In Plain Sight, "Mary Sunshine": Soap on a frozen rope

Spoilers for the debut of "In Plain Sight" coming up just as soon as I put "Showgirls" and "Columbo" season 4 in my Netflix queue...

I expressed most of my general thoughts on the series in Thursday's column -- I like the grit and light touch of Mary McCormack, plus the "Karen Sisco"-ish blend of noir -- and black comedy -- so I'm going to hit a few specific things about the pilot and then open up the floor:

• Though I discussed it in the review, I want to again praise the entire sequence at the Indian biker bar, which was a very entertaining mix of Mary being in complete control (the soap bar to the jewels in the men's room) and Mary putting her foot in her mouth (the Little Big Horn speech). The phone sex sequence was also very funny, owing as much to Fredrick Weller's disgusted reactions as Marshal as to McCormack throwing herself into the "Nomi" role.
  
• With the show's premise, the guest-casting is going to be crucial, and in the episodes I've seen, it's very strong. Here, we get a pair of "Sopranos" alums (Al "Mikey Palmice" Sapienza and Katherine "Charmaine Bucco" Narducci) as our wiseguy and gal, and upcoming episodes are going to feature the likes of Wendell Pierce and Percy Daggs III.
  
• On the other hand, my joy at seeing The Bunk in an upcoming episode doesn't mitigate my disappointment at seeing Paul Ben-Victor go back to the kind of broad clown role he was playing before he got cast as Spiros Vondas on "The Wire." As Mary and Marshall's boss, Ben-Victor isn't a complete buffoon -- there's a suggestion in some of the later episodes that he's deliberately ignorant, because the less he knows, the better Mary can do her job -- but in general, the doofus boss is almost as tired a cop show cliche as the disapproving black boss.
• Also a cliche: the crime thriller hero with the drunken mom (see also "Burn Notice," for instance). But Lesley Ann Warren does a nice job as Mary's mom, Jinx. She doesn't have a lot to do in the pilot, but there's that moment where Mary tells Jinx she isn't a very good mom, and it's clear she thinks it's just a harmless joke because Jinx doesn't really care about being a good mom -- and then as soon as Mary walks away, you see that, even though Jinx was probably a lousy parent, it still hurts to hear her daughter say it to her face.
  
• Not sure yet how I feel about Mary's boyfriend and her sister.
  
• I love that, in the middle of Mary trying to give an inspirational speech to talk Charmaine down from killing Mikey (or whatever their names on the show were), she throws in a phrase like "festering crap bag of a husband," and I love McCormack's delivery of it.

What did everybody else think?