Teresa Reviews Ms. Ma: The Mirror Crack’d I (2018)

Teresa Reviews Ms. Ma The Mirror Crack’d I (2018) and realizes that Marina Gregg’s story might take a different turn.

(c)2024 by Teresa Peschel

Agatha adjacent: 3 poisoned cocktails

It looks like the actress poisoned the woman who caused her miscarriage but did she?

Quality of episodes: 4 poisoned cocktails

The plot thickens so you’d better be paying attention as the tension ramps up.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

As stated earlier, Ms. Ma: Nemesis is 32 episodes long, each about half an hour. The episodes were written to be watched in blocks of four because each fourth episode ends in a cliffhanger and closing credits. I wasn’t sure how closely Ms. Ma would follow Agatha’s novels or if they’d stick to four episodes per novel because the novels being adapted and the number of episodes don’t match up.

Now that we’ve reached the one-third mark, I know more. Novels will be rewritten, which isn’t a surprise. They also won’t be resolved within a neat block of four episodes. That’s not a surprise either because the main character in The Mirror Crack’d (1962) is the actress with the tragic past. Marina Gregg’s unborn baby was exposed by a rabid fan to rubella and was born severely disabled. That led to the fan’s death by poisoned cocktail years later when Marina learned whodunnit. Everything else, including the tragic story of Margo Bence, Marina’s adopted and then discarded baby (because once Marina had a real baby of her own, she didn’t need some worthless orphan hanging around) is window dressing. Important window dressing, but Margo didn’t murder the woman who took her in and then threw her away.

But in Ms. Ma, the actress, Lee Jung-Hee, isn’t Marina Gregg. She can’t be, because she’s critical to Ms. Ma’s efforts to solve the murder of her own daughter nine years ago. Lee Jung-Hee is the only witness to the murder night’s events. Since Lee Jung-Hee needs to stick around for another 24 episodes (I’m speculating), she can’t have murdered her stylist and blackmailer who exposed her baby to rubella. She wanted to, no doubt. But when Bae Hee-Jae (a very loose Heather Badcock) died, despite the video evidence, it may not have been Lee Jung-Hee who poured the overdose of tranquilizers into the wine glass.

Nor have we met “Margo Bence” officially since the story arc of Mirror has yet to end. Margo may prove to be Jung Yoo-Jung, the young photographer following Lee Jung-Hee around at the gala and on set but so far, we don’t know.

What we do know is Ms. Ma has stirred up enough interest in the case that someone else is becoming concerned. Inspector Han (who resigned from the force) is having his sidekick, Detective Cheon Do Soo, ask questions. Chief Prosecutor Yang is stonewalling the sidekick which is suspicious too.

What’s more suspicious is learning in a flashback that Ms. Ma’s former husband, Jang Cheol-Min, hit her more than once and he embezzled funds from the company she inherited from her father and still ran. He’s no longer the nice, dweeby, lowkey man we met early on. Ms. Ma demonstrates she’s not the easiest woman to get along with but he’s not a decent man. Wife-beating and embezzling? Maybe she had good reasons for filing for divorce.

And remember Min-Seo had her face smashed beyond recognition. This will — I’m sure! — prove critical. It’s a classic Agatha trope, designed to make you believe a lie.

We also, because we see flashbacks of Lee Jung-Hee’s experience on the set of The Shaman (the film within a film) learn why she was wandering around in costume in the dark woods in the rain and get a flash of what she saw. She was already deeply upset after Bae Hee-Jae’s visit. Further traumatizing her, it looks like she saw not just Min-Seo’s murder but who killed her. She dropped out of the film and went into seclusion. But nine years later, would she recognize the murderer? Would she tell Ms. Ma if she did? Maybe not, but our murderer can’t take that risk.

So, despite this mini-arc being based on Mirror, don’t expect it to follow the original story. Besides us not knowing if the photographer is an abandoned daughter, Bae Hee-Jae’s husband isn’t a good parallel for Arthur Badcock.

First, we met Ahn Seong-Tae in the opening episodes when the gardening-loving thug threatened him into repaying money he borrowed.

In these episodes, we learn he’s blackmailing Lee Jung-Hee over racy videos she made as a starving actress in Japan. You can see her reasoning. She needed the money, the checks cashed, and she didn’t expect anyone would know she’d filmed smut. But Ahn Seong-Tae (easy to spot with his Sideshow Bob-inspired hairdo) learned her secret. He and Bae Hee-Jae have been bleeding Lee Jung-Hee for cash for years. Every time she resists, he dangles the flash drive he wears around his neck as a dog-tag. Her fear of them revealing all is why Lee Jung-Hee invited them to the housewarming party over her husband’s objections.

There are other, enlightening flashbacks. When Min-Seo disappeared, at first Ms. Ma thought it was kidnappers. She had received a ransom call. That’s why she knew about that money-stuffed suitcase hidden in the woods she fetched in episode 1. When she speaks to Inspector Han on the phone (a wonderful scene leading to a teaching moment for him) he tells her where the kidnapper’s phone calls originated and she begins to suspect her husband. As always with Agatha, the money matters. A man who marries up in the world (think Leo Argyle in Ordeal by Innocence (1958)) can lose big in a divorce. But if his wife dies? Or is locked away in a prison asylum? He gets to keep all the lovely, lovely money.

The other interesting flashback is “niece” Eun-Ji’s. Who is that young girl with her? A sister, perhaps?

A terrific parallel to Mirror is how Ms. Ma does her detecting during the housewarming party. She’d been inside the house earlier and spoke with Lee Jung-Hee. The actress quoted what sounded like a translation of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s (1809-1892) “The Lady of Shalott.”

Ms. Ma, realizing she needs to be careful with Lee Jung-Hee — because she won’t be truthful — avoids the gala housewarming. Instead, she sends niece Seo Eun-Ji in her place. Like Gladys Dixon in the novel, Eun-Ji serves drinks and witnesses the confrontation between Lee Jung-Hee and Bae Hee-Jae. But did she see what she thought she saw? Or what she was supposed to see? During the party and especially after Bae Hee-Jae falls dead from her poisoned drink, Eun-Ji updates Ms. Ma via quick phone calls.

As she does, Ms. Ma realizes that she needs to intercept Ahn Seong-Tae as he flees the party before the police can arrest him. With Ko Mal-Koo in tow, she confronts Ahn Seong-Tae who’s got secrets of his own.

But, having learned the value of a low profile in the last mini-arc, Ms. Ma is trying harder to remain hidden. It looks like the tension will ramp up because who shows up in Rainbow Village in the aftermath of the housewarming but her ex-husband? After her phone conversation with Inspector Han, she doesn’t dare meet him.

And that’s where this mini-arc ends! Is Lee Jung-Hee guilty of murder? Or was it someone else? We’ll find out!