessment in the episode's end: if the time came when Myra feels that Chloe has outlived her usefulness, it may not end well for Chloe.

Paige Howard acted out Myra's faux geniality very well, but the moment that stands out was her admission in the episode's climax, as we see a hint of how truly deranged and manipulative Myra is, and that performance is very stellar. This should surprise no one, after all, Paige Howard is part of an acting family--that acting family. Her grandparents are late actors Rance Howard and Jean Speegle, her father is the legendary Ron Howard (yes, you read that right), her uncle is fellow actor Clint Howard, and her older sister is actress Bryce Dallas Howard, who played a villainess in the acclaimed film, The Help, and has starred in the recent Jurassic Park films. Regarding Paige, her villainous appearance on Medium was her very first acting role, and she would later appear in episodes of 90210 and Arrested Development.

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