Review: Mike Tyson Mysteries “Pits and Peaks; The Monahans and MacGoverns”

Another two episodes, another couple of near-death experiences for Pigeon.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

At a weekend cook out, Mike accidentally grills Pigeon alive. By the grace of plot convenience, Pigeon survives but is none too happy with the gang or his miserable life. What else is new, right? Inside, since Deezy is so bad at managing Mike’s money, he’s actively checking to see if his client has any unclaimed funds coming to him. A short google later, and we find out that Marquess (whose real name is John Douglas, 9^th Marquess of Queensbury) has almost 5 million unclaimed dollars at the National Bank of Scotland. So, the gang travels to Scotland instead of assisting a client whose wife is on life support (which is considered a mystery, why?). Yung is upset but everybody else wants that money. Since Marquess is legally dead, he needs a living heir to claim the bounty. Enter, Ian Douglas, a down on his life fish-processing factory worker whose wife prepares fish-head stew every night for dinner. Guilted by Yung, Marquess agrees to split the money with his heir, who in turn agrees to split the money with his coworkers. Unfortunately, that’s when our beloved Scotsman with a heart of gold accidentally gets sucked into the fish guts processor. Oops!

In the next episode, a cowboy with a micropenis falls in love with the daughter of a feuding family. They’re forced to carry out an affair in secret (you know, like in Romeo and Juliet). Just as the team is about to head to Wyoming—with Marquess surprisingly invested in the couple’s happiness—they learn Deezy registered the Mystery Team as a daycare center to get out of some bad debts. To finalize the plan, Mike needs to get his CPR certificate. The champ passes and immediately becomes a CPR know-it-all. In Wyoming, both families refuse to reconcile after decades of feuding and forbid the young couple’s union. Besides, the girl, Josephine, is already betrothed to her brother’s best friend, J.D. Montague (you know, like the family name in Romeo and Juliet). The lovelorn boy, Clayton, is confronted by J.D., and after a struggle, he kills Montague by accident. To protect the boy, Marquess douses him in Sriracha and fakes his death (like in Romeo and Juliet). The fix is in, and everybody buys it except for Mike who tries to revive Clayton with a portable defibrillator. Unfortunately, Clayton dies because Mike overlooked his nipple piercings. Josephine, who has a matching set of nipple rings, wishes to be with her deceased lover and uses the defibrillator to commit suicide (exactly the way it went down in Romeo and Juliet).

Our Take

If you’re a fan of Rome, Gray’s Anatomy, or other shows in that same genre, you might be surprised to learn that Marquess’ distant descendant was played by Kevin McKidd. Mike Tyson Mysteries rarely has guest voices, instead opting to have members of the crew or lesser-known vocal artists provide the supporting characters’ dialogue. However, the addition of McKidd didn’t just add a tinge of gravitas, it also gave us a powerful and entertaining Scottish accent that could only come from a true Scotsman—or maybe Mike Myers in his heyday. The ending of this episode was a bit of a let-down because throughout the episode Marquess and the gang were extremely money hungry. Yet nobody thought to go to Ian’s widow and children in an attempt to crack open that frozen bank account.

Am I wrong to expect consistency in Marquess’ character on such an absurdist show? He began the night with a “me first,” Ayn Randian attitude, but when the second episode rolled around, he was all about peace, love, and understanding. I’m mean, Mike, Yung, and Pigeon are relatively consistent, and even Deezy continues to be a disappointing agent. But Marquess is all over the place. This character sin became even worse when Marquess mentioned the fractured relationship he had with his son. That simple statement invoked continuity that stretches back to season three. I enjoy continuity, I’m also fine with shows that hit the reset button after every episode, but a mixture of both is downright confusing.