Jeanette Grayson (Christina Cox) is the main villainess from the 2017 film, Taken Too Far (alternately titled, Deadly Dance Mom). Her backstory reveals that she is a former beauty pageant contestant; finishing as the runner-up in the Miss Indiana pageant--though Jeanette continuously claims that she was cheated out of the win by her best friend, who she never spoke to again.
Since then, Jeanette married former district attorney-turned defense attorney Dean Grayson and had two children: teenage daughter Sara and younger son Jason, whom she ignored in favor of Sara. She pushed all the responsibility of managing the household and actually caring for her kids onto the Graysons' housekeeper Alba, much to her husband's disapproval. Jeanette was also shown to have a drinking problem and a history of going off her psychiatric medication, which often put her at odds with her family.
In the film, Sara has been taking dance classes at the heavy insistence of her mother. Jeanette established her arrogant, entitled, and spoiled personality by recklessly driving to the dance school, while callously disregarding the safety of a group of schoolchildren disembarking a bus and nearly hitting Beth Hoyson (one of the protagonists), before rudely blocking some parking spots. She was also known to be the most antagonistic of her fellow dance moms, frequently lording her wealth over them.
Sara participated in and passed the final auditions for a competition where the winner would receive a scholarship to a dance academy and appear in a music video in Los Angeles, and regarding Jeanette, she was selfishly looking to get back in the spotlight through her daughter. When the other mothers protested their respective children being eliminated by the teacher, Jeanette smugly mocked the women and even instigated fights between them, which Beth unsuccessfully attempted to defuse. Believing that Sara's best friend and Beth's daughter, Melanie Hoyson (the only other student who was selected), was a top threat in the competition, Jeanette devised a villainous plot to make sure Sara won.
Jeanette manipulated Alba's husband Stevie, the family's gardener, into abducting Melanie; first by falsely claiming to him that Dean suspected that he stole his golf clubs, while also promising to pay for the care of his mother-in-law. She also used Stevie's criminal past as a threat; stating that she would send him back to jail for violating his parole (which was revealed to be false). Under Jeanette's orders, Stevie disguised himself as a chauffeur and picked up Melanie, only to knock her out with chloroform. Beth received a text for help from Melanie, and successfully tracked her daughter in the limo with Stevie, who phoned Jeanette when he realized he was being followed. The villainess drove up behind Beth and ran her off the road, and following this, the evil Jeanette helped Stevie abduct Beth.
After the Hoysons were taken to a storage locker, Jeanette went to the competition and watched Sara perform--unaware (at the time) that Beth and Melanie escaped and arrived at the competition. She received a text from Stevie stating that something was wrong, and she rushed to meet him, only to encounter Beth (who sent the text). A confrontation ensued, where Jeanette stated that she could have easily taken care of Melanie had she not decided to get Stevie involved. This was part of Beth's plan to trap Jeanette, and she was later arrested by police, with Dean (who was phoned about Stevie by Alba) fully at the defense of Beth and telling his wife to use her right to remain silent, much to Jeanette's shock, as she expected Dean would take her side. As she was led away in handcuffs, Jeanette insisted to Sara that her arrest is all a misunderstanding and she'll be back at home. However, she is later seen at the police station being taken away presumably for incarceration, having been found guilty of all her crimes. To make up for the misery she caused the Hoytons, Dean gives them Jeanette's car and they part on friendly terms.
Trivia[]
- Christina Cox is perhaps best known for playing villainous police officer Zoey Kruger on Dexter.
- Christina Cox played a similar Lifetime villainess to Jeanette named Rhonda Chalmers in Lethal Soccer Mom, who was also using her daughter for her own selfish ambitions and willing to go to great lengths to achieve them, including harming said daughter's rival.
- Christina Cox also appeared as the evil Christa Pullman on Elementary, murderess Anne Marie Ostenbach on Bones, scheming villainess Maggie Finch on Castle, and attempted killer Susan Ballin on Motive.
- Christina Cox later appeared as the villainous Deborah Wilson in 2018's Hailey Dean Mystery: A Marriage Made for Murder.
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