“Part Two” – Aired on December 13, 2020
Writer: Peter Moffat
Director: Edward Berger
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

It’s the day after the accident that kicked off the series last week. In a diner, Judge Michael Desiato asks a man wearing a blue bow tie, named Charlie Figaro (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), to make his deceased wife’s car to disappear, “no questions asked.” We gather from the conversation that these two are close friends. Charlie figures (inaccurately) that the car’s presence must cause Michael great anguish by reminding him daily of his wife Robin. He feels bad for his friend, and Michael ‘conveniently’ plays along. Charlie promises to take care of it in a few hours. Michael just needs to leave the keys on top of the front-left tire.

The success of the episode lies in the number of compelling storylines built on the failure to accomplish that single straightforward task. Essentially, Robin’s car is the star of the hour. You probably heard the cliché, “a reliable car is one that gets you from point A to point B.” Robin’s car departs point A, but never arrives at point B, giving rise to one disastrous outcome after another. Whereas “Part One” was a fine exhibit on building character layers, “Part Two” comes across as a productive exercise in generating compelling plot intricacies. Complications arise, deceptions proliferate, tensions escalate, lives get ruined.

It all begins when Charlie phones someone named Rudy Cunningham (Cullen Moss). Rudy then places a call to a younger man named Little Mo (Keith Machekanyanga) who later turns out to belong to a gang referred to as “Desire Crew.” He orders one of his “soldiers” named Kofi (Lamar Johnson) to take on the “job.” Kofi must go to Michael’s house, grab the keys on top of the tire, and drive the car to the scrapyard. Not too complicated for a gang member, right? Riiiiight…

At a coffeeshop, Michael tells Adam to fill out a card for his mother. The judge has a plan, you see. The father-son duo will visit Robin’s grave at the cemetery with the card and some flowers because, according to Michael, they need to have the muscle memory of the activities that they will claim to have done on the day before, the anniversary of their mother (also read: the day Adam killed Rocco). “Today is yesterday,” Adam states. They must re-enact October 9th so that, in case Adam gets asked about it “months from now,” he can simply recount their actual visit instead of inventing one in his mind. Today is yesterday.

But first, Michael asks the server some questions about a shot-gun house and if one can see inside the bathroom to the side simply by looking through the front door. This is disorienting at first because we saw in “Part One” that not only does Michael know the answer to his question, but he also used that knowledge in his courtroom to free a wrongfully accused youngster. Michael has a second out-of-character moment when he makes a wise-ass comment to the panhandler at the cemetery’s entrance. His plan includes the server and the panhandler remembering those conversations, but not necessarily which day they took place. Today is yesterday.

The problem for the judge is that his son, who is already an emotional wreck from the guilt of having murdered someone, does not appear to be on board. Adam keeps questioning the plan’s details and frantically uttering sentences like, “I can’t fucking do it.” Do they have a choice at this point? Not really. So, they plow forward, hoping and praying that things will not fall apart. Adam’s inability to remain cool-headed, thus sinking the two of them further down into the abyss, will inevitably be one of the side stories of the season. I’m game, as long as it is told in a nuanced way. So far, the show gives me confidence that it can achieve that goal.

I noted in my review of last week’s pilot that Your Honor’s monumental challenge was to “nurture an accustomed cliché (a momentarily preoccupied, stressed-out driver fatally hitting another, and driving away in panic, causing a devastating ripple effect), and muster from it a unique enough narrative that can hopefully distinguish the show from others of the genre” — I know, I just did the despicable act of quoting myself, please forgive me. “Part Two” is a triumph in this perspective. In a riveting hour of human drama with social, cultural, and criminal implications, the ripple effect of the accident reaches further than I could have imagined.

Back to the episode, where we find Det. Nancy Costello (Amy Landacker) visiting Judge Desiato in his chamber. She wonders why Michael contacted him the day before (remember in “Part One” when the judge made a couple of calls before changing his mind about Adam’s confession at the precinct?)

Michael claims that he initially called to report his wife’s car stolen but changed his mind because, considering how painful it is to see Robin’s car every day – “like a bruise,” he solemnly adds –, the thief may have done him a favor after all! The irony here is that Michael downplays the robbery, even feigning to feel relieved from the disappearance of the car, expecting Costello to let it go. It completely backfires! Nancy, the ethical detective that she is, argues that so-called inconsequential acts can unexpectedly lead to horrific outcomes, such as the one that resulted in Robin’s death a year ago. Hence, whoever stole the car must be taught a lesson. “I am going to find that piece of shit,” she exclaims. Bryan Cranston is terrific here as Michael’s forced smile and fake nod of approval to Nancy’s reaction, mixed with his expression of defeat only visible to the informed eye, convey the deep sense of distress he feels. The slippery slope has begun for Judge Desiato.

As for Kofi’s point A to point B driving assignment, lo and behold, he runs a red light and gets pulled over. The police run the license plate and discover that the vehicle is reported stolen (courtesy of the ethical Det. Costello). They arrest and handcuff Kofi, before taking him to the precinct. Judge Desiato’s slippery slope has just been upgraded to a downward spiral.

Nancy informs Michael that the car has been recovered. When would Michael like to come to the station and take it home? Why immediately, of course! Nancy is not only ethical, but also punctilious, the kind of detective that Michael wishes would go away just this one time. For instance, she prods Michael with enough questions to learn that Adam was the last person to drive the car, meaning that the young Desiato will have to come down to the station and sign a release statement as well. Police protocol, yaknow…

This dialogue between Nancy and Michael is fascinating to watch as the detective delves into a theory about the possibility of the thief being connected to Robin’s death from a year ago, wondering if it was meant to be some sort of a sick statement, while the judge tries his best to act and sound indifferent. He just asks for Kofi’s name and age – it reminded me of the series Columbo where the guilty party would always give in to their curiosity and ask the beloved L.A. detective how the investigation was progressing, thus drawing more suspicion.

Much to Michael’s relief, the paperwork is prepared and a police officer drives the car to the outside area so that Michael can take it home. As the officer exits the garage, the car goes over a bump and a piece of Rocco’s motorcycle that must have gotten stuck to the bottom of the car falls out. Disaster just struck Michael anew. Nancy ain’t letting this car go anywhere. It will be detained and meticulously examined. An officer will drive Michael home as a courtesy.

Bryan Cranston puts forth another top-notch character moment as Michael sits disconsolate in the back of the police car and endures the annoying dialogue with the driving officer who launches a few lightweight verbal jabs in Michael’s direction because the judge apparently released a “panty thief” that he arrested a while back. He particularly wants Michael to know that the pervert went on to commit a series of heinous crimes following his release. “You didn’t know that?” he asks Michael in a judgmental tone. The scene serves to accentuate the existence of a friction between Michael, the judge admired by the marginalized ones, and those among the police who would prefer them behind bars.

As the saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.” Adam tells Michael at home in the evening that two people saw him after the accident, the windshield washer on the street and the angry dude at the gas station. Oh, and by the way, he most likely left his inhaler at the accident site. Neither is even realizing at this point that Adam was also recorded by the station’s camera when he stopped to fill the tank. Nor do they know that Baxter’s right-hand man Frankie has possession of the inhaler. He is having it tested for DNA and should have the results within 36 hours. Thanks to an inside connection with a corrupt officer named Cusack (David Maldonado), Baxter has access to the police database. Naturally!

Meanwhile, Kofi’s status has shifted. He is no longer just a car thief. He is also the main suspect in the murder of Rocco in a hit-and-run while driving Robin’s car. Unaware, Kofi is busy bribing the desk officer at the precinct into letting him go, in exchange for the baseball signed by Mariano Rivera that was found in his possession, so to speak (it was in the car). The officer takes the deal, but Kofi’s luck is about to run out as he heads to the exit. Having learned of the car’s connection to the accident and knowing that the driver is held at the precinct, Cusack storms into the building and stops Kofi dead in his tracks. Next time we see Kofi, he is in the back of a car and taken to an abandoned warehouse. By this time, you are wondering if he will even make it alive to the end of the hour.

He is first handcuffed to some pipe, then threatened later with carbon monoxide poisoning inside a car. The organic unity of this sequence has the desired impact because it’s impossible to ascertain what Kofi knows. Baxter’s cronies assume that he killed Rocco and want his phone back. Kofi replies that he has no idea what they are talking about. Does Kofi even know whose car he stole? Or that he was even stealing? Who is to say with 100% certainty that he was not merely told by his pal Little Mo to drive a car parked in front of a house, with the keys on the tire, to a scrapyard nearby? Simple point A to point B task, right? Riiiiight…

Viewers are not privy to how much information Baxter’s cronies squeezed out of Kofi because the next time he appears on screen, he is driven to jail, chained, and subsequently dragged to a cell where an inmate, undoubtedly a member of the Desire Crew, hands him a phone. Little Mo is on the line and he tells – orders – Kofi to “take the hit” like a “good soldier.” He provides further clarification just in case Kofi considers being a bad soldier: “Maybe then I can’t guarantee they’d be safe. You heard me?” Little Mo is referring to Kofi’s mom and family.

In a gut-wrenching courtroom scene, with his mother in tears as part of the large audience, including Baxter, Michael, and Adam, Kofi pleads guilty to the charge of vehicular homicide. Once he is taken away, Michael leaves the courtroom, but he is chased down the hallway by Kofi’s mother who desperately seeks his help because she believes he is a “good man.” In another stellar character moment by Cranston (he can probably do those in his sleep), a conflicted and frustrated Michael loses his cool in front of others for the first time (that we have seen) and replies in a stern-yet-regretful voice, “Look, I cannot help you! I’m sorry.”

Further down the hallway, Frankie tells his boss that it was not a “hit and run”, but rather a “hit.” Period. They now believe that the Desire Crew is out for revenge because one of Jimmy’s men, a certain Carlo, had previously beaten up one of them. Baxter poignantly tells Frankie, “I’m gonna clean this city up! I’m gonna make it fucking shine!”

Outside the courthouse, Little Mo informs Rudi by phone that Kofi was a “good soldier.” In turn, Rudi calls Charlie to give the good news: “We’re safe.”

Enter Lee Delamere (Carmen Ejogo, whose performances in Selma and season 3 of True Detective are memorable), an old friend of Michael, and a successful lawyer working for a private company. Filled with compunction, Michael asks her to represent Kofi Jones. He felt bad for the accused and was embarrassed by the judge’s harsh treatment of the kid. “I was humiliated by his humiliation,” he adds. That is why he wants Lee to defend him. It’s only partially true, but it works. Lee accepts.

Last-minute thoughts:

— “This isn’t easy for me,” Lee says at one point. Michael understands: “I was there.” To that, Lee inquisitively replies: “You’re asking me to do this, knowing what you know about me?” The two also talk about having a glass of wine together. I admit, my curiosity is piqued! What is their background story?

— Kudos to Melanie Nicholls-King for her visceral representation of Kofi’s downtrodden mother.

— Scenes of Adam, the guilty-of-murder white teenager, arriving at his school in the morning, opening his locker, and going to class are intertwined with scenes of Kofi the not-guilty-of-murder black teenager handcuffed in the back of a police car. Contemporary context is king in this particular montage.

— Hats off to German composer Volker Bertelmann for the wonderful score. For one example, listen as you watch the montage of scenes alternating between Michael’s face as he sits on his chair at home and Kofi arriving to jail.

— The emphasis placed by Baxter’s cronies on finding Rocco’s phone makes me wonder if there is some incriminating evidence on it. Even during the police bust into Kofi’s home, Cusack makes it a priority to ask Kofi’s mom about the phone.

— The execrable Judge Harris who refers to Kofi as “boy” at one point is played by Bill Martin Williams. I know that he is a versatile actor – he is good in the short time he appears here too – but I can only remember him playing lawyers and preachers for some reason.

— I know that Jimmy Baxter represents a feared and despicable mobster. I don’t know, however, that a scene of him brutally smashing and crushing a birdcage with the animal still in it necessarily needed to be included in the script to point that out.

— Amy Landacker, who plays Nancy, is the second cast member of the critically acclaimed Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man to appear as a main character here, along with Michael Stuhlbarg as Jimmy.

— Kofi spots Adam looking down at him from the balcony area as he is dragged away after pleading guilty. I wonder if that moment will come up somehow in future outings.

Until next episode…

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“Part One” – Aired on December 6, 2020
Teleplay: Peter Moffat
Director: Edward Berger
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

A young man and his girlfriend wake up in bed. After she leaves, he feeds the dog and drives off to place a framed picture on a sidewalk in front of a long-closed corner store, at the spot where his mother presumably died a year ago. As he puts the picture down, he notices unsavory characters from the neighborhood approaching him, which puts him on tenterhooks. He hurries back in the car and nervously drives away. He soon finds himself in dire need of his inhaler which, as tropes go, seems to be out of his reach somewhere beneath the passenger seat.

Unable to think clearly, he meanders through the streets of the neighborhood, at one point circling back by the corner store only to see the picture of his mom smashed. The SUV that seems to be tailing him only exacerbates his condition. His inhaler insists on being out of his grasp as he bends down in panic to retrieve it, enough to lose sight of the road. These elements, as expected, cumulatively add up to a catastrophic accident when Adam’s car crushes head-on into a motorcyclist coming in the opposite direction. The motorcyclist flies off and eventually dies in a pool of blood where he landed. Injured himself, the terror-stricken driver somehow gets out of the car and watches the victim die in agony. He is in shock and unable to respond to the 911 dispatcher on the phone. Instead, he gets back in his car and flees the scene.

Intertwined with this storyline, are two other narratives with smaller cuts, but enough to set the stage for the rest of the episode. First one involves a young man who receives a motorcycle as a gift from his father in front of the family’s luxurious home. He is excited to say the least, and he wastes no time in getting on it and zooming down the street for a first ride (yes, he is that motorcyclist). Second one shows an older man jogging early in the morning. He runs through the streets and a cemetery, including a short stop at the front door of a house to look inside for unknown reasons at the time (but later revealed in a meaningful way). He eventually ends up downtown at the courthouse where he takes his shower in preparation for his next courtroom séance. He is a judge and, as we learn soon enough, the father of the asthmatic boy driving the car.

The above three paragraphs constitute a whopping 20 minutes, over one-third of the episode, and they are explosive in style and set-up machinations. As far as introductory sequences to a new show are concerned, this one is a masterpiece. Each component of the sequence looks (and feels) like an elite production embellished by quality camera work, apt score, and remarkable performances by actors. Ocular aesthetics serve as effective vehicles as the morning activities of these characters are presented with great aplomb, and facial closeups of stillness prove that first-rate actors can convey a thousand words with their expressions while not uttering a single one. If you are searching for Exhibit A on why the say-less-show-more approach works, “Part One” is all you need in one package.

Your Honor is created by Peter Moffat (résumé includes Undercover from 2016, a series with an intriguing premise but somewhat marred by a messy narrative progress). The show’s most notable asset, judging from the pilot, is in the singular conflict created by the calamitous event that kicks it off. The outing establishes early on that it will inevitably pit two families (more specifically, two high-profile fathers) against one another. The accident’s victim is a young man whose father makes a career out of criminal operations, while the accident’s culprit is young man whose father is well-respected, with a bona fide reputation as a judge friendly to the plight of the marginalized. The viewer is faced with a paradox: whose side to take?

Working the ins and outs of this conflict may be the crowning achievement of Your Honor. Or, it may cause its downfall. Intentionally or not, Moffat seems to have put his back, and those of the members of his writing room, against the wall. They must nurture an accustomed cliché (a momentarily preoccupied, stressed-out driver fatally hitting another, and driving away in panic, causing a devastating ripple effect), and muster from it a unique enough narrative that can hopefully distinguish the show from others of the genre.

It is a daunting challenge, one with plenty of potential for slipping into predictability since the pilot and trailers have not left much room for the unknown with regard to what is to come. By that I mean, one form or another of the outline below:

(1) a dignified father in Michael Desiato slowly going down the rabbit hole in the name of protecting his son (read: betraying his life-long moral and ethical principles). The more he tries to cover up, the more he is forced to act outside the parameters of the maxims that made him a role model as a judge,

(2) an emblematic crook in Jimmy Baxter who relentlessly pursues each clue he can find to learn the identity of his son’s killer to satiate his (and his wife’s) need for revenge. He soon finds enough clues to begin suspecting the Desiatos,

(3) the harassment of the Desiatos by the Baxters begin,

(4) the distance between the two families slowly erodes away, leading to the inevitable culmination of events that will impact both forever.

Moffat and co. have their hands full. They must present something different than the calculable outline above, or present it in a drastically different way than the dozens of the genre already seen on screen. Or both, preferably.

Having said that, the splendid cast assembled for the show is definitely a step in the right direction. Bryan Cranston playing the main character, Judge Michael Desiato, is as astute a choice as it gets. He is a proven master of delivering dissertation-length material for character studies regardless of whom he represents on screen. Accompanying him are Hunter Doohan (Truth Be Told) taking up the role of Judge Desiato’s hapless son Adam, the seasoned-actor Michael Stuhlbarg portraying the pooh-bah mobster Jimmy Baxter, and the in-form Hope Davis playing his distraught wife Gina.

There is also a plethora of minor revelations, surely designed to come into play at various times throughout the season. Other than Adam suffering from asthma, some of these include his mother’s (possibly tragic) death a year ago, Michael and Adam both carrying the mental scars from it, Michael being respected by the lawmakers in town and well-liked by the minority community in tune with his exploits – see the many smiling faces as they salute him and the somewhat theatrical courtroom scene drumming the beats of current real-life events –, and Baxter being hated and/or feared by everyone including Michael – see the tremendous scene as Michael makes a life-changing decision at the police station in a matter of seconds as he spots the Baxters from behind a door window and observes their agony, realizing that his son killed their son Rocco (Benjamin Wadsworth).

The rest of the episode mostly delves into the efforts of Michael as he makes the ruinous decision, for his son and himself, to leave the police station without saying anything, and spends the rest of his day, and night, desperately trying to get rid of any possible evidence left behind by Adam. Cranston handles these scenes with such dexterity that you can almost sense the judge’s anguish. He knows his efforts may well be in vain and that he may not be able to “make it go away,” but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try to save his son.

Sure enough, Adam’s inhaler is recovered by Frankie (Tony Curran), Baxter’s right-hand man at the spot of the accident (don’t ask how the CSI unit missed it). Not to mention, there is probably an abundance of blood left by Adam while he was at the scene. We already know that he was captured on camera when he stopped at a gas station shortly after the accident and handled the pump with his bloody hands. Then, there is the ubiquitous nosy neighbor who seems to be watching each time Michael and Adam enter or exit their house. Let’s not forget either the bloody rag that their dog dragged away back into the house without Michael noticing as he was cleaning Adam’s car. Et cetera, et cetera…

Last-minute thoughts:

— With Adam driving a rundown car and Michael jogging or using Uber to go between their house and the courtroom, I am going to speculate that the Desiato family has an aversion to spending money on vehicles.

— Nit-pick: Did the low-gas warning (with the indicator pointing to the bottom of the “E,” mind you) have to sound precisely when Michael is trying to drive away from the unsavory characters? Him eventually stopping by the gas station is part of the script, I understand, but it could have surely been done in a more subtle manner.

— Amazing that no cars or people pass by the scene of the accident during the several minutes that Adam spends there. Except for an observant dog who witnesses everything and is seen licking Rocco’s blood as Adam leaves, probably the episode’s most horrific moment for this viewer!

— The motorcycle getting stuck at first to the car’s bumper as Adam tries to drive away is an effective nuance to increase the degree of dread in an already high-tension scene.

— I can’t help but wonder how women will be depicted in the show. The only female character of significance in “Part One” is Gina, and she is so far nothing more than the run-of-the-mill mobster’s wife who sheds plenty of tears as the result of a family tragedy. I hope her portrayal goes beyond the limited scope of the bad guy’s one-note wife whose only concern is to avenge her child’s death, and who therefore encourages her husband to use any means necessary to that end, while spending half of her time on screen with misty eyes and in depression, and remaining outside of any central plot advancement. The talented Hope Davis can deliver so much more than that.   

— I totally understand Michael lying about “peeing,” but I do not understand why he lied about having cancer (or wait, I may know actually. Is it so that it can come back to bite him in a later episode, in other words, the script demanded it?). If he simply told the officer who he is – every commissioner and detective in town seems to respect him – and apologized for not being able to hold it any longer, I am willing to bet that the officer would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

— I am a fan of Tony Curran (Frankie) as an actor. Check him out in the film Calibre, as well as the series Defiance and season 6 of Ray Donovan.

— Adam’s girlfriend is played by Sofia Black-D’Elia, known for her work as Sabrina Pemberton in The Mick.

— I read that the show is based on the Israeli series Kvodo with which I am not familiar. I would be curious to know, however, if Your Honor diverges from Kvodo’s storyline at all. But please, no spoilers!

Until next episode…

PS1: Click on All Reviews (also at the top) for a comprehensive list of my episodic reviews.
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