Villainess Review: Victoria Gossett (Medium)

I've said this before in past reviews: Medium really delivers in the villainess department. It's less about quantity and more about quality, as while I've seen many consecutive episode without a villainess, the ones that do have one really have some amazing ones. Season Six (the show's first on CBS after five seasons on NBC) definitely had some good ones, and that includes the episode, "Dead Meat."

The episode begins with a pig and his mother, and they later see what appears to be a murder, with a young woman being the victim. Allison wakes up from that dream, which leads her to the investigation into a missing animal rights activist Melissa Treynet, who disappeared. Two important people were at the station being interviewed about Melissa: Bill Ruettiger, who runs AgroUnited, a pork processing facility, and Victoria Gossett, the chairwoman of the Animal Rights Coalition. Victoria reveals that she sent Melissa to work for AgroUnited as part of an undercover sting to investigate any and all acts of animal cruelty, and as for the pig in Allison's dream (which gives off obvious Babe vibes), he's taken in by Allison, who names him Barney.

The earlier vision leads Allison to realize that the woman being killed was Melissa, and it's believed that Melissa did find out the truth about AgroUnited and was killed as a result. We are later introduced to Shane Carnahan, who was Melissa's on-and-off boyfriend, and it was due to the lack of stability in the relationship that he was a suspect. However, another of Allison's dreams revealed that Shane had known what happened to Melissa, as he had some apparent evidence in the form of a DVD, but we wouldn't know what was on it (at least not yet), as Shane's suddenly shot to death. So Shane's definitely out as a suspect.

Allison meets with Victoria in her office to discuss Melissa, as well as Barney, but once there, the TV shifts from a weather report to actual video of Melissa, who sent a video message to Victoria. Turns out, Melissa didn't find anything resembling actual animal cruelty, and she "thanked" Victoria for wasting her time before planning to quit. Allison dreams again, this time about both Victoria and Melissa, as they were meeting. That meeting revealed quite a lot, beginning with the fact that while Melissa couldn't find anything damning about AgroUnited, she did discover some terrible secrets about Victoria. As it turns out, Victoria had been embezzling from her organization, with Victoria giving the whole "years of dedication, I deserve something" speech. Victoria mentions that she plans on retiring, and offered Melissa her position as chairwoman. Instead, Melissa revealed that she made copies of the DVD that reveals Victoria's crime, and that she sent it out to the media.

So, like the true backbiter she is, Victoria shoots Melissa to death. Allison now knows the truth, but unfortunately, she's told that there's no evidence to back her statement. That's where things get quite depraved. The last dream of the episode shows a hooded figure feeding the pigs at night, and of course, the figure is the villainous Victoria. As for the feed...well...it turns out she was feeding Melissa's body to the pigs, as she had mutilated Melissa after killing her. Yikes. Victoria denied everything in her interrogation, only to learn that evidence of her evil actions was inside Barney, in the form of a finger and a bullet from the gun she used to kill not only Melissa, but Shane as well (and it was confirmed that Shane also ended up as pig feed). Victoria had two choices: either sign a confession to all of her crimes, or face the death penalty by refusing. The villainess, after being reminded of her stance against animal cruelty, signed the confession.

"Dead Meat" is the penultimate episode of Medium's sixth season, and featured Roma Maffia as the evil Victoria Gossett. Roma Maffia is known for her regular role as Grace Alvarez on NBC's Profiler, and later played Dr. Liz Crux on FX's Nip/Tuck, which ended its run in March of 2010 after six seasons. Maffia's heel turn on Medium aired on May 14, 2010, just two months after Nip/Tuck ended, and she truly dove into Victoria's villainy in this episode. I had Victoria pegged before even watching this episode, and one reason is this: about 9 times out of 10 in these shows, it's often the characters who appear to do the most good--who turn out to be the most evil. Here we have Victoria Gossett, a big time animal rights activist who runs her own organization. True "Big Damn Good" material, right? However, a proverbial full moon of darkness transformed Victoria into a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, as she dips her claws into the till and steals from it, and when she's found out, Victoria becomes even more vicious and commits murder and mutilation to cover up everything.

Roma Maffia hasn't done the villainess thing a lot, other than play crime boss Hazel Diaz on an episode of Bull, but even so, it was nice of her to don the "hoodie of evil" in the episode's last vision. Victoria was viciously greedy, ruthlessly bloodthirsty, and deliciously maniacal; she was truly Season Six's best villainess. As for Maffia, she acted out Victoria's faux "Big Damn Good" demeanor very well, but she shined when it came to Victoria's evil side. The shot of Victoria in her hooded disguise was Maffia at her very best while acting out Victoria's unhinged and insane personality, just absolutely beautiful!

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