After the success of A Day with Lady Mae, Lady Mae is feeling confident about stepping into her new role as head pastor at Calvary. As she and Grace take a walk around the property, however, Grace reveals that Connie, the head of the Deacon board, has other ideas about the church's future. "The deacons want to join Harmony and Hope," Grace tells her mother, "and they want Bishop and you to retire with full benefits."
"Hmm," Lady Mae scoffs. "Well, that's generous of them."
"And," Grace continues, pausing, "they wanted to know if I would take over as interim head pastor for a year."
Lady Mae stares daggers at her daughter. "And what did you say?"
"I said that I would pray about it."
"Yeah, when no would have sufficed," Lady Mae snaps.
Lady Mae and Grace then have a heated exchange over the future of Calvary, and things quickly turn personal. Grace claims that she wanted to talk to her mother first before accepting Connie's offer, but Lady Mae doesn't see it that way. "Oh, so you could tell me that you didn't say no. So you could try to make me feel sorry for you, the victim," Lady Mae exclaims. "Sorry for you, who always has to betray me."
"You have beaten me down for decades for a mistake that you made," Grace replies. "You want to talk about betrayal?"
Tensions between them continue to rise until Lady Mae turns and storms off. She only gets a few steps, though, before Grace finally reveals that she took a blood test with Aaron. "Lionel's my father," she tells her mother tearfully.
"And what do you want to do?" Lady Mae replies quietly.
Grace tells her mother that she doesn't know what to do, but Lady Mae assumes that she wants to tell the bishop. "Well, I don't want to keep it a secret," Grace says.
"Oh, no. Of course, you don't, because who would that serve, Grace? Just everybody?" Lady Mae counters.
"Do you honestly have no concern for how this affects me at all?" Grace says angrily.
"And do you have any concern for how this affects me?" Lady Mae responds, not backing down. "You have just told me that my own shameful mistake is going to be memorialized forever!"
"In the shameful, sad, ugly, annoying fact of me," Grace shouts through tears. "I am so sorry I found out, but you cannot ask me to keep who I am a secret. That's not fair to anyone."
Finally, Lady Mae agrees to tell the bishop the truth about Grace. "And I'm sorry. And I'm ashamed. I never meant to bring so much pain to so many."
Watch the Season 3 Finale
