Summary
“Part Nine” pushes Michael to cross even more lines, just as the truth finds another, unexpected way of worming its way free. And just in time for the finale!
This Your Honor season 1, episode 9 recap for the episode titled “Part Nine” contains spoilers.
It had to happen eventually, and in “Part Nine”, it finally did — the truth about who killed Rocco Baxter came out. But it didn’t come out in the way anybody probably expected, with a spurned lover spilling the beans to a thus-far peripheral character who, I’m sure not coincidentally, has a fairly significant degree of local influence. What exactly Charlie will do with the information is anyone’s guess, but in the process of getting there, this penultimate episode gives us one turn after another.
For a start, another key witness in Carlo Baxter’s trial turns up in the form of his bestie and co-conspirator Joey, a junkie who has finally reached the end of the line after hiding out from the Baxter goons. He has enough personal information to implicate both Carlo in Kofi’s murder and Gina in everything, and thus proves a significant problem for Michael, who orders him to be put in courthouse custody while he frets about what to do.
Early in Your Honor episode 9, seeds start getting planted of a very bothersome love triangle between Adam, Frannie, and Fia, though what either of them sees in this guy remains a mystery. Frannie, though, clearly not ashamed to lower herself to the level of the students she can’t refrain from being romantically involved with, gives a little speech to Fia about the choices we make — she’s talking about her shoes, but not really — after catching her and Adam “out in the wild”. We know where this is going, don’t we readers?
A bit more nebulous is precisely what’s going on with the investigation into Robin’s death, which the show often forgets about, but Nancy Costello evidently does not. As it turns out, Michael’s wife was having an affair that he knew about but that Adam didn’t. Naturally, Nancy considers her secret fling the prime suspect in her murder, and the truth about it is going to have to come out eventually. When Michael doesn’t want to deal with it, at least not right now, she takes the matter to Elizabeth, who realizes rather quickly that she’s asking her to tell Adam. This kid has a lot of bad news coming his way, let me tell you.
Speaking of bad news, the witness, Joey, is a particular concern to Jimmy. As is his way, then, he decides to have him killed, and since he’s in courthouse custody he’ll need Michael to facilitate it. At this point, having already dumped one body, what’s another to add to the pile? One assumes that’s Michael’s logic, anyway, since he immediately comes up with a way to give Frankie the timeframe he needs to off the witness, though actually getting to him is his problem. This is another subplot for the finale to tug on. After last week’s episode and now Your Honor season 1, episode 9, there’s going to be a hell of a lot to play for in the final installment.
At the center of all that will be, you have to imagine, Adam and Fia. When Nancy confronts Jimmy outside the courthouse, telling him to leave Michael and Adam alone, the name rings a bell. When he and Frankie look him up, they see Fia commenting lovey-dovey messages on his pictures, which isn’t a good sign. It later prompts a kind of religious intervention wherein Jimmy and Gina try to get a priest to convince Fia that Adam is really the devil in disguise, but it doesn’t take since Fia is especially hung up on the Binding of Isaac and reckons religion is a bit bonkers. This is an arc she has been on all throughout the season, triggered at least in part by Rocco’s death, so it felt earned to have her explode at how ridiculous this situation is. She insists she loves Adam, and available evidence seems to suggest he feels the same, but Frannie floats the possibility to him that he’s confusing love with his fascination at her being the sister of someone he killed. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Anyway, Michael’s plan for Joey in Your Honor season 1, episode 9 involves pretending to offer him support while spiking his water with a handful of crushed pills and conning him into drinking it constantly as a way to stave off the nerves of testifying against a family who he knows are a) in attendance and b) trying to kill him. When Joey collapses on the stand and is taken away for medical attention, Michael disposes of the evidence and claims he wasn’t well enough to testify in the first place. The jury, then, should forget he ever existed, which is easier said than done. Nancy looks suspiciously on all the while, and this guy’s impending death is going to have to be exceedingly well handled in order to not look even more obviously crooked than it does already.
There are also a couple of developments in the Desire area in Your Honor episode 9. One is that Eugene is apparently a Good Will Hunting-style math prodigy who proposes to Big and Little Mo a scheme involving fronting cash to needy citizens in exchange for legit checks. The other is that Lee discovers that Kofi failed his GED exam at the exact time that he was supposedly running Rocco Baxter over, meaning he must have been sold down the river by one of the Desire crew. Eugene suspects some guy he has heard talked about, Rudy, who was apparently wary of him joining the crew. After some investigation, Nancy discovers that this is Rudy Cunningham, an officer in the NOPD, and obviously a dirty one.
But there are a couple of twists of the knife saved for the very end. Adam confides in Charlie about his relationship woes, and Charlie takes it upon himself to use his influence to bully Frannie into leaving him alone, using obvious threats of exposing her having a relationship with a student to get her registered as a sex offender. But this backfires somewhat when, in retaliation, she reveals that it was Adam who killed Rocco. No sooner is this news dispatched than Jimmy tells Fia he wants to meet this boy she apparently loves with all her heart. And he wants to meet him, like, right now.
It’s getting tense, folks. I’ll see you next week.
