Evil (2019) s02e10 – O Is for Ovaphobia

All right, seriously, is Mike Colter okay? He’s literally only the episode as a sidekick. He’s in an interview montage, he and Aasif Mandvi follow someone, he goes into the fertility clinic for a non-scene with Mandvi and Herbers, and he’s there for the initial team meeting. Otherwise, he’s not in the episode. Wait, he runs into Christine Lahti in an awkward situation. That scene lasts maybe ninety seconds. Maybe. When everyone said they didn’t really want him to become a priest, it didn’t mean they didn’t want him on the show….

But there’s also no Church case in this episode. The procedural isn’t a procedural. Herbers is trying to figure out how she’s still got eggs on ice at the demonic fertility clinic when she hasn’t been paying any of the bills, which puts her on to suspicious, religious gynecologist Francesca Faridany. It’s more Herbers’s B-plot, with her daughter Maddy Crocco’s self-image issues. Initially, it seems like it’s about her vampire teeth—side effects of the demonic fertility clinic—than about her weight, but then it turns out to be about something else entirely.

Something fantastic.

Meanwhile, Mandvi’s got a fantastic adventure with girlfriend Nicole Shalhoub, who wants to get exorcized of her twin ghost sister and drags Mandvi along. It gets more and more concerning throughout, cliffhanging with the extraordinary. So both Mandvi and Herbers (or Crocco) have actually supernatural arcs going on, with “Evil” ratcheting up the possibility of confirming it sooner than later.

The other big arc is Lahti—against her better judgment—getting involved with Michael Emerson, who introduces her to silver fox creep, Tim Matheson. Giving Emerson an actual human friend or two makes his storyline seemingly less supernatural. So the show’s grounding him while letting Mandvi and Crocco take proverbial flight. Herbers is entirely unaware—everyone else goes to Mandvi for help, but he doesn’t share his love life intrigues with anyone—ditto Colter, though for different reasons. Crocco’s calmly not telling Mom everything but Colter’s just not around enough. We don’t even get meditating montages.

Good acting from Herbers, Mandvi, and Lahti. Matheson and Emerson seem like edge lord frat boy rapists gone grey, which is probably the idea. Crocco’s fine, but her arc is only about working towards the reveal. Shalhoub’s in a similar situation where the episode’s tricking the audience with her scenes, so she doesn’t work up any momentum.

It seems to be a bridging episode, which is fine. The plotting just plays a little off. Especially if the show eventually rationalizes all the fantastical stuff.

All Rise (2019) s02e05 – The Perils of the Plea

It’s a Christmas episode and a two-parter, which is weird because when we get to the conclusion—which has a miscarriage of justice and most of the cast mad at each other—it doesn’t seem like there’s anywhere for it to go. If “All Rise” manages to roll back said miscarriage of justice, it’ll be impressive because then the show really will be in a legal fantasy land. More so than usual.

The case involves super-sympathetic Isaiah Johnson, who shot a guy and ran away and got busted but it turns out the guy was trying to shoot him and Johnson defended himself but evil D.A. Suzanne Cryer doesn’t care. Like, it’s obvious Johnson was justified, it’s obvious the other guy’s lying, no budging from Cryer. I’m not sure what Cryer’s clip reel looks like from “All Rise” but basically she’s really good at playing an obviously fully invested in white supremacy white woman.

Anyway.

The court is doing its first jury trial since the pandemic and there’s all sorts of issues with the case and eventually thinks go from bad to worse to worse, leaving us with the very predictable, very sad conclusion, which the show then cheapens with the “To Be Continued.”

All the friend fights are a little more amusing, like Jessica Camacho and Lindsay Mendez getting into an entirely ginned up fight, which starts in this episode—and involvers Mendez’s previously mostly forgotten grandparents’ bodega subplot—and it’s real silly. There’s also this fight between Audrey Corsa and J. Alex Brinson, which ought to be compounded with Brinson apparently giving up this season’s “oh, the cops are bad, actually” vibe when he gets the chance to pal around with obviously evil shit sheriff Louis Herthum, who’s only around to low-key threaten Wilson Bethel for investigating lying cops.

But when Corsa wants to make things official with Brinson—upgrading from their friends with benefits relationship—Brinson chokes at the moment of truth. Not great given Camacho is at the Christmas party with hot and heavy new boyfriend Shalim Ortiz and they’re having a great time being a real couple.

At the same Christmas party, Lindsey Gort finally finds out Bethel used to be romantically involved with Gort’s new law partner, Ryan Michelle Bathe, and it throws their evening for a spin. Apparently. Next time they’re onscreen they don’t talk about it, instead working on the “Gort hates Christmas while Bethel loves Christmas” subplot because they’re a Hallmark couple. Fingers crossed after the break Gort’s out and Bathe’s in but Christmas dreams don’t come true.

There’s some nice stuff with L. Scott Caldwell and Simone Missick, with mom Caldwell trying to sway judge Missick on the Johnson case because Caldwell doesn’t really grok Missick’s whole social justice from the bench approach. Probably because Caldwell knows “All Rise” is on CBS and there’s only so far they’re going to go with it. But it’s nice. It’s a real scene for Missick, who otherwise spends the episode waiting for offscreen husband Todd Williams to arrive in L.A.

What’s unclear is if Williams is coming to L.A. as a regular cast member like the previous episode implied—I’m sorry, explicitly stated—or if it’s just a visit, because they dropped that subplot entirely.

The show’s tried hard to do pandemic stuff—them all getting together for a Christmas party is disgusting, however, and they all deserve the Rona—and it’s done all right with some of it. But then they’re always soft resetting from episode to episode. Who knows what’ll be different when it comes back.

To be continued and all.

All Rise (2019) s01e19 – In the Fights

I wonder if occurred to the producers they should’ve saved up to license With A Little Help From My Friends for this episode, which is mostly about Jessica Camacho–who started the show getting out of a physically abusive marriage—defending a client accused of assaulting his girlfriend and having major PTSD. The episode starts with Camacho in Enough mode, beating the crap out of a kickboxing bag; she’s been doing for two hours every morning, starting at 5 a.m., and hiding the domestic abuse case from her boyfriend J. Alex Brinson and roommate bestie Lindsay Mendez. Until the episode starts, anyway. She’s going to trial and she’s got to let them know.

Turns out the case has been reassigned to prosecutor Wilson Bethel because the original attorney is out sick and Bethel’s trying to be a friend to Camacho while also trying to convince victim Reina Hardesty to testify. At the start of the episode, we only see Camacho’s client, Robert Adamson, who is super-obviously manipulating and grooming Camacho to the point it’s just a countdown to her kicking his ass when he tries something. But Adamson says he’s innocent and Camacho believes him; she tells everyone she believes him. And Hardesty, therefor, is lying. Hardesty figures in the second half of the episode; she’s great. Adamson’s a convincing creep, but not much else. Hardesty’s actually good.

Meanwhile, Simone Missick’s dealing with relationship drama with husband Todd Williams—her first scene in the episode is establishing the subplot with the flirtatious political fixer and Missick running for attorney general has been dropped like a hot potato, which is a bit of a surprise—and with lawyer Lindsey Gort using Missick’s courtroom to promote her new law firm with Third Musketeer (to Missick and Bethel) Ryan Michelle Bathe and to destroy something beautiful (Bethel’s protege Audrey Corsa). See, Gort and Bethel are dating and things aren’t going great. He’s intrusive, albeit incredibly buff (Bethel gets a big shirtless scene at the beginning of the episode).

And, based on Missick and Bethel’s single confab this episode… they haven’t already retconned out Bethel having a thing for Bathe.

Gort’s profoundly unlikable, to the point it’s rubbing off on Bethel. She’s not bad. She’s just a villain, even though she’s fighting for social justice. It’s very muddled and, unlike the show’s more earnest wide swings this episode, not endearing. Because Gort’s just cruel.

Corsa’s real good this episode. Bethel’s good.

It’s not a great episode for Camacho. Like… it’s real obvious what the show’s doing but it’s also extraordinarily exploitative.

It’s a so-so episode for Missick, who has got to get rid of wet noodle Williams. Though the episode also upstages Missick by giving court clerk Ruthie Ann Miles a martini lunch subplot.

All of its misfires seem imminently avoidable.

There is one fantastic line about how much an abusive partner’s apologies are worth though.

All Rise (2019) s01e06 – Fool for Liv

Something about this episode feels like it ran into the show’s budget. Though there’s some location shooting. Kind of a lot of it, but there’s no action at the locations. There’s standing or sitting. And it’s never on the A plot, always B or even C. On the A plot, outside Jere Burns as a terribly written slick defense attorney, everything feels like it’s under serious constraint. Burns is defending a social media star’s assistant, accused of murdering the social media star. All of the assistant’s fans are in the courtroom disrupting the proceedings, making judge Simone Missick look unable to control her courtroom so her job is ostensibly in jeopardy and Burns is being slick instead of actually lawyering and on and on.

But it’s all done cheap. It’s supposed to be lighting up social media only the show never shows how that lighting up affects anything. It’s like the show knows having social media fans dox jurors is bad, but it doesn’t know why it’s bad. Does “All Rise” even employ any legal consultants? It doesn’t seem like it does.

There’s some good stuff with Missick and court clerk Ruthie Ann Miles hanging out, but in a very humorous way not in actual character development way. I’m also not sure but it seems like Missick is having trouble not laughing at some of Miles’s best deliveries. And the stuff with Missick and Burns gets to an all right point, so it’s a shame to episode doesn’t end with it but instead subjects us to more of Jessica Camacho and J. Alex Brinson’s courtship.

So Camacho’s got a case where she’s defending a guy against Wilson Bethel, who’s got nothing to do this episode because he’s not allowed to try cases in front of Missick and instead his boss, Reggie Lee (who’s a regular?), tries it. Bethel and Camacho are trying to work out a plea deal for her client, whatever. The episode makes Bethel seem potentially shady, which he isn’t. “All Rise” is aspirational. Bethel’s a white knight. But Camacho doesn’t seem to trust him, but then she does once Bethel reminds her he’s a white knight. Their plot feels like writer Conway Preston was just trying to pad out the episode. It’s not good. It’s lazy.

Camacho and Brinson’s cutesy courtship is worse though. It’s annoying. They’re now officially obnoxious together, which is too bad because they’re both likable apart. And their relationship used to be cute versus cutesy.

I think this episode’s the equivalent of a bunt, if I’m getting my baseball metaphors right.