Lynn Gray (Maeve Quinlan) is the villainess of "Crushed", episode 2.05 of Life (airdate October 17, 2008). She was a former singer who later married Nathan Gray, the head of his own music company, and the mother of their daughter Bethany. In the past, Bethany went through a wild phase, which included an affair she had with her professor that started online.
In the episode's beginning, tow truck driver Mike Brody was found dead, having been inside a car when it was placed through a crusher at a junkyard. He was discovered to have been engaged in a relationship with someone claiming to be Bethany, who also was involved with his co-worker Rob Dow. Detectives Charlie Crews and Dani Reese initially suspected Nathan of killing Mike, due to his past assault on Bethany's professor.
However, Bethany denied being involved with Mike and Rob, and she was later proven truthful: as in reality, her mother had begun posing as her daughter online after Bethany returned home from school, initially doing so to see what she'd been doing. Eventually, she arranged to meet with Mike at the junkyard after leaving a party she attended with Nathan, dressing herself in her tennis outfit. But upon arriving, Lynn was dismayed when Mike scoffed at her for being "too old" and laughed at her for her deception. Enraged, the evil Lynn struck Mike in the head with her tennis racket, killing him, and Rob (having witnessed the murder from afar) placed Mike's body in the car to be crushed in an effort to cover for "Bethany".
Lynn was ultimately discovered to be Mike's true killer when Dani discovered that one of the emails "Bethany" sent to Rob was a lyric from one of Lynn's old songs. The detectives confronted Lynn as she was on her tennis court, revealing that they had officers searching her house for the broken racket she'd used to kill Mike. Lynn confessed to the murder, tearfully expressing her heartbreak over his rejection of her and claiming she hadn't meant to kill him, as well as revealing that she believed Mike's assertion about her. Lynn was then arrested (offscreen) for Mike's murder.
Trivia[]
- Maeve Quinlan later appeared as the evil Carol Morrison in 2018's The Sinister Surrogate.
Quotes[]
- "See, I used to be Bethany. But I'm not Bethany anymore. Mike loved me. Online, on the phone. I went to see him dressed like this. I thought that's what he wanted. But when he saw me....he just laughed. I didn't mean to kill him, it's just that he laughed! He said I wasn't Bethany. Don't ever grow old. (Dani: "You're not old.") Yes, I am." (Lynn's confession to Mike Brody's murder)