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Maureen Sowerbutts is one of the tritagonists of the BBC psychological horror, mystery sitcom show Psychoville and the main antagonist of the 2020 Inside No. 9 episode "Death Be Not Proud".
She was the mother of David Sowerbutts and shared an uncomfortably intimate relationship with her son and was severely protective of him while also sharing his obsession with serial killers. Due to several circumstances she eventually became part of a mother & son duo of serial killers along with David out of vengeance before eventually branching off on her own after realising how fun she found killing people, she stopped however upon realising why she and David were doing killings to begin with.
She was portrayed by Reece Shearsmith who also played Mr. Jelly, Jeremy Goode and the Silent Singer in the same series as well as Edward Tattsyrup, Ross Gaines, Papa Lazarou, Bernice Woodall, Judee Levinson, Cathy Carter-Smith and Father Halfhearte in The League of Gentlemen, Ray, Tom, Hector, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Warren, George, Dr. Jacob Tyler, Greg, David, Henry, Viktor, Neville Griffin and SPC Varney in Inside No. 9, Gagan Rassmussen in Doctor Who, Malcolm Webster in The Widower and one third of the Vogons in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film adaptation.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Maureen gave birth to David in roughly 1971 and lived with him and her husband for most of the boy's childhood, out of vengeance for his constant abuse upon her however Maureen began poisoning her husband for months until a worried David put sleeping pills in his father's cereal as he noticed his increasingly bad condition and thought it would help him ultimately leading to his death before Maureen had intended. Maureen never told David about poisoning him as she didn't want to upset her son however she expressed great remorse over how guilty he felt about the event for his whole life but remained afraid to tell him. The two were virtually inseparable from that point on however and continued sharing their flat.
David grew to have an obsession with serial killers which his mother also took an interest in
Psychoville Season One[]
Maureen first appears alongside David when she's scraping dead skin off of his back before his next work shift, she expresses how proud she is of him to be able to secure a good job which she assumes to be waiting tables (Not realising he's working as part of a murder mystery re-enactment acting troupe). When David goes to work Maureen practices the keyboard until he comes back with his clothes drenched in blood before apologising to her for "doing a bad murder", Maureen naturally assumes that David had genuinely killed someone, not realising that what he meant was that he failed to authentically perform a whodunnit mystery to the standard of his superiors. This paranoia only worsens when The Black Gloved Man calls their house and leaves David a letter saying "I know what you did!" David thinks that these messages are coming from his old boss Graham leading to an increasingly nervous Maureen going to house where she begs him not to go to the police much to his confusion, the conversation ends up resulting in a misunderstanding over the blackmail between them however with Graham assuming Maureen was trying to blackmail her and while she thought the same of him, leading to David coming to his mother's aid while the two plotted how to kill him.
Maureen apologised to Graham for what they "had" to do, telling him she just couldn't cope without David and that it wasn't anything personal. Just as she goes in to test the water for the bath they would have attempted to drown him in however Graham flees the scene although ends up crashing his car into a bus by accident killing him anyway. Maureen and David move onto David's other cast members and slowly pick them off one by one.
During one of their outings however they end up encountering a detective inspector who had came to do an arranged interview with their most recent victim, the two play along by posing as the man and his mother, ultimately fooling the detective however it is later revealed that he is merely an actor who was auditioning through improv to get a part in the same murder mystery troupe David was fired from. The duo initially let him go after several beans are spilled thanks to the encounter including the truth behind Maureen's husband's death however the two put it behind them quickly and kill the actor after he accidentally discovers the body of their most recent victim.
A concerned and disturbed David has realised by this point how much his mother actually enjoys doing the killings and suggests that they stop to which she scoffs and denies his worries before going to the shop to get supplies for their next attack only to encounter one of David's old castmates, through her words about David Maureen realises the true nature of what David meant by his "bad murder" and goes home completely defeated, only to find David has disappeared so he can visit the grave of Nurse Kenchington.
While he's gone Maureen tries to kill herself via overdose but thankfully fails, her unconscious body was later found and brought to the hospital.
Psychoville Halloween Special[]
Psychoville Season Two[]
After her attempted overdose Maureen is recovering in the hospital and preparing to be discharged when David comes for a visit. While Maureen is getting dressed her doctor pulls David aside and tells him that Maureen has terminal pancreatic cancer and doesn't have much longer than a few weeks to live, leaving David devastated and increasingly protective over her.
Death Be Not Proud[]
Personality[]
Maureen is a fairly chipper yet still cranky old woman with strong feelings on things such as manners and decency and is very personable and assertive, however she is ultimately devoted to her son first and foremost who she shared a very close and adoring relationship with, even to the point of partaking in his hobby of researching true crime and serial killers although did have her own passions such as solving jigsaw puzzles as well as her bizarre and inappropriate Tina Turner impressions. In spite of her murderous nature as well she still is quite friendly even to people she's planning on killing she remains genuinely nice, even asking them their opinion on how she plans on killing them. In terms of her mortality Maureen was taken aback upon hearing about her cancer diagnoses but did her best to face death with dignity, her only fears and regrets being about how David would cope without her.
When she returns as a ghost Maureen was more malicious being bitter and envious that David had moved on without her and went as far as to try and goad him into killing his newly born son in order to gain him back, thankfully however this more sinister version of Maureen didn't last and she returned to her old personality once she and David had reunited in spirit.
Appearance[]
Maureen is a short and slightly plump older woman with fair skin, blue eyes and permed shoulder length blonde hair. She is usually seen wearing a pale pink blouse, a sky blue cardigan, a long dark floral skirt, skin tone tights, black Mary Janes and thick square glasses. She also had a limp and needed to use a support stick.
Trivia[]
- Reece Shearsmith enjoyed playing Maureen as it was the only time he got to play opposite his life long friend Steve Pemberton in Psychoville citing it as nostalgic for his other double acts with him such as Edward and Tubbs Tattsyrup.
- In the abandoned third series of Psychoville Maureen was going to reappear as a ghost and would've been the main antagonist, an idea later suggested for "The Understudy" in season one of Inside No. 9 however that idea was also abandoned by Reece and Steve since they felt it was too early to go back to their previous show which at the time only ended three years prior so instead made the episode about a production of Macbeth. Finally this plotline was used in some form in "Death Be Not Proud".
- Reece Shearsmith is a huge fan of true crime and has a lot of knowledge on serial killers, ironically enough he actually played a real life serial killer a few years after Psychoville had finished.
- Maureen is an occasional guest on her son's YouTube channel even after her death.
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 Villains
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League of Gentlemen Psychoville Inside No. 9 | ||