Marcie Murphy is the mother of Shaun and Steve Murphy and the widow of Ethan Murphy.
Biography[]
Before the show[]
While Ethan was abusive to Shaun, Marcie wasn't very capable at helping Shaun with his problems. She never defended Shaun from Ethan out of "love" for him over her children. However, Shaun has said she made "good pancakes". While Ethan was on one of his tirades about how distressing Shaun's autism was, Marcie attempted to talk Ethan down when he angrily killed Shaun’s pet rabbit. Shaun and Steve then ran away from home and lived in a bus for some time.
After Steve died when he fell from a train, Shaun refused to return home following Steve’s funeral and was placed into foster care. He didn’t see his parents for years.
Season 3[]
When Ethan was diagnosed with terminal Pancreatic Cancer and only had a few days to live, he requested that Shaun come and see him one last time. Marcie then called Dr. Glassman, Shaun’s father-figure, to see if Shaun could and he did, alongside Glassman and Shaun’s friend Lea.
While Ethan appeared apologetic to Shaun, he responded by yelling at Ethan for how Ethan had been to him (despite Marcie’s attempts to calm him down). The next day, Marcie found Shaun having breakfast with Glassman and Lea. When Shaun agreed to talk to her alone, the two were able to reconcile somewhat and Shaun even allowed Marcie to hug him though he didn't return it. Marcie was shocked when Shaun tried to make peace with Ethan, to which Ethan hurled venom at his son, in particular blaming Shaun for Steve's death. Marcie tried to defend Ethan's words as being caused by the morphine, but Ethan ordered his son to run away again. Ethan later died, which Marcie informed Glassman about.
Season 5[]
While Shaun was arranging the invites for his and Lea’s wedding, he thought he had to invite Marcie and so wrote her a Save-the-Date card. Lea found it amongst the other cards and decided not to mail it out of fear of making everything awkward. When she addressed this later with Shaun, he agreed with Marcie not coming and said what he thought he had to.
Personality[]
Marcie appeared to be something of a neutral character; on the one hand, she appeared to love her sons, tried to calm down Ethan when he was in his tirades about Shaun’s Autism and appeared to be remorseful about not being able to be a parent that Shaun needed while grateful that Glassman was able to be so. On the other hand, she constantly chose Ethan who was abusive. Since Shaun stated that Ethan was abusive to others and would blame them for everything, it appears that he was possibly controlling Marcie who was blind to the truth (even though she had no excuse to be the way she was with Shaun).
Appearances[]
| Ep. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | ✔ | ✔ | ||||||||||||||||||||
| S2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| S3 | ✔ | |||||||||||||||||||||
| S4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| S5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| S6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| S7 | ✔ |