'Palm Royale' Episode 2 recap: Maxine reclaims her power in Palm Beach off-season

Welcome back to the Shiny Sheet recap of "Palm Royale," our rundown of the hit Apple TV+ series set in Palm Beach.

Each week, we look at five Palm Beach-related or key moments in that week's episode of the series that is now in its second season.

This week is Episode Two, "Maxine Serves a Swerve" — and what a swerve it is.

Watch out: There are spoilers ahead, so if you don't want to know, stop reading right now and come back after you've watched.

First, a quick update : Maxine Dellacorte (Kristen Wiig) is determined to free Linda (Laura Dern) from the Secret Service, which believes Linda tried to assassinate President Richard Nixon. First, Maxine needs to find Mary Davidsoul (Julia Duffy), who is hiding in old bootlegger tunnels under the Rollins estate where Evelyn (Allison Janney) lives with her tennis pro boyfriend, Eddie (Jason Canela).

Meanwhile, Norma (Carol Burnett) is scheming to get millions of dollars held in trust that would be released if Douglas (Josh Lucas) and Mitzi (Kaia Gerber) get married and have the baby they conceived when Douglas cheated with Mitzi on Maxine.

Yes, it's soapy. Yes, it's colorful and fun. And yes, this season does feel a little more delightfully dark.

Let's get into it.

1. For the off-season, Palm Beach sure is hopping.

Traditionally, Palm Beach's off-season turned the barrier island into nearly a ghost town . Many shops and restaurants closed for the summer months as seasonal residents returned north to cooler climes such as the Hamptons and Newport.

But in "Palm Royale," the off-season is no time for a trip north.

"In Palm Beach, the real battles are fought in the off-season," Maxine says in her opening monologue. "Battle plans are hatched. Alliances are forged. Coups and counter-coups abound. Power is consolidated, and it is high time to reclaim mine."

Maxine goes on a journey to reclaim her power by serving Douglas with divorce papers. She demands that he marry Mitzi and then give her half of the recently revealed Dellacorte Generation Skipping Trust, which Evelyn estimated is worth about $80 million. Douglas proposes to Mitzi, and she accepts. Norma, of course, is overjoyed.

Speaking of Evelyn, she is now Maxine's conservator and encourages her former foe to either leave town for the off-season or hide away in a suite for divorced women on the top floor of the Palm Royale Club. At the beginning of the episode, we see Evelyn reading a Shiny Sheet with the headline, "I AM GUILTY," and a photo of Linda, whose words were twisted into a confession by the Secret Service.

Dinah (Leslie Bibb) and Perry (Jordan Bridges) take up residence in the house that belonged to Dinah's recently deceased elderly betrothed, Axel Rosenhips.

2. The Shiny Sheet sure got a newsroom upgrade.

When Maxine wants to put an ad in the Palm Beach Daily News to offer a $75,000 reward for information that leads to Mary's location, she goes to a Shiny Sheet newsroom that looks straight out of the 1960s. It's white, it's shiny and it has some fantastic mustard yellow chairs.

In 1969, when "Palm Royale" is set, the Shiny Sheet's offices were at 204 Brazilian Ave. in a two-story Mediterranean Revival building. Completed in 1925, the structure is known as the Palm Beach Daily News Building and in 1985 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places . A year later, it was landmarked by the town . While the property long since changed hands , the building still stands on the southwest corner of Brazilian Avenue and South County Road and bears the sign "Daily News Bldg."

Around 1974, the Daily News moved into offices at 265 Royal Poinciana Way. That building was sold to The Breakers in 2010 and the Shiny Sheet moved to 400 Royal Palm Way. Its offices now are with The Palm Beach Post in a four-story building on the southwest corner of Belvedere Road and Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.

At the Shiny Sheet, Maxine is pushed aside by Evelyn, who is furious about a blind item written by the paper's fictional society editor, Ann Holiday (Mindy Cohn). That's when Maxine learns that Evelyn plans to marry her young beau. "He needed a green card, and I'm feeling verdant," Evelyn says of the arrangement.

3. 'The revolution will not be moisturized.'

The episode begins with Linda still locked up and facing the reality that she could be put to death for the charge of trying to assassinate Nixon. But Linda also has a new following of women who see the wealthy heiress as a martyr for feminism and equality. People in blonde wigs and dressed in very groovy outfits chant and carry signs outside of her cell. When Maxine asks Linda if she needs anything, including moisturizer, Linda declares, "The revolution will not be moisturized, Maxine."

Linda shares some secrets from Norma's Rolodex — remember that gem, burned to ashes in season one? — with Maxine in the hopes that Maxine can use those details to force the government to release Linda.

Alas, Maxine mistakenly hands the list of blackmail material to Douglas when she means to serve him with divorce papers. The papers find their way to Perry, who promptly turns them in to the feds — who tell Perry that he needs to shoot Linda when she's moved to prison.

Maxine, Dinah, the now-conscious Robert and a group of Linda's supporters work together to break out Linda, protect her from Perry and move her to Cuba via Douglas' seaplane. It's a truly epic heist-style sequence and a lot of fun to watch.

In exchange for ferrying Linda to Cuba, Douglas makes Maxine promise to leave town, an exile she reluctantly accepts to protect her friend.

4. Palm Beach had its share of bootleggers.

To help Linda escape, Maxine leads her into the bootlegger tunnels where Mary has been hiding. It just so happens that Virginia (Amber Chardae Robinson) and Ann already deduced that to be Mary's location.

Were there bootlegger tunnels in Palm Beach? There were definitely bootleggers.

Among the most notorious of these was the Ashley gang, led by John Ashley . The gang was known for packing liquor into boats in the Bahamas, then speeding across the Straits of Florida to sites that included coastal Palm Beach County. Rum that went for $18 a case in the Bahamas sold for double that in South Florida, according to a 2020 Palm Beach Post article. Many a smuggler ended up on the shores of Palm Beach because they used the bright lights from The Breakers to guide them to land, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the Palm Beach Daily News in 2013 .

During Prohibition, there were secret dining rooms at venues such as the stories Breakers. These rooms allowed well-off patrons to drink in peace away from the prying eyes of the law. The hidden bar at the Royal Poinciana Hotle was down a hallway known as "Hypocrite's Row."

As to the tunnels, some estates have underground routes to the beach, but those are unrelated to rum-running. In West Palm Beach, however, the same could not be said. The Palm Beach Post reported in 2017 that a West Palm Beach homeowner in the Northwood Hills neighborhood found evidence of a past Prohibition-era tunnel in their basement.

5. Is there a place in Palm Beach to land a seaplane?

Now? Not without a mighty big ruckus. The only aircraft aside from Palm Beach County's Trauma Hawk that is allowed to take off and land in Palm Beach is Marine One for President Donald Trump .

But in 1969? It wasn't exactly the Wild West, but a few sources told the Daily News that a sly seaplane or two could cozy up to the shoreline when the weather was right and eyes were turned the other way. Don't try that now, though. You'll face a hefty fine from code enforcement, and if you try to land within the new no-fly zone around Mar-a-Lago, you might also get a visit from some NORAD fighter jets .

Not that rules would matter to Douglas, who is being forced to fly back and forth to Cuba to ferry contraband for the mobster Pinky (Roberto Sanchez) as penance for their private club plan from season one falling through. Douglas gets a lot of heat in this episode from those who doubt his intelligence and integrity. When Maxine says Douglas has street smarts, Ann quickly replies, "What street? Idiot Avenue?"

Bonus: Who was on the 'Palm Royale' blackmail list?

Viewers catch a quick glimpse of Maxine and Linda's blackmail list. It's just enough to see two fictional names and a couple of real ones.

The fictional names are ones we spotted in the first season when seeing Norma's Rolodex: Gary Picknell and his cocaine addiction, and Stephen Sebring and his pregnant mistress.

The others are based very much in truth.

Ted Kennedy's name is listed, along with "substance abuse" and "omitted key details (regarding) his intentions and actions following Chappaquiddick incident. This refers to the July 1969 episode Mary Jo Kopechne died in Kennedy's car when he drove off a small bridge into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts. Kennedy was accused of crimes including conspiring to kill Kopechne and covering his tracks instead of seeking help for her. He faced jail time and a suspended license.

The other notable name is Spiro Agnew, whose note includes allegations that he received kickbacks for construction payoffs and obstruction of justice. In 1973 when he was vice president, Agnew was indicted on charges that he took kickbacks from contractors for years. As a result, Agnew resigned from office.

Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at  kwebb@pbdailynews.com .  Subscribe today  to support our journalism.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: 'Palm Royale' Episode 2 recap: Maxine reclaims power during off-season