Molly wound up writing checks totaling $190,000, making her anthracite coal country outing considerably less costly than Mayo's France-by-way-of-Omaha adventure. He owes his rebuffed suitor more than $1 billion in a "termination" fee.
Promos for the show hype the haughty millionaire angle, all the better for the eventual feel-your-pain epiphanies. They show off their yachts and private jets at the outset and say things like, "If anybody deserves to live the life of kings, it's me," and, "My friends like to call me the $300 million man."
Molly is not featured in the promos. The former Ravens cheerleader is known for flaunting her pompons, not her wealth. Yes, she's on a show with millionaire in the name, but she says she hates the name. She also said she declined to answer a question about her net worth in an exchange that was edited out.
She is shown at the start of the episode in her magnificent North Baltimore home - baking cookies and taking care of her kids. When it comes time for the "the reveal" - the part of the show when she comes clean and tells people she's a fraud, a very, very wealthy fraud who's here to help - she does not announce, "I'm a multimillionaire," as some do.
"I come from very fortunate circumstances, and I have the ability to help you," she told one beneficiary. She put it even more delicately to another: "We are a very, very blessed family."
So at least by the standards of reality TV - insert your own joke here - Molly was a class act.
Not exactly John Beresford Tipton, who kept his identity secret when he gave away money to strangers on the old TV show The Millionaire. But this is not exactly the 1950s.
Today on TV, perhaps the best we can hope for is attention-grabbing acts of selflessness. But if you can get past that, maybe that's not so bad. At the risk of looking like a complete sap, I admit it: I thought Molly came across as genuinely good-hearted.
I heard from several viewers who were outraged, if only because Constellation just laid off hundreds, cost stockholders a bundle and, through subsidiary BGE, jacked up electricity rates.
"The money she gave was 'hers.' No it wasn't!!!" reader Rick Wike e-mailed me. "It was the stock holders' money that her 'successful business' husband made while ruining 2 major companies in Baltimore that had been here since the 1800's."
Even before the episode was over, I'd received an e-mail with a subject line: "The Shattuck Broad." The sender found it hard to believe Molly could pass for a poor person given her good grooming and fancy-looking sunglasses.
"They [Millionaire producers] gave me the sunglasses, and they were, like, a dollar," Molly said.
She wore T-shirts, jeans, sneakers for most of the show. Like the other millionaires, she got dolled up for "the reveal." She wore a green-and-white print dress and green heels. Haute couture?
"The shoes are Nine West and the dress is H&M. Go look it up."
