Mavis and Lady Mae Go Toe-to-Toe

As is the case with many estranged siblings, Lady Mae and Mavis don't get along. Their relationship declined even further when Grace, Lady Mae's daughter, returned to Memphis. The Greenleaf matriarch correctly guessed that Mavis was behind Grace's mission to take down Mac, and, from Lady Mae's perspective, she just might take down the rest of the family as well.

One night, Lady Mae appears in Mavis' blues bar with something she needs to get off her chest. "You think I don't know the role you played in all this," she says. "You think I don't see your handprint on every brick of my ruin?"

"Mac had to be stopped, and you know it," Mavis says, her voice rising in anger.

"And you and that daughter of mine dressing up all your resentments in robes of righteous indignation," Lady Mae says in disgust.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mavis says. "As a matter of fact, I never knew—"

Lady Mae cuts her off and leans forward, forcefully pushing her finger into Mavis' chest. "You leave my family alone."

"The same way you did? If anybody's to blame for whatever it is you came down here to bitch to me about, it's you because you knew," Mavis says, referring to Mac's alleged crimes against underage girls.

"I did not know," Lady Mae insists.

Mavis chuckles mirthlessly. "You knew."

"How could I have known?"

"Come on! You knew!" Mavis screams.

"How could any mother let that happen to her daughter and not say anything?" Lady Mae asks.

"You tell me," Mavis says.

"You childless whore," Lady Mae says, again pointing her finger at Mavis. "What do you know about mothering? You don't know a thing about motherhood. Who are you to take me to task like this? Who are you?"

"Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you say anything?" Mavis fires back. "Why didn't you take your daughter to the police when Grace told you 20 years ago. Why didn't you?"

Mavis pauses, staring daggers at her stunned sister. "I'll tell you why," she says. "Because you're like everybody else. You don't want to believe it's your brother, your father, your son could do such a thing, so they look the other way, and that's exactly what you did. You looked the other way. You're no different than anybody else."

Lady Mae's eyes well up with tears. "I didn't know," she says once more.

"Get out," Mavis says. "Get out."