STAR – Mary’s Song

By: Gladys Luna

“God, sometimes I get all up in my head. I start thinking bad things and then bad things happen. I think all secrets are best buried. Help me get these girls through this murder and forgive me for the sins I commit along the way. I know you looking after them ‘cause it´s clear I can´t stop this girl group thing from happening.”

Regardless the last events, the girls are currently having fun posing and playing at a photoshoot that Jahil (Benjamin Bratt) has taken them to. They take a quick break and Jahil informs them they have rehearse after, but Star (Jude Demorest) refuses saying she is tired. Jahil immediately puts her back in place by telling her she still needs to figure out how this “world” works (referring to the music business). Break is over and they got back to posing for the pictures. The photographer asks the makeup girl assistant to put some more powder on Alexandra (Ryan Destiny), which upsets her since this action has been happening repeatedly over the photoshoot. The man explains her that the light is not helping, but Alex tells him she knows what he truly is referring to stating that is not a “light” yet is more of a “color” thing. The photographer decides to wrap the session and Star confronts Alex about her attitude towards the man, but Alex defends herself and leaves.

At the salon, Alex is doing Carlotta’s (Queen Latifah) hair while Star and Simone (Brittany O´Grady) are cleaning and doing the laundry. Carlotta notices there´s some kind of tension, making Alex tell her about what happened at the photoshoot. She and Star go back into an argument when Star points to Alex as the possible murderer of Otis (Darius McCrary).

Carlotta tries to turn the fight off and also lets them know that Jahil got rid of the body and now the secret is in all of them. Carlotta sends Simone to the garage to get some conditioners. When Simone is looking for the conditioners she finds a box labeled as “Mixed Harmony.” She opens the box and digs in it finding pictures of Carlotta and Mary (Caroline Vreeland). As she keeps rummaging, she also finds a VHS tape tagged as “1992 Studio Session.” She moves to another area, turns an old TV and a VCR on and plays the tape seeing an old session of a young Mary singing beautifully. Simone cries as she sees her mother on the screen, but is interrupted by Carlotta calling her from upstairs.

It´s Simone first day of school and Carlotta is walking her to it. As they leave the house, Derek (Quincy Brown) approaches them asking for their permission to put some “Black Lives Matter” flyers on the salon, but Carlotta refuses. Simone offers to put some of the fliers around her school that day. A patrol car passes by the neighborhood and Simone freaks out by it, but Carlotta immediate finds a way to calm her down. Simone confesses to Carlotta that she saw the tape of her mother and Carlotta gets a little annoyed, asking her not to dig into her stuff. Right at that moment, Carlotta remembers the day when that song was recorded. In the flashback, we see a young Mary and a young Carlotta (Sasha Sloan) discussing what they want to add to the song not really getting into an agreement. Mary is called into the recording studio as a young Jahil tries to explain to Carlotta the producer requested for Mary to do the take on the song. That doesn’t make Carlotta happy in any way as she also thinks Jahil is part responsible for that request as well.

Back to the present day, Jahil arrives at the salon with Eva (Sharlene Taulé) in tow looking for the girls. Eva compliments Alex and Simone about their music. Jahil introduces Eva as his niece, but nobody seems to believe him. Jahil explains the girls he wants to take them to a club that same night so they know who some of their competitors are when Carlotta arrives at the salon and refuses to let Simon go since it is a school night. Jahil talks Carlotta into letting Eva to work at the salon since he is taking the girls away too much and he thinks she might be of great help to what Carlotta barely agrees.

Jahil, Simone and Star are at the club checking on their competition. A trio of girls are taking over the stage in front of a very pleased audience. The three finally admit the other trio is quite the competition. For their final performance the trio perform the National Anthem. Star and Alexandra discuss about the things they could do to draw the attention of the audience after realizing that the other girls have over 200 thousands of followers on Instagram. Star suggests that maybe Simone should help them set up some Instagram accounts for them that it could also serve her as a distraction from everything that had happened.

Pastor Harris (Tyrese Gibson) asks Carlotta to become the chorus director as the sister that used to occupy that place won’t be available for a while. Carlotta refuses using as an excuse that she has a lot of things to take care of as the salon and the girls. Carlotta seems concerned and Pastor Harris knows her so well that he can´t just let it pass and when he asks Carlotta if she is alright. She almost tells him the truth, but regrets it immediately and changes the subject.

The girls are in the bedroom discussing the song they will use at their live performance. Star and Alex are so caught up on their argument that they don’t hear Simone telling them she already has a song they might use. Simone shows them the video of Mary´s performance and Star’s features toughen as she recognizes her mother on the screen. Alexandra pays a compliment to Star about Mary´s voice and Simone compares Star with Mary, which makes Star mad. Carlotta arrives as Star is leaving and also gets mad at Simone for showing her the video. There´s another flashback of Carlotta watching Mary recording the song as she watches from the other side of the glass.

But as nothing is ever easy, the police find Otis’ car dumped somewhere in the city as one of the officers begin to report the car to the central. In the meantime, at the salon Star and Alex discuss over using Mary´s song for their performance. Ava is also there doing some braids on Star. She tells them the reason she came to America was because she was looking for her mother. Star wishes her good luck on finding her and leaves the salon to a date with Hunter (Chad James Buchanan).

Star meets with Hunter at a restaurant and they talk about the competition and Hunter decides to open his heart to her. He tells her about his father and the two bond. He loans her his credit card to her so she can buy something nice for the performance.

Simone and Alex are rehearsing while Jahil is on the phone. When he finishes he realizes Star hasn´t arrived yet and starts calling her with no luck in finding her. He also tells them they can´t move forward since she is the lead, pissing Alex off as she tells him that she chose Star for her voice not to be the lead. Jahil assures her they need something fresh and to find someone as Star with an R&B voice is something unique and may lead them onto winning. Simone questions Jahil about what happened to Mary and Carlotta that made them fall apart and he only manages to say that Carlotta was jealous of Mary and she screwed it up.

More patrols are gathering around Otis car as one of the officers call Otis wife (Deja Dee) once they have recognized who the rental car belongs to. They ask her about the last time she saw him, leaving her speechless.

Alex and Simone are rehearsing Mary´s song when Star arrives and invites them to go shopping. Simone goes to ask Cotton (Amiyah Scott) to join them. Someone walks into the salon carrying a bouquet of flowers. Carlotta reads the card, revealing Pastor Harris sent them to her and she takes it as a gesture for him saying he will not give up on her leading the chorus. The girls arrive at the salon carrying the shopping bags. Star explains Cotton borrowed the card and asked her to buy some clothes for the night. They go back to discussing the Mary´s song and Alex confronts Star asking her to get over her issues with her mother, but Star confesses her she hates Mary for leaving them and walks out of the room.

Alex is outside of Carlotta´s house still upset about the fight with Star. Carlotta tries to find out why Star always reacts that way about everything. Alex shares with her what Jahil told them about why the duo split up and then Carlotta confesses her that Jahil was obsessed with Mary (seems like Jahil has a type, right?) as well as calling him a liar. Carlotta remembers the moment back then at the studio when she saw Mary and Jahil flirting and touching each other. Back to the present, she goes back to the house, slamming the door behind her.

Carlotta asks Star to apologize to Alex, reminding her that Alex gave a lot of her in order to follow her. Star seems to be back up to her senses and goes outside to Alex. She is listening to the arrangement she made of Mary´s song and let’s Star to listen to it as well.

The girls come to the stage to perform and when they finish Jahil congratulates them, kissing only Star on the cheek. Once again, Alex doesn´t seem to be comfortable at all about it. He leaves the girls and goes outside looking for a producer he saw among the audience, but by the time he makes it outside the man is already leaving. Jahil is standing in the middle of the street when a van approaches to him and a few men come out of it kidnaping him and dragging him into the van.

The next day, Cotton, Simone and Alex are in the kitchen when Alex receives a notification telling them they made it to the next stage of the contest. Suddenly, the phone rings and Simone picks up the call only to find Otis’ wife at the other end of the line asking her about him. Simone freezes up and hangs up. The woman keeps calling, but Simone lies to Cotton and Alex telling them is not important.

Hunter is in bed with Simone when his mother (Nealla Gordon) comes in the room holding the credit card bill and scolding him for spending a big amount of money in clothing. He asks her to leave and gets into an argument with Star finally leaving her alone. Star walks out of the house only wearing half of her clothes and carrying the other half in her hands when she is met with a group of paparazzi waiting at the other side of the fence calling her. She begins to discreetly pose for them while smiling.

Carlotta shows up at the church and she is introduced by Pastor Harris as the new lead of the chorus. She begins to sing to the new arranged upbeat songs. He final sequence commence, as we see Star still posing for the paparazzi, Jahil being dragged to and empty warehouse and Simone finally taking the call of former foster mother asking her about Otis. Jahil is thrown to the floor, in the middle of the warehouse with hands tied and a hood on his head.

Will the story repeat all over again and Jahil will be the one splitting the new trio? Let´s find out together as this story unravels.

Don´t miss Star every Wednesday at 9/8c on Fox. See you next week!