Maggie

> The world is hard. We have to be harder.
>
> Maggie to Jared, Episode 1

**Maggie** is a major character in *Trickster*. She is the protective but foul-mouthed mother of Jared, who self-medicates a supposedly undiagnosed mental illness with substances and partying. Her erratic behavior forces Jared to look out for her.

## Character

Maggie is Jared's over-protective, hardscrabble, foul-mouthed mom. She likes to laugh as much as she likes to party. She self-medicates with alcohol and drugs to drown out the voices in her head. Jared assumes his mom is afflicted with an undiagnosed mental illness — which he fears he'll one day inherit — only to learn that the voices Maggie hears are in fact real. Maggie is a second-generation residential school survivor, so she protects her son the only way she knows how — with tough love. The world is hard. You have to be harder. Yet despite their conflicts and challenges, Maggie and Jared just want to be in each other's lives. Maggie won't let anything come between them.

## Biography

Maggie grew up in Kitimat, Canada, and is the only daughter of residential school survivor Sophia. Maggie's troubled past heightened when she met Phil and Wade. The trio were close growing up, leading Maggie to have a relations with both men. She became pregnant with Wade's child. She gave birth one night in the middle of the woods, in the bed of her pickup truck with only Wade to help her. Once the baby, a boy she named Jared, was born Wade took the baby. He walked with him into the woods and stopped near a tree with a face carved into it. She limped after him and shouted for him to give back her baby. When he refused, she let out a sinister scream that caused him to cough up blood. His eyes bled as he did and he fell to the ground by the tree. Maggie, distraught, took Jared from Wade's arms and limped back to her truck. She than lied and told Phil that the baby is his, prompting them to get married in an attempt for normalcy.

This attempt was futile, as Maggie began to exhibit signs of what everyone around her assumed was a serious mental illness. He relationship with Phil fell apart as the man spiraled into a drug addiction, and the later divorced.

## Series

In *Episode 1*, in a flashback, Maggie limps behind a man in the woods, yelling for him to give back her baby. She tries to follow him further, but the man stops, turns around, and his eyes snap black then back to normal. She is frightened and unable to follow him. The man disappears into the night. Maggie screams out in protest, causing him to turn around. He begins to cough up blood as his eyes bleed. He falls to the ground and she walks over as he continues to bleed. She takes the baby from his arms and walks away crying, leaving the man at the base of the tree.

Seventeen years later, Maggie's teenaged son Jared comes home to find Maggie drunk with more of her friends. She taunts him to fight her, but he refuses. Maggie offers him a beer, but he declines. Maggie loudly explains to her friends that she birthed him in the back of her truck. Jared goes to his room, where he lays out his clothes then puts food in the oven. Jared reminds Maggie to take the tray out of the stove when it beeps. He reminds her that she almost burned their house down last time.

The next morning, he walks down the street listening to music and watching the birds. He walks through a junkyard but freezes at the sight of a pit bull barreling towards him. Jared runs in the opposite direction as it growls and snarls after him. He hears a yelp and turns to see the dog on the road. The dog's hit by a red pickup truck. Jared is surprised to see his mom driving the vehicle.The dog's owner angrily sprints after the car. He shouts at Jared's mom for killing his dog and demands his money.

Jared asks who the man was, to which his mom brushes it off as just being Richie. She gives Jared some weed telling him to calm down. Richie was her dealer, but he dealt her some crap coke, so Maggie refused to pay him. She drops Jared off at school, reminding him that she would kill or die for him.

He goes home after school and hears muffled voices that he follows. Jared finds his mom in her room high and hallucinating friends while talking to herself. Maggie asks if Jared was at Phil’s and accuses him of giving his father money. She remarks that Phil is a user. Jared counters that Phil's off the oxy, but that’s not what she means. He goes to his room for the rest of the evening until his friends come for a party. Maggie comes home and offers to show them how to play a real drinking game, her loud demeanor winning over Jared’s party friends.

Maggie visits Jared at work and asks him for a coffee as she’s toasted and hearing things. He reluctantly gives her one when she promises not to cause any trouble. She sits down and dumps sugar packets in her coffee. A man enters the establishment, but Maggie continues mumbling to herself. She spots the man whom she recognizes as the man from the woods that stole her baby. She pins him against a wall with a mop, angrily yelling at the man. Jared and a manager rush over, and when Maggie looks back at the man, he’s physically changed to someone entirely different. She swears it was someone else and leaves. The manager, Tony, states this isn’t the first time she has brought her crazy to the Tasty Bucket. He can’t risk it happening again and fires Jared.

That night, Maggie brings Jared a tray of food as an apology. He asks if she regrets having him, but she asks why he would ask such a stupid question. Jared wants to know if she ever imagined what her life would be like without him, but she retorts that her life didn’t exist before him. Maggie asks if he regrets having a crazy mom with anger management issues. He returns the sentiment of that being a stupid question. She plans to buy food for dinner despite not having money. He asks if she’s worked things out with Richie yet, to which she ominously responds that the world is hard, so they have to be harder.

The next morning, Jared finds Richie's trailer scorched and hurries home to find spilled milk, a knocked-over chair, and his home in disarray. Richie emerges from the hallway looking high and angry while holding a hammer. Jared slips on the milk in an attempt to run away, just as Maggie comes out of the hall. She explains that she found an alternative way to pay off her debts. The house is a mess is because of her alternative payments. She and Richie also worked together to make his trailer fire look like an accident for the sake of earning the insurance money that she and Richie will split 50/50. Maggie tells Jared that Richie is staying with them for a while since he's virtually homeless, much to Jared’s disgust.

In *Episode 2*, Jared wakes up the next morning and grumpily pours cereal. Maggie asks what is wrong, to which Jared expresses his disdain over Richie playing the same song when he showers every day. Maggie thinks his actions are charming. She likes having a real man in the house instead of just a mopey, smelly teenager. He asks how long Richie plans to stay. Maggie assures Jared that Richie is only staying until she gets her share of the insurance money. Jared worries the cops will find out Maggie is responsible for the fire, which would get them all arrested. She thinks he worries too much, and they banter before she warns him not to mess things up for her. He quips that Maggie does that all by herself. She thinks Jared's being jealous. When she's out of earshot, Jared mutters that he's desperate.

That afternoon, Richie and Jared are fighting when Maggie emerges and asks what the boys are doing, prompting Richie to lie. She remarks they are out of food, and Jared explains to Richie that money is tight until he finds a job. Richie produces a wad of cash and gives some to Jared, telling him to buy groceries for Maggie on his treat. Jared is reluctant to accept the money, but Maggie wants pancakes. Richie remarks that the trio is family now, so he doesn't need to worry about it.

Jared comes home from Phil's party and goes outside to find Maggie. He lights her cigarette for her. They sit by the fire, and Jared asks about the night he was born. She is surprised by his question, but he insists on knowing. She explains that she was driving from Terrace when she went into labor. She pulled over in the middle of nowhere and gave birth to him in the back of her truck. He asks about the nearby totem. She quickly corrects that it's an ancient face carved into a tree, not a totem. In Heiltsuk, it's known as Mamathlteeasa, as long ago, their people carved faces into trees to mark territory. He wants to learn more about the tree and who was there with her, but she snaps about him giving her the third degree. He tells her that he met Wade, who claims to be his biological father. Jared pushes that Wade told him he was with Maggie the night Jared was born. She brushes it off as Wade being an old snag, and he is jealous. Maggie tries to smooth things over with Jared, who refuses her hug as he is upset. She warns him to stay away from Wade.

Maggie drives down the street at night. She lights a cigarette as memories resurface. In a flashback, Maggie is laboring in the bed of her truck with Wade helping her. The baby is born, and Maggie holds him close to her as Wade wraps him in his jacket. He sits Maggie up, and she hands him the baby. Wade stands and begins to carry the baby away with him into the woods. She shouts after him demanding to know where he’s going. Maggie tries to walk after him despite having just given birth. Wade stops and turns to look at her as she demands her baby. His eyes flash black at her, though Maggie continues to follow him. She screams at him ferociously, and he begins to cough up blood. Maggie staggers forward as Wade falls to his knees, his eyes bleeding. She takes her baby back and leaves him by the tree, sputtering blood. She sobs as she carries her baby away.

In the present, Maggie arrives at Phil's house, where she sees Wade on the steps. She remarks that she killed him. He states that Maggie looks good. She asks what he is, but he coolly says that he just came to see his son. Maggie retorts that Jared is her son and not Wade's. He remembers them being good together, but she feigns forgetting their relationship. She presses that she barely remembers him at all. She came to warn him to stay away from her and Jared, or she will kill him for good. She turns and leaves as he smiles after her.

Maggie is in a bar playing pool with Richie when Wade saunters in with his pool cues. She reminds him of her warning, and Wade asks if Jared knows who Maggie is. Maggie doesn’t want him to know anything, and Wade threatens to tell him. She kisses him as a ruse to pull a clump of his hair out. She then leaves with Richie. They go to the truck where they have sex.

In the early morning, Jared awakens with a start to see his mom standing over his bed smoking. She asks him to never leave her then walks out.

Maggie sits on the clearing speaking an incantation in Heiltsuk over a small fire, while Wade drives through the windy roads. She drops the clump of Wade’s hair in the fire and continues chanting. She breaks a twig over the fire and Wade swerves off the road.

## Personality

Maggie loves to party almost as much as she loves her son. She is fiercely protective of Jared and is willing to do anything for him - except become sober. She has an undiagnosed mental illness that leaves her ranting to seemingly imaginary people, forces her on day-long substance benders, and makes her already unpredictable emotions even more erratic. She isn't afraid of anyone, and carries this fearless loud attitude with her everywhere she goes.

## Episode appearances

* Season 1
	1. Episode 1
	2. Episode 2
	3. Episode 3
	4. Episode 4
	5. Episode 5
	6. Episode 6

## References

1. ↑ Introducing the stars from CBC's Trickster
2. ↑ Maggie's Bio