Sumith Prasad
In the third season of Paramount+’s crime drama series ‘Mayor of Kingstown,’ Tracy McLusky sets out to find out the identity of the father of Cherry’s newborn baby. The female inmate gives birth to a child despite being in prison for three years, without even a conjugal visit. The predicament raises suspicion in Tracy, who considers the possibility of a corrections officer or a staff member raping her. Cherry’s time in the female prison is nothing short of eventful and can be traced back to the events in the second half of the thriller series’ first installment! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Cherry’s Deadly Dalliance With Sam
As far as the identity of the father of Cherry’s baby is concerned, the obvious guess is Sam, a rookie corrections officer who works in the female prison in the first season of the crime drama. Cherry pretends to be interested in Sam and lures him into her. She then fakes sickness, only for the officer to take her to the infirmary. On the way, she drags him to a hidden spot beneath the staircase and asks him to have sex with her. Once they are done, Cherry kills him for her “friends.” Even though she doesn’t explicitly reveal her motive, she most likely commits the murder for Bunny, for whom Sam was a headache.
While having sex with Sam, Cherry provokes him to ejaculate inside her. Since the corrections officer doesn’t use any contraceptives for an out-of-the-blue sexual encounter with the inmate, the chances of him being the father of her baby cannot be ruled out. After the incident, Cherry draws a lot of attention to her, with many in prison even believing that she killed Sam intentionally, irrespective of her claim that the murder happened in self-defense. Therefore, she may not have been able to form a new relationship with a CO or staff member to get pregnant by him rather than Sam. Having said that, there is a possibility of Cherry being pregnant even before she has sex with the late guard.
The Secret Assailant
When Tracy starts investigating Cherry’s pregnancy, she is convinced that the father is not Sam. She tells her superior that the dead corrections officer is not the person and implies that the inmate was pregnant even before the alleged rape. Tracy’s belief leads us to the possibility of a secret assailant who raped and made Cherry pregnant. From the experiences of Carney, a prison guard who gets beaten up by fellow officers, it is safe to assume that not even people outside the cells are safe inside the Kingstown prisons. If that’s the case, a corrections officer or a staff member must have raped Cherry before she starts to seduce Sam.
Cherry may have agreed to trick Sam with sex because she was pregnant. She must have known that cooking up a fake rape allegation was a perfect way to explain her pregnancy. The inmate’s efforts to make Sam ejaculate inside her can be connected with this theory. Cherry may have known that she would need to undergo a medical checkup after a rape allegation. The doctors who treat her must have even found seminal particles belonging to Sam on her, only for the inmate to take advantage of the discovery to explain her pregnancy.
Since Cherry possibly goes to these extremes to hide the father of her baby, it is reasonable to assume that the person is immensely powerful. Tracy’s pursuit of the truth, without even anonymity, may take her in harm’s way, just like Kyle’s transfer to the SWAT unit puts his life on the line. If not a corrections officer, the father can even be an outsider. Although conjugal visits are forbidden in the prison, one thing that can be done easily in Kingstown is bending the rules, especially if one is powerful. Therefore, the assailant Tracy is looking for can be a dangerous figure with enough power to silence Cherry.
Read More: Mayor of Kingstown: Is Don’s Diner an Actual Place?
