How do people get sucked into bad shows? It’s a fun question because there seems to be a never ending pipeline of shows being thrown out that are watched and then completely forgotten. Your Honor popped up on the front page of Netflix and and a particularly convincing scene that played when you hovered over it.
It starts with a judge holding a court proceeding where a 30-40 year old black woman is accused of hiding drugs. The police officer on the witness stand attests that he saw her hide drugs inside her body, and seemed adept it it. Suggesting she had done it before.
The judge, played by Bryan Cranston, steps down off his high chair overlooking the court and paces before the witness. He speaks to the accused woman’s oldest son, about twelve or thirteen, and states that if she goes to jail, her three youngest children will be taken by the system and likely never see them again. The oldest, twelve-thirteen year old, will be taken in by the Desire Crew to sell drugs. Which they do openly.
“Are you sure about what you’ve told the court today?”
“Yes.”
The judge talks about how he is training for a marathon and that leads him all around the city and up and down the steps on Flood St and the Lower Ninth, right in the area where the accused lives. He looked at the house and continued on his run until he came here to the courthouse.
“Are you sure you’re telling the truth?”
“Yes.” The officer answered, looking more concerned.
The accused lives in a shotgun house correct?
“Do you know why they call it a shotgun house?”
A little house, and the reason they call it a shotgun house is because you can stand on the front door and fire a shotgun from the front all the way out the back. Straight shot. All the rooms, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, all off that hallway.
“Tell me officer, do you have eyes that can see around corners?”
“You are a liar, of the vilest of kinds.”
It’s a great scene. There is a lot at play, because the officer is white. The accused black, very poor. The kids talk about eating pickle juice for food. No father in the area. The eldest brother is in a gang. And their mother is falsely accused by a guy, for what? There’s no reason to justify this. And the Judge clearly knows this guy is telling lies and lets him say it clearly, under oath, and then takes him apart. This is a great scene.
The rest of the episode is downhill from there. I don’t care about anyone else. This scene with the Judge in the courtroom is the only thing that pulls you in. Maybe that’s by design? But it’s the only thing that works in the story. The Judge pulls the audience in and we care about him, which is what pulls us in when Adam accidentally kills the kid.
The reason we don’t care about Adam is because generally, the audience likes authenticity and competency. Adam is incompetent. Everything seems to go wrong for him, and it’s hard to write a understanding panic. It’s not that I didn’t buy it, it’s that I didn’t care.
From there the show has littles to go on because it relies on the situation getting worse and worse and worse. It’s the same thing that pulls the audience in and causes them to binge the show, because you need to see how it ends. You need to see some sort of closure. You like Michael and want to know where it goes from there, but it’s not for me. It didn’t work.
Music by Simon Swerwer,
Cuggin's Cove,
Emergence,
Inith and Od Travel North
26 авг 2024
