Maggie Sherman aka Doris Goodbridge (Brenda Strong) is the villainess of "Missing", episode 1.05 of Notorious (airdate October 20, 2016). She was a fertility lawyer for Horizon Fertility Group and, by the episode's evens, was representing college student Jenna Polly, who agreed to become a surrogate for Arthur and Mary Gower in order to pay off college loans.
When it appeared that the Gowers appeared to stop paying Jenna and seemingly abandoned her and her unborn child, Jenna went to lawyer Jake Gregorian for help, prompting him to speak with Maggie. But despite Jenna's situation, Maggie refused to reveal the names of the couple trying to adopt her baby, saying it would break confidentiality. She also refused to help when Jake took her to court, arguing that Jake wasn't one to "lecture her" on ethics due to his history of representing criminals.
Maggie was later revealed, however, to be a greedy scam artist when Arthur and Mary arrived at Jake's office after his and Jenna's appearance on "Louise Herrick Live" ended with Jenna going into labor, revealing how they had paid Maggie $200,000 for Jenna's services and that Maggie had falsely told them that Jenna had miscarried. They also revealed that they weren't the biological parents of Jenna's baby and had a contract made with Maggie to adopt her child. Realizing Maggie's scam and with Jenna's baby being taken into foster care until the biological parents were found, Jake went to confront Maggie at her office, only to find that she had fled to avoid being caught.
After searching through other fertility scams, Jake learned of another case involving a woman named Doris Goodridge to referred to her business as a "glorified turkey-baster situation", a phrase Maggie had used in court. This revealed that Doris Goodridge was Maggie's real name and allowed for Jake's associates Ella Benjamin and Bradley Gregorian (the latter of who was also Jake's brother) to track Maggie to a train station where she had used her credit card to pay for a ticket out of town.
Maggie was questioned by Jake and she finally revealed that she had bought the egg and sperm used to impregnate Jenna from a clinic in Prague where the procedure was done, meaning there were no biological parents. The evil scam artist then tried to blame Jake for causing the situation to spiral out of control, saying that if he hadn't filed Jenna's name with the Clerk's office, she could've found another couple to adopt Jenna's baby. This led Jake to realize that the greedy Maggie had planned on using Jenna's baby as a means of extorting money from another couple, which he angrily lambasted her for. Maggie coldly justified her actions by saying she was running low on money before preparing to leave. At that moment, though, Jake revealed that while Jenna wasn't planning to press charges, the Gowers certainly were and the police were waiting to arrest Maggie downstairs.
Trivia[]
- Brenda Strong also appeared as the evil Dr. Leigh Sapien on CSI, serial killer Kathy Jarrow on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. greedy villainess Mel Gaynor-Randle on Rizzoli & Isles, villainous adulteress Joan Reston on Scandal, and she played recurring villainess Lillian Luthor during Supergirl's second season (which began just 10 days before Brenda's villainous appearance on Notorious).