Gosh, a fountain of information last night.

So we know Mary's father left a couple days before her 7th b'day. We know he's been missing 25 years already and should already be considered technically dead. And so she's 32. (I feel like I should already know this from ep 1 ?)

What I'm currently hung up on is how long she's been doing the job. Those kids were her first case, and they've been in the program for 10 years, but at one point I remember her telling the older brother that she met his younger brother 5 years ago. ?

Were there any clues as to how old Marshall is meant to be? I've been thinking he was late thirties, but instantaneously recognizing a TA 15-20 years later is very weird. And his TA gf looked, actually, younger than he does.

I don't necessarily think that Marshall was with Mary the whole time, but he knows this was her first case. But have to agree timeline is a little fuzzy.

Back in Trojan Horst, we found out M&M have been partners for 3 years or so.

I guess on the whole I'm happier that they aren't dispensing more than wit background on the flashbacks, or we'd be discovering new branches of fuzzy math left and right

We know they've been partners for 3 years, and Mary's been doing this for 5 (?) years, and we don't know how long Marshall's been doing this. I also get the impression that Mary is not originally from New Mexico.

This does raise some other questions that I'm sure the writers are exploring:

• The Shannon family connection to New Jersey
• Previous partners for Mary and Marshall, especially given comments from both Marshall and Stan in Trojan Horst imply that Mary is very difficult to work with
• Whether or not IPS producers have designated a staff member to be in charge of continuity

The problem I'm having with the 5 year answer is that I don't understand why her first case would be to babysit witnesses that have already been in the program for 5 years. It seems like they're pretty much left to their own devices after a couple years max, unless special circumstances arise. Unless the 10 year thing is wrong. It might be, I only watched it the once. Gosh, I'll be blushing if that turns out to be the case.




You know, it never occured to me that she wasn't from there. Hunh. I'll have to ponder that for a while: gives the 'terrible two' a bit different interpretation than I've had.





Somehow in my head, all I see are the staff writers looking up and shouting 'continuity! do we have continuity?' And Rodney McKay bursting in looking all frantic saying "I think so! At least this moment appears to have come after last moment, at least relative to my watch, but now that I see you how did I know you were about to ask me what I'm doing here?!?" And dashing out.