Summary
“Hear My Voice” pays off a couple of long-running subplots, but at what cost to the main characters?
This recap of All Rise season 2, episode 15, “Hear My Voice”, contains spoilers.
There are three big storylines in “Hear My Voice”, all of them the product of weeks of development, which gives them a lot more emotional power than usual. In the first, Lola presides over the charges Mark has brought against Deputy Wayne McCarthy; in the second, Sam acts as the first chair in the child abuse case that has Sara as its star witness; and in the third, Emily begins to reconcile with Joaquin in a touching subplot centering on his work reuniting torn-apart families.
Of the three, it’s only that latter one that doesn’t reach a real conclusion – we’re still unsure about what Emily’s romantic future looks like, although Joaquin made a strong case for himself here. The bulk of the focus was, understandably, on the McCarthy trial, especially with Lola being painted as biased thanks to her relationship with Mark and presence at a BLM rally, and McCarthy’s cutthroat attorney, the raspy Cuthbert (Anne Heche), making her position clear in the feistiest way possible.
There’s a real question to ask about whether Lola is biased towards Mark or against McCarthy, especially since he and his attorney are so obviously despicable. All Rise season 2, episode 15 makes this someone less complicated by making no secret of the fact McCarthy is guilty, which the audience is well-aware of – it might have been more effective to have us be unsure about that, just so the case didn’t feel quite so one-sided. Then again, there was plenty of catharsis to be found here, and it was very good at highlighting how essential Mark and Lola’s relationship is to the pair of them. Having been forced to stay apart during the trial, they’re both lacking the ability to work through their problems together. Mark’s relationship woes even have to be tabled until the very end of “Hear My Voice”, when following a successful verdict he and Lola are allowed to get drunk on the roof and have a catch-up.
It was Luke who proved the turning point in the trial, both thanks to his career-risking testimony about falsifying a report on McCarthy’s request, and his advice that Mark hones in on McCarthy’s views on “family” after his near-obsession with his men had cost him his own wife and children. The scene in which Mark got McCarthy to admit what he did was very clearly a homage to Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise’s infamous sparring match in A Few Good Men, and I half expected McCarthy to start talking about walls and men with guns at one point, but it was different enough to work on its own terms without feeling entirely like a knock-off.
Sam and Sara’s case in All Rise season 2, episode 15 was surprisingly emotional – an effective portrayal of child abuse that gave Sara a taste of justice beyond just being a (still very valuable!) stenographer. Nev Scharrel, who played the young girl, Nikki, and Ashley Jones, who played her mother, Whitney, were both excellent in putting across the idea of how an abusive relationship can begin and be perpetuated in a way that neither the abuser nor the abused necessarily understands.
Of course, there’s a cliffhanger. After enjoying some time with Mark on the roof, a merry Lola staggers downstairs only to be pulled into an office with Benner, who has some bad news. The police union has appointed someone to go after Lola’s seat. Now, her career is at risk.
