So Help Me Todd season 2 episode 4 recap: Margaret tracks a killer

Marcia Gay Harden in So Help Me Todd
Marcia Gay Harden in So Help Me Todd (Image credit: Michael Courtney/CBS)

So Help Me Todd season 2 episode 4 opens with Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden) being informed that the Lee sisters are looking for new attorneys. Margaret must convince them to hire the firm to manage their foundation, but she isn’t sure they can pull it off.  

Margaret tells Francey (Rosa Arredondo) they must work through the night to get a presentation ready. Francey isn't too happy about that, but Margaret invites her to family dinner as an incentive.

At dinner Todd (Skylar Astin) has sharp pains in his side. Allison (Madeline Wise) diagnoses it as appendicitis and takes Todd to the ER to have his appendix removed. When he wakes up after surgery, Margaret is there with him even though it’s 4 am. 

Both of them are startled to discover Todd has a roommate, a man who is groaning in the corner. Margaret leaves. On the way out she sees a tall, beautiful woman in a red dress wearing a doctor's coat and tells her that Todd is awake. 

Todd, still groggy from the aesthesia, sees the doctor enter the room and talk to the man in the corner. He hears the man say "murder," "Pelican" and "judge" and becomes convinced the man is going to murder a judge. Then, he passes out from the pain medication.

No one believes Todd

The Lee sisters are a hard sell. Mildred Lee (Joyce Robbins) and Tillie Lee (Jaqueline Robbins) are small elderly women who look sweet but are tough as nails. They complain about the coffee, the firm and Margaret's presentation. Margaret is flustered trying to find a way to convince them the firm can handle their needs.

Back at the hospital Allison comes to check on Todd. His roommate is gone but he tells Allison what he heard. She doesn't believe him though. 

Todd uses the landline phone on the wall to call Margaret to ask her if she remembers the roommate. Margaret does, as well as the tall, beautiful doctor. However, the woman wasn't really a doctor. Todd tells Margaret about the murder plot he overheard, but Margaret is too busy trying to woo the Lee sisters to take him seriously. 

Allison returns with a new roommate for Todd, famous private detective Dick Franks (Dean Winters). Dick is a hard-boiled but wild personality who bonds with Todd right away.

Margaret investigates

That night, Margaret is driving the Lee sisters home. She makes one last pitch to them, but while she is talking she sees the mystery woman going into the Pelican auditorium. She follows the woman. The Lee sisters are excited to go on a real investigation. 

Inside the auditorium there is a cat show going on. At first the three think the woman is there to murder a cat show judge. Margaret realizes the woman is there to kill Judge Ortiz, who is showing his cat. Margaret approaches Judge Ortiz but is grabbed and taken to a back room by two FBI agents. 

Margaret tells them about the murder plot, but they don't believe her. They put her in a "Karen" room with a lot of other women. 

The sisters get themselves put in the "Karen" room for causing a scene. They tell Margaret they found the mystery woman and tailed her to her car, where they got her license plate. The three women need to get out of the room, so Margaret tells the guard she will make sure he is brought up on charges if he continues holding her little old lady clients hostage. The guard lets them all go.

At the hospital, Todd calls Allison back to the room. Dick Franks distracts her, then steals her tablet. He goes through the tablet to find out the roommate's name was Stephan Dobson and that he's dead. Allison comes back in to retrieve her tablet and refuses to tell them what the codes in Dobson's chart mean. 

The pieces come together

Dean Winters in So Help Me Todd

Dean Winters in So Help Me Todd (Image credit: Michael Courtney/CBS)

While Margaret and the Lee sisters are driving, the mystery woman's car pulls behind them. At first, they think she is tailing them. But it turns out she's driving to the same condo complex where Margaret lives.

At the hospital, Allison digs deeper into Stephan's chart. Stephan's brother Tobias brought him in. Tobias said Stephan had no allergies, but in the chart it says Stephan was deathly allergic to penicillin. Someone gave Stephan penicillin and it caused an allergic reaction that killed him.

Margaret and the sisters arrive at the condo complex after the mystery woman. Lyle (Tristen J. Winger) calls Margaret to let her know that the Judge was hearing a case against the Portland Paper Mill, which is owned by Tobias and Stephan Dobson. 

Tobias Dobson and his wife, Felicia Dobson (Cecilia Grace Deacon) live in Tower 2 of Margaret's condo complex. Felicia is the mystery woman. They follow her into the condo, where a memorial for Stephan is taking place. 

Lyle calls Todd to tell him that Stephan Dobson had recently flipped on Tobias in exchange for immunity in the case. Back at the hospital Allison discovers that three weeks ago Tobias had picked up penicillin for Felicia. 

At the condo, Margaret tries to get Tobias on tape confessing to the murder by sliding her phone under a door into the room where Felicia and Tobias were talking. But Todd calls and Tobias picks up the phone and sees the caller ID from the hospital. He answers the phone and says nothing, while Todd excitedly talks about the penicillin. 

Tobias goes to the hospital to kill Todd. However, Todd, Allison and Dick had already set a trap for him. Margaret brings the police, who arrest Tobias. The Lee sisters hire the firm because they had such a fabulous time helping Margaret.

New episodes of So Help Me Todd air Thursdays on CBS. Episodes then stream on-demand on Paramount Plus.

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Sonya Iryna

Sonya has been writing professionally for more than a decade and has degrees in New Media and Philosophy. Her work has appeared in a diverse array of sites including ReGen, The Washington Post, Culturess, Undead Walking and Final Girl. As a lifelong nerd she loves sci-fi, fantasy and horror TV and movies, as well as cultural documentaries. She is particularly interested in representation of marginalized groups in nerd culture and writes reviews and analysis with an intersectional POV. Some of her favorite shows include Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Sandman.