Summary
“A View from the Bus” comes up with a novel way of asking old questions, as a jury takes a field trip, and Mark has to determine if the ends justify the means.
This recap of All Rise Season 1, Episode 4, “A View from the Bus”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
The novel setup for All Rise Episode 4 was a field trip, but not the kind you imagine when you hear the term. Lola (Simone Missick) had arranged for the entire jury to visit the scene of the accused’s apparent crime; all the better for them to see — or, more accurately, hear — for themselves exactly why the defendant, Dylan, couldn’t possibly have been guilty. He was accused of shooting a friend, and his trial hinges on the idea of that gunshot having been heard in a graffitied underpass where club music was playing loud enough to drown it out. During the demonstration for the jury, a country sheriff fires two shots from the exact same position Dylan occupied, and nobody hears a thing.
But that isn’t the problem in “A View from the Bus”. Once the demonstration is complete, police shut down the area due to the presence of an active shooter, leading Lola to worry that she might have inadvertently prejudiced the jury against Dylan. At least one of them assumes it was a setup. Would anyone even remember the outcome of the demonstration?
Dylan’s innocence is never in doubt in All Rise Episode 4. The story is about his right to a fair trial, and what that means for ordinary people whose job is to render a verdict. They see this young man who looks and talks a particular way and they naturally make assumptions. Even a well-meaning field trip backfires in such a way that it’s impossible to determine how they might react. Lola has a responsibility to ensure an objective environment in her courtroom, but she can’t always do that in the way she wants to. Neither can Emily (Jessica Camacho), who has to decide to risk having Dylan take the stand despite a prior conviction, and neither can Luke (J. Alex Brinson), who is still debating what kind of lawyer he wants to be — where he can do the most good, but also what he can live with.
Things turn out okay for Dylan. But not so much for Mark (Wilson Bethel), who was paired up with the corner-cutting Detective Jackie Leyland (Erin Cummings), last seen in the season premiere being equally shifty. In “A View From the Bus”, a warrant attained thanks to the testimony of one of her criminal informants is likely to take down a notorious heroin peddler, but Lola tips Mark off that Leyland isn’t by-the-book. When he starts digging into the statement, it becomes clear it was fabricated, meaning that the big-time dealer is going to walk free. Thomas (Reggie Lee) still insists justice has been done, but it’s a small consolation for Mark, who would happily have allowed the testimony to stand and a true villain to be taken off the streets if it weren’t for those pesky standards of truth and justice he has to uphold. It’s a downbeat outcome for him, but he can rest easy knowing he did the right thing.
These aren’t, I suppose, particularly novel ethical quandaries, but All Rise Season 1, Episode 4 presents them in a refreshingly unique way. Each installment seems to come up with a new twist on a tired formula; a new way of asking an old question. This is the right way to do a procedural, and if All Rise isn’t necessarily the best one out there, you can, at the very least, always rely on it to be interesting.
