My Husband’s Deadly Past (2020 Lifetime)
Stars: Peter Benson, Maddy Hillis, Brendon Zub, Sarah Butler
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
Mackenzie is haunted by visions that suggest she killed a missing coed. She later discovers that her psychiatrist husband, Otto, has manipulated her memory to hide his own role in the murder.
Thoughts
A woman sleeps at night and is disturbed by terrible nightmares involving waterfalls, murder, and fire? Her name is Karen. (This name may need to be retired from Lifetime’s usage since it is a meme.) her husband Otto is a therapist reassures her in the middle of the night and with life in general.
Karen has a daughter named Jordan. Jordan has a slutty friend named Ruth, who hits on Otto shamelessly. She wants to date an older man because boys her age are so lame. When she tells Jordan that she wants to sleep with her dad, Jordan laughs it off.
While walking into work, Karen passes a missing person notice for a woman named Gina. The woman in the flyer is the woman from her nightmares. While trying to impress a client, Karen sees the dead woman again and starts to panic and rushes out of the office. The outburst causes Karen to lose her job. Poor Karen.
Otto talks Karen down and rationalizes away her fears. Then he takes her to a room with a strobe light and hypnotizes her. Karen wakes up on a dam overpass and is terrified of heights. A passerby comes to her rescue, his name is Huge, and he is an ER doctor. He offers to give her a ride home but is VERY concerned.
At the house, police are swarming the building. Otto places a missing person call, and the police found a body in the pool shed. Karen is taken in for questioning. Things go wrong, and Karen is held in prison! There is DNA evidence, and her boss is making her look guilty by implicating Karen! The flashes of memories still flood into Karen’s mind, and even she thinks that she is guilty. Shouting, “I’m sorry” and stabbing herself with a pen. On her way to the hospital, Karen grabs a taser and frees herself from her restraints. Then she throws on an EMT jacket and runs frantically around town until she can steal a hoodie and hat. (Which she wears over her orange jumpsuit. Not suspicious at all!)
Now free from jail, Karen confronts her former boss at work. First, Karen clears out the building by pulling the fire alarm. When the boss doesn’t recant her statement, the two get in a struggle, and the boss is knocked on the head by the corner of a desk.
Otto takes care of Jordan while Karen is in prison. It is icky when he uses the relationship to get closer to Ruth. This guy is garbage.
Karen next heads to Otto, who tries to talk sense into her. He gets her a glass of water laced with drugs and set up another hypnotherapy session. While he is out of his office, Karen finds a hypnotizing book and realizes that he is manipulating her. She accuses Otto of killing Gina and framing her. The police show up, and Otto hits himself in the face with a book to make it look like Karen attacked him.
Karen runs out the back door, and upon seeing the pool and fire poker, everything comes back to Karen in a flashback. Otto killed Gina with a fire poker after Karen discovered they were having an affair. Then he held Karen at gunpoint and hypnotized her unwillingly.
Hugh, the ER doctor, remember? Me neither. He calls the detective and wants to amend his statement. Hugh doesn’t think that Karen was suicidal and suggests that she may have been brainwashed. The detective is considering his theory and listening. She may be the best Lifetime detective I have ever seen.
With nowhere else to go, Karen tracks down Hugh and holds him at taser point. (Is that a thing?) She explains what Otto has done to her and forces him to drive to Jordan’s school to save her from Otto’s manipulation. They find Jordan in the gym at the school, but she runs to the school security officer for safety. Hugh tackles him, and they run off without Jordan. The whole thing is filled with student’s cellphones.
The detective interviews Jordan and notices something is off. Jordan realizes that she can’t remember anything before the murder. She has been hypnotized too. Otto continues to manipulate Jordan, and while he is doing so, Ruth catches him. Ruth grabs Otto’s gun and tells him to turn off the flashing light and end the session. He turns Jordan against Ruth and has her grab the weapon. Once Otto has the gun, he has Jordan restrain Ruth, and pistol whips her.
Hugh patches Karen up, and they start to fall in love. They kiss and then go on the run from the cops. It is like Bonnie and Clyde, except way stupider. They argue while running about doing taxes and then about hotwiring a car. They get away from the police this time. Then they go to Otto.
The two split up, Hugh distracts Otto while Karen breaks into the house to find Jordan. Otto pulls a gun on Hugh after he attempts to blackmail him. Then he destroys Hugh’s phone and calls for his sleeper assassin, Jordan. Karen frees Ruth and tells her to go to the cops.
Jordan takes the gun, and Otto instructs her to shoot Hugh, Which she does in cold blood. With Hugh down, Otto tells Jordan to find Ruth and kill her and then kill herself. Otto is EVIL. Jordan heads inside, and Karen has the flashing light turned on. Karen tells Jordan to snap out of it, and Jordan is very confused.
Karen and Jordan beat up Otto, and he leaves running right into the cops. He makes up a story, and the detectives are confused AF.
One month later, Hugh survives, and Karen is acquitted. They meet up at the dam and makeout. Romantic? No.
Side Note
Minority Report: Gina, Investor, Detective Chandra and Lang, correctional officers, EMT, Mr. Lee, and inmates.
I give them credit for a storyline I’ve never seen before. It doesn’t mean that I liked it.
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Overall rating
🔪🔪 (2 Knives)
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 (5 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2020 Lifetime
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