“Part Ten” – Aired on February 14, 2021
Writer: Peter Moffat
Director: Bryan Cranston
Grade: 2 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
The penultimate episode “Part Nine” ended with Adam leaving Michael behind at the house to meet his girlfriend Fia. It was passed as a mild cliffhanger, with Adam on his way to meet the father of the boy he killed, and Michael smiling about his son meeting a “girlfriend,” unaware that she also happens to be the his nemesis Jimmy Baxter’s daughter. That so-called cliffhanger is not pursued (did Adam meet Jimmy? How did it go?) as “Part Ten” begins, and the finale plows ahead as if that moment never existed.
And that example sums up this reductive, unambitious season (series?) finale during which contrived events and mostly pedestrian dialogues (outside of a couple, see below) fill the first 50 minutes or so, before we arrive at the final sequence of overwrought action at the Baxter hotel.
Michael’s nonchalance** about the identity of his son’s girlfriend, as it turns out, was a deliberate choice by the writers, in order to amplify the dramatic effect of his eleventh-hour realization that his son is dating Jimmy’s daughter.
** I could never buy into the notion that Michael, considering the close connection between Adam and Carlo’s court case, would neglect to severely limit his son’s movements, let alone learn every detail about his girlfriend. Little did I know that cogent storytelling across several episodes was being sacrificed in the name of elevating the drama quotient for a single scene in the finale.
Look, I am fine with the writing room leaving a storyline open-ended as long as it contains compelling characters dealing with the aftermath of a fallout. I am fine with an intriguing turn of event that seemed important during an early episode, but lost its significance as the show progressed, as long as there is some type of pay-off on its intrigue, or at least a nod to its existence. I am fine with the idea of tweaking the interaction dynamics between main characters to create a conundrum and leaving the interpretation up to the viewer.
It is not fine, however, to let subplots fall into oblivion, to expect viewers to completely disregard clues from earlier episodes, to overlook important details in editing**, and to offer a complex ensemble of characters, only to later turn them into mere sidekicks because, seemingly, the storyline of only one — Michael — genuinely matters at the end of the day.
** See my review of “Part Five” for the discrepancy about Trevor’s car pulling up to the gas station. Apparently, I gave too much credit to the editing team when I inaccurately believed that the blackmail photo did not come from Trevor.
For instance, do you remember when Frankie discovered Adam’s inhaler at the crime scene back in “Part One”? And when he confirmed in “Part Two” that he would have it tested for DNA and get the results back within 36 hours? I believe that was months ago in the show’s timeline. It now looks like that detail was swept under the rug for the sake of the WOW! revelation scene, when Jimmy and Gina are alerted by the sound of Adam puffing away at his inhaler outside the courtroom.
Do you remember the SUV that suspiciously followed Adam? Whoever was inside the vehicle witnessed an accident that involved the murder of a renowned mobster’s son, one that soon took the city and the media by storm. The camera work makes a conscious effort in the pilot to foreground the SUV, as it follows Adam and speeds away after the accident. Ten episodes gone… nothing! It never existed. What SUV?
Consider the Desire crew’s storyline over the season and this excerpt from my review of “Part Seven”: — For instance, wouldn’t it be fascinating to learn more, via a flashback or two if necessary, of the formation of the Desire Crew? Or the succession of events that brought Big Mo to its leading role? Was Kofi’s mother a close friend? How about delving for a scene or two into the history of Little Mo’s allegiance to Big Mo? — Well, the season is over and we still have no background information of substance on the Desire crew. Its narrative function was apparently limited to providing a plotline echoing racial tensions, except that Your Honor never dares to scratch beneath the surface and uncover the intricacies among the city’s legal system, police force, and gangs. Within that context, the show offers nothing other than off-the-shelf portraits: Cusack the officer is corrupt, Baxter the mobster is powerful, Frankie the brute bodyguard shadows his boss, and judges are corrupt. Oh-kay… yay?
Big and Little Mo are neither fleshed out beyond their single-dimensional portraits, nor given a chance to earn the viewer’s interest. Ask yourself, do you know anything more about them than you did since their first appearances? Desire’s sous-entendu intent to retaliate against Jimmy Baxter never materializes (read: classic red herring). As for the finale, Big Mo is reduced to the role of informing Lee that the no member of Desire was at the wheel when the fatal accident occurred. Don’t you love, by the way, the convenient simplicity of Lee readily taking Big Mo at her word, as if she weren’t the one who threatened her life seconds earlier?
Speaking of Lee, the last shot deemed appropriate by the showrunners for the woman portrayed as the bastion of ethics and civil rights for over eight episodes consists of her giving the money collected from the sale of the baseball to Eugene and walking away.
And Nancy, the other woman portrayed as the efficient and meticulous bulwark of justice, the razor-sharp thorn in every criminal’s derrière, gets to perform a blank stare at the corrupt offer of Charlie Figaro in her last appearance on screen.
With Big Mo, Lee, Nancy, and Gina, seemingly euchred out of potentially riveting storylines and screen time, I now believe that my sustained rants over the season about Your Honor missing the boat on Gina’s character and shortchanging Hope Davis’s talent were naïvely narrow in scope. It’s not just Gina. The show had an overall difficulty figuring out what to do with female characters.
The only stories with any degree of genuine character exploration were Michael’s, and to a lesser degree, Jimmy’s. Carlo’s case being the centerpiece of how Michael has held on to his life and protected Adam, the verdict was bound to have consequences. Nonetheless, the moment of Michael reading the verdict fell flat because it was inevitable that Carlo would walk away a free man, despite how far that stretches the boundaries of plausibility. Explain please how the jury can afford to overlook Carlo’s blatant lie about murdering Kofi, exposed as the result of Lee’s apt investigative work of the prison door followed by Fiona’s shrewd questioning in the courtroom.
Actually, wait. Don’t explain. Who am I kidding? At the end of the day, the not-guilty verdict represented the most suitable avenue to attain the finale’s larger goal, which was to gather everyone in one location in order to amp up the degree of unbridled action-drama in the final minutes, instead of aiming to enthrall the audience via complex character conflicts amidst the ethical and social dilemma.
There is, after all, a couple of bright scenes in “Part Ten,” the only ones that attempt to truly grapple with the moral quandaries facing the leads. Michael is at the center of both – naturally –, with the first putting on display his helplessness, and the second, the depths of his hypocrisy.
The former takes place outside the courtroom when Charlie, in a well-written dialogue that Bryan Cranston and Isiah Whitlock Jr. deliver with dexterity, realizes that Michael has fallen into Jimmy’s clutches. Judge Desiato desperately needs Carlo to go free but faces the reality that the verdict is likely to go the opposite way – it does not, because the voice recording of Rocco’s last moments are somehow deemed more powerful by jury members than Carlo’s gross lie getting exposed, with camera footage to confirm. But yeah, sure, let’s roll with it anyway!
Charlie does, I presume, what any loyal buddy would do for his friend who recently joined him in the hellish pit of moral ruin. He attempts to persuade Nancy to stay quiet about Michael and Adam by promising to lend her his support once he becomes mayor in her quest to rid the NOPD of corrupt officers. How ironic! The outraged Nancy stares at Charlie and the scene cuts away because, you see, why would we be interested (?!) in the potentially fascinating analysis (not even asking for a resolution here) of how she deals with the conundrum.
The second meaningful scene takes place in Michael’s chambers where Lee confronts him about his “lies” and “manipulations.” It’s easily the outing’s most powerful sequence largely thanks to the duo of Cranston (also the episode’s director) and Carmen Ejogo giving tour-de-force performances.
At first, Michael tries a number of maneuvers to weasel out of various corners into which Lee puts him with her statements of brutal truth. Once he is left with no choice but to fess up, he moves onto his Plan B, which is to guilt Lee into not reporting Adam, mentioning something about her soul feeling cleansed. Lee exclaims, “It’s your soul that needs cleansing!” She adds, “Four children and their mother are dead because of you.” Michael then pulls the “I love you” card, the last one left in his deck. That earns him an angry slap in the face as Lee yells, “Stop talking about yourself!” Prior to walking out on him, she challenges him to show proof of what little sliver of moral ethics he has left by allowing Eugene to testify on behalf of his brother.
All traces of hesitation left within Michael quickly dissipate when he, as noted earlier, realizes in the courtroom that Adam’s girlfriend is Jimmy’s daughter. Much to the dismay of Lee and Fiona, he rules that “the prosecution’s case cannot be reopened.” Eugene is not permitted to testify.
Next is Michael’s scheme with the fake note from the jury asking to hear the recording of Rocco’s last moments. I mentioned above the implausibility of this sequence swinging the pendulum in Carlo’s favor so I will not harp on it again, but the more significant moment occurs when Adam, Gina, and Jimmy exit the courtroom in order to avoid hearing Rocco’s gasps for air. Adam, having trouble breathing himself, pumps his inhaler into his mouth, leading Gina and Jimmy to notice him and experience the emblematic eureka effect.
Having heard the verdict and absorbed Lee’s empty words outside the courtroom, killing Carlo becomes Eugene’s mission. He buys a gun with the money from the sale of the baseball and sneaks into the Baxter hotel during the evening celebration. In the meantime, Jimmy calls Michael to inform him of Adam’s presence at the celebration (Fia had invited him). That is all it takes for Michael to rush to the hotel.
Thusly begins the choppy final sequence where Michael gets rejected twice by the guards at the hotel’s entrance and ends up banging on the windows of the main celebration hall from the outside, in full view from the inside, yet with nobody noticing him except Jimmy. Why not, right? Never mind that nobody outside seems to care either about an older man pounding as hard as he can on the hotel’s windows while yelling from the top of his lungs. Eugene aims for Carlo and pulls the trigger. The bullet finds Adam’s throat, standing in perfect angle behind Carlo who briskly moved aside by chance at the right split second. The season comes to a close with Michael crying while clutching Adam’s dead body in his arms.
Last-minute thoughts:
— It turns out that Elijah (John Beasley), the homeless veteran at the door of the cemetery, is not just any homeless man. October 10th evokes a tragic memory for him, so he can confirm to Nancy without a doubt that Michael and Adam visited the cemetery on that day and not on October 9th.
— Chalk another one up for shows that begin with a promising pilot and early intrigue, only to fizzle out at the end by doting too much on either run-of-the-mill action or hammy drama accompanied by plenty of hand-waving. I would love to read a study on the success rate of TV shows in terms of sticking the landing. Is it turning into a lost art form? As the years go by, I can think of less and less shows who truly triumph in their season/series finales.
— Let’s not kid ourselves about Jimmy taking into consideration Fia’s feelings for Adam, thus hugging the boy at the celebration as a gesture of acceptance into the family. Adam would not have survived long even without a bullet in his throat. Yes, it’s true that Fia’s happiness is high on Jimmy’s priority list, but it has also been demonstrated multiple times that he is powerless against Gina’s fury, and hell will turn to ice before she accepts her son’s murderer into the family.
— According to this report, there will not be a season 2 for Your Honor.
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