Let me get the big reveals out of the way.
Starting with Simone Missick’s husband not having moved out to L.A. yet, even though once again it seemed like it was about to happen. Instead she’s going back to work and hiring a babysitter to look after the newborn.
We also get to meet Lindsey Gort’s hidden husband (she’s still getting a divorce because, even though she hasn’t openly forgiven Wilson Bethel for locking lips—briefly and actually she did kiss him, we saw it on the show—with law partner Ryan Michelle Bathe). Josh Henderson plays the husband. It’s a cop out reveal.
Then there’s J. Alex Brinson. This episode he and Bethel find out what’s going on with the list of ostensibly dirty sheriff’s deputies names on it—and Brinson’s—and he’s got to make some choices with it. Does he make the right choice? No one knows, possibly not even the viewer, because CBS hasn’t renewed “All Rise” yet.
We get a couple other “to be continued” plot threads, like what’s Jessica Camacho going to do in her love triangle with Brinson and Shalim Ortiz and then Lindsay Mendez and Marg Helgenberger’s weird arc about an abusive mom friend of Helgenberger’s. The latter’s got more potential, because it seems like it’s going to be a big character development thing for her and the show’s established she does all right with more material.
The A plot is Missick’s first case back, which is about a teen (Ashley Jones) in trouble for swatting a cyber-boyfriend, only some random guy (Larry Sullivan) ends up shot because cops will unarmed white people if there aren’t any BIPOC around. Gort’s trying the case and tries to exploit Missick carrying about social justice, leading to a very weird scene where Missick basically tells Bethel his girlfriend’s shit and he has to agree.
Jones is bad, Gort’s okay (I don’t think we’ve ever seen her try a case with this much meat to it before), and the case itself is engaging. So good A plot.
Briana Belser gets the script credit, Claudia Yarmy directs. Belser’s writing on the court stuff is the best, the relationship stuff the worst, the workaday stuff in between. Yarmy’s decent, but the social distanced scenes get tiring inside. Outside they’re okay. Inside… it’s like watching actors’ monologues cut together.
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