Maureen Downey is a main character in the seventh season of the FX series Justified.
Biography[]
City Primeval/Season 7[]
Maureen Downey is a wife, mother and a detective with the Detroit Police Department. She is a good cop who wants to do right by her family. She is married to Bill Downey and has two daughters, Alyssa and Kyra.
In "City Primeval," Maureen joins a team that is investigating the bombing of the car of Judge Alvin Guy. She meets Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, who is visiting from Florida as part of another case associated with the judge and who has been enlisted to help with the case. Later, after Judge Guy is killed in a separate incident, Maureen is part of the initial investigation. She searches for, but does not find, a brown notebook that the judge had on his person during the attack in which he was killed. A bit later, she tells Raylan that they discovered Judge Guy's assistant, Rose Doyle, four miles away in Palmer Park. "What did we do?" wonders Maureen, explaining to Raylan that Rose was a confidential informant on Judge Guy's activities. She tells Raylan that she put Rose in the car with Judge Guy and that she didn't deserve this.
In "Backstabbers," Maureen asks Raylan how is daughter Willa is doing in the aftermath of the two of them being paid a visit by Clement Mansell, a violent criminal whom they suspect of having killed Judge Guy and Rose Doyle. He tells her that she'll have to ask her, that she isn't talking to him. She asks if he didn't take Clement's bait and he admits that he might have left some visible marks. Detective Norbert Bryl asks her what she would have done if it had been her kids. She, however, says that the news is on them for not having anything 36 hours later and she just wants do some real police work. She tells Raylan to just say the word if he and his daughter need anything, such as a hot meal or a place to stay.
Raylan ultimately takes Maureen up on her offer, coming to stay at her home along with her husband Bill and her two daughters. She observes him watching his daughter and laughing and talking with her daughters. She tells him she brought an extra pillow, but when he doesn't answer, she tells him that she knows what he's thinking. She says that he's wondering what Clement Mansell has to do with Judge Guy and Raylan points out that there's seemingly no connection, that he was never in Judge Guy's courtroom and never crossed paths with Rose Doyle either. He continues that he was playing bumper cars with the judge while his girlfriend was with some Albanian kid and that the Albanian has to be connected somehow. "Look at the marshal doing cop work," she comments, telling him that he and his daughter are welcome to stay for as long as they want. Later that day, Maureen sits with Raylan in a squad car as they wait outside a bar where Clement, Sandy and the Albanian have gathered. Maureen tells Raylan about her recent troubles sleeping and the strange dreams she's been having. In response, Raylan says that it seemed to him she and her family were all pretty happy, that he was wondering how they've achieved such domestic bliss. She tells him that this is easy, that you pretend. Raylan has to leave in order to take Willa to the airport, sending her back to Florida. At the airport, he takes a call from Maureen, who tells him that she's at Skender's place and that there's some damage there.
In "Kokomo," Raylan meets Maureen at a local hospital. She tells him that Wendell Robinson and Norbert got "Beverly Hills Cop'd," referring to a traffic accident that Clement engineered to get away. She explains that they arrived at a building in Corktown where they found a dozen Albanians carrying Skender, claiming that he fell down some stairs. Skender was then taken to the hospital in a guerney, his leg broken in at least five different places. Norbert tells Raylan that they need to get Skender to implicate Clement Mansell, Maureen agreeing that if they can't get Clement, then the Albanians will have their best try at him. Wendell explains that only Toma Kostia can make Skender talk and Maureen agrees that he's the one who calls the shots for the local Albanian mob.
In "You Good?," Maureen is made the sole lead detective on the case of the killing of Judge Guy and Rose Doyle, following Norbert being sidelined after shooting one of the Albanians in the course of the investigation. She orders everyone to go back to the start. Later that afternoon, when Raylan returns to the Detroit PD headquarters after investigating the original scene of the crime, she tells him that something came in for him that might cheer him up. It turns out to be a bouquet of flowers, but as it happens, they do not cheer him up, as they turn out to be from Clement Mansell, him having sent them to try to get on Raylan's nerves.
In "Adios," Raylan comes to Maureen with a plan to catch Clement. He explains that he has learned that Clement is in possession of a notebook full of blackmail secrets taken from Judge Guy and that he and Marcus "Sweety" Sweeton are using to shake down money from prominent figures throughout Detroit. Catching on to his meaning, she agrees with him that if they can catch him with it on his person, it'll be like having him dead to rights. She asks just how they're going to get a name from this book to set a trap and he tells her that he already has someon in mind, someone that is maximally leveraged to aid them in their cause. She asks how he even knows that Clement will show up and not Sweety. He tells her he's not saying that there aren't variables, but that if they don't do this, they're just waiting for Clement to make another move and that someone else could get killed. "Jesus Christ, you're sleeping with Mansell's lawyer, aren't you?" she asks. He doesn't deny it, but just stares at her. She asks who it is he's proposing they set the trap for.
As it turns out, the person they are setting the trap is Diane Rogers, a county prosecutor. They ambush her as she is coming out of court for the day. She argues that they have no proof, just words on a piece of paper. Maureen, however, tells her that they have documentation that both she and Judge Guy took bribes to let cops off for bad shootings. She points out that there's no burden to prove this in a court of law because just the rumor of it will be enough to end her career if it gets in enough ears. Diane tries to argue that they don't have enough, but Maureen tells her that she knows she wouldn't put herself on the line if she couldn't make it stick. Ultimately, however, the plan ends up being a bust. Although they succeed in getting Clement Mansell to collect payment from Diane, when they move in to arrest him, they discover that he has neither Judge Guy's book nor a weapon on him. Without either, they are forced to let him go. Raylan rages at Clement walking away again, but Maureen points out that he had said he wanted to do things the right way. She says that Clement wants him to go after him but that he would bounce before he even got processed.
In "The Smoking Gun," after Sweety's tavern is burnt down by Clement and Sweety shot dead in the heart by him, Raylan obtains from his boyfriend Trennell the gun that Clement used to kill Judge Guy, Rose Doyle, and now Sweety as well. He brings the gun to Maureen, telling her that he needs it be verified as the gun in question. She tells him that if ballistics knows that they believe it to be so, it'll go straight to the top of the list and to give her 24 hours. Later, however, when Raylan arrives at back at the Detroit Police Department, he discovers that Maureen has brought in a man named Darrold Woods, a homeless Afghanistan veteran whom was discovered with Rose Doyle at the golf course where she was found dead. He watches, shocked, as she and Norbert Bryl try to pin the crime on him, claiming that he killed Judge Guy, then took Rose to the park and raped and killed her. Afterwards, he comments that he should have brought roses for a performance like that, but he did, after all, give her the gun. Maureen gives the gun to Norbert to bring back down to evidence and Raylan asks "Are you in the book too, or are you just an asshole?" As Norbert walks away, Raylan pleads with Maureen to tell him that he's not seeing this. She, however, tells him that they appreciate what he's done there, but that he can go home now to Florida and see his little girl. "Take care," she tells him, walking away. Later on, however, Norbert secretly brings the gun to Raylan. He tells him that a quarter of those currently waiting for sentencing in the local lockup didn't do what they were tried and convicted of, but did other things they got away with. He says that nevertheless, he never sent anyone up the river just to get a win.
In "The Question," after obtaining the notebook off of Clement Mansell, Raylan returns to the Detroit Police Department. He, Wendell and Norbert then head to Maureen's house, where they find her just leaving for the day. Seeing them, she asks what's going on and Wendell tells her that they need to talk. "So talk," she replies, and her husband Bill asks her if everything is okay. She replies that everything is fine and Norbert tells her that this isn't something she wants going down in front of her family. She is then taken to the Internal Affairs office of the Detroit Police Department, where an Internal Affairs officer presents her with a page from the notebook in a plastic bag, asking her if she wants to explain it. In response, she asks if Internal Affairs wants to explain what they think they have, or if everyone just wants to sit there looking like their prize poodle died. Norbert tells her that her name is listed to payouts which correspond to trials that Judge Guy presided over in which a guilty verdict was based on her testimony. She laughs, saying that they have nothing. She continues that every one of them there has done worse things each day before she's even out of bed making lunches for her children. She asks just what they think they're going to accuse her of and if they really think it's going to hold up. She tells them that they have nothing more than scribblings in a book and that she hopes that they remember that when they look themselves in a mirror. She then asks for her lawyer and union rep.
Trivia[]
- Maureen Downey appears only briefly in recap from the previous episode in "The Oklahoma Wildman."
Appearances[]
| Season seven appearances | ||||
| City Primeval | The Oklahoma Wildman | Backstabbers | Kokomo | |
| You Good? | Adios | The Smoking Gun | The Question | |