Summary
Your Honor takes several juicy turns as the second season continues to weave a complex web of criminality.
Your Honor has always been a show about a good man making bad decisions for the right reasons. But it’s really about bad decisions, period. Everyone is making them in “Part Fifteen”, at a rate it’s honestly difficult to keep up with. Then again, what other kind is there in this setting, a cynical depiction of New Orleans in which the criminals and the government are interchangeable, everyone owes everyone else a favor, and the gap between tremendous success and the loss of everything you hold dear is only as wide as one wrong word.
This hour is built on a few big subplots continuing from Episode 4. Big Mo’s leadership of Desire has been thrown a curveball by the reappearance of Eugene and the fact Lil Mo helped him “disappear” in the first place. And Michael and Charlie are still dealing with the fallout from Jimmy’s birthday party, in which he made his ties to the mayor and the existence of his grandchild public, to the horror of both men, and indeed Fia, who recognized that her father’s polite invite was really a ruse (and that’s without him holding a gun to Michael’s head.)
Your Honor Season 2 Episode 5 Recap
Why is Lil Mo thrown out of Desire?
We’ll start with Big Mo. The potential problems that might emanate from not being able to pay back Rodrick’s advance notwithstanding, her issues in “Part Fifteen” are all on her own turf, revolving around how she runs Desire even when she’s forced to put the gang over her own family, biological or otherwise. Lil Mo has, justifiably or not, gone against his aunt’s wishes not just by facilitating Eugene’s escape but also by stashing him at Mo’s sister’s place, straining a sibling relationship that was already frayed, to begin with. This is to say nothing about how exposure of Desire’s involvement with Eugene could earn them the ire of the Baxters. If any other member of Big Mo’s crew made the same decisions Lil Mo did, everyone, including Lil Mo himself, knows how they would be treated.
So, perhaps in a strange way, Big Mo kicking Lil Mo out of Desire with only a beating could be seen as a mercy. At least she doesn’t blame Eugene, though she does send him back to Houston to be with her sister since remaining in New Orleans would be hazardous to his health and incredibly risky for Desire.
Why does Charlie reconsider the Baxter land deal Your Honor Season 2 Episode 5?
To be fair, though, Jimmy has problems of his own. Before the appointment of Charlie Figaro as mayor, Jimmy had made a cozy deal with the previous office-holder to secure land for the development of the Baxter District, but Charlie has reneged on the deal, which is causing Jimmy all kinds of stress from his overbearing father-in-law, Carmine Conti, whom it becomes very obvious was primarily responsible for his ascent to power in the first place.
This explains a lot of things, not least why Gina is the way she is. She believes Jimmy owes her – or at least her family name – a debt, and she won’t ever allow him to feel like he’s truly in charge. We know Jimmy to be a smart enough man to be fearful of Carmine, which is presumably why he approaches Michael to talk Charlie into reconsidering his proposal. He claims that Carmine might become a threat to Charlie, which is probably true, but he’s almost certainly also worrying about Carmine becoming a threat to him – and perhaps his own family breaking down. At one point in this episode, Gina contemplates getting rid of Jimmy with her father, and the tensions between the two of them can’t be lost on Jimmy himself. He knows what’s at stake.
READ: Will there be a Your Honor Season 3?
For Michael, he’s just trying to protect his friend. He knows the danger Jimmy represents. But the only way that he can talk Charlie into finalizing the Baxter deal is by confessing that he’s working with the feds against Jimmy and that, in the madness of his grief after Adam’s death, he revealed that Charlie assisted in the initial cover-up. Charlie has no choice but to give Jimmy the land because otherwise, he’s looking at not only complete reputational ruin but also potentially jail time. While Charlie tries to get Jimmy to make some amendments to his development plans that are more in line with the promises Charlie has made to his constituents, it seems unlikely that any of those demands will be met.
The ending – what does Nancy have on Michael now?
And, finally, things aren’t going well for Michael either, although I suppose they haven’t been since the first season premiere. But after his close call with Jimmy last week, Michael wants out. Olivia, though, has other ideas, especially with Carmine Conti being on the scene. She thinks she can hook every fish in the pond and isn’t willing to let Michael walk away. So, she turns to Nancy Costello, who takes Michael away in handcuffs, sits him down in an interrogation room, and tells him that she has new evidence. She wants to know where he was on the night his wife was murdered.
You can stream Your Honor Season 2 Episode 5, “Part Fifteen” exclusively on Showtime.
