Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Madness’ begins with a murder. Muncie Daniels witnesses it while vacationing at an isolated cabin in the Poconos. However, by the time he reports it, things have been manipulated such that he becomes the prime suspect. Moreover, the victim turns out to be a white supremacist, which makes things even more complicated for the protagonist. There are very few people who believe him when he says he had nothing to do with the murder of Mark Simon. One of those people is a journalist named Laura Jennings.
She is the first one to approach Muncie, promising him the answers that would help prove his innocence. Unfortunately, she has a heart attack, and by the second episode, she is already dead. The suddenness of her demise and the circumstances surrounding it don’t sit right with Muncie, and sure enough, he discovers evidence that proves Laura was in murky waters, chasing after some very powerful people. SPOILERS AHEAD
Laura Jennings Had an Interesting Connection with Mark Simon
Laura Jennings is introduced as an independent journalist known for her YouTube channel, in which she discusses all kinds of conspiracies. Due to the nature of the subjects she covers, people don’t exactly take her seriously. This is why, perhaps, when she approaches Muncie, offering him the truth in exchange for a conversation, he doesn’t pay her much heed. It is only when he discovers that she has been hospitalized that he realizes that things are much more serious than he anticipated.
Over the course of his investigation, Muncie discovers that Laura Jennings had been working with Mark Simon. There was no way Muncie could have made that connection because he thought Laura and Mark came from two very different worlds. But it turns out that some of the conspiracies that Laura had been chasing were true. Mark figured that out as well, and they joined forces to expose the people behind it all. As the pieces start to come together, a clearer picture forms and Muncie discovers that Laura and Mark have been investigating Stu Magnusson and Revitalize, the company in which he had a high stake.
The duo had found evidence of Revitalize conducting assassinations of the people they considered dangerous to them. It included civilians as well as army personnel. While Revitalize had been giving money to Mark and his neo-Nazi organization, the Forge, Mark drew a line at killing patriots for the sake of furthering their agenda. His and Laura’s paths collided during the investigation, and they were ready to do the exposé a couple of months later. But then, everything fell apart with Mark’s death.
Laura was Killed by the Same People Who Killed Mark Simon
When the people of Revitalize discovered that Mark and Laura were working against them, they decided to do away with them. A woman named Julia Jayne was put on the task. She was already serving as the security advisor for Stu and other billionaires behind Revitalize and knew exactly what it meant to let Mark and Laura live. She sent her man, Don Sloss Jr., a former military man, to do the job. He brought along a man from the Profane Discord to frame them for the murder. It was a good plan. The cops wouldn’t have any problem believing that the leader of a Neo-Nazi group was killed by a far-left libertarian group. But then, Muncie happened upon the murder site, and things went downhill.
Killing Laura Jennings was much simpler. Because she wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar, pining for her murder of someone else would have been a challenge. Instead of making it any more complicated than it needed to be, Julia Jayne decided to approach it the same way she’d approached the murders of other people who had posed problems for Revitalize. She injected Laura with something that induced a cardiac arrest in an otherwise healthy woman. On the surface, it would look like a heart attack, and the cops might not even bother to look into it as much. If anyone tried, they could be persuaded to do otherwise.
Julia’s plan almost worked, but she didn’t realize that Laura had already approached Muncie, who was suspicious of everything around him. When he was approached by FBI agent Franco Quinones, he gave the Fed a lead in the form of Laura. To prove that he was innocent and everything around him was being framed, especially the people who were trying to help him, Muncie asked Franco to look into Laura’s death. This led to the autopsy that Julia hadn’t expected, as it was the only way that one could figure out that Laura’s heart attack wasn’t natural but induced by the chemicals she was injected with.
Read More: The Madness: Is Profane Discord a Real Libertarian Organization? Is Revitalize a Real Tech Company?
