Summary
The penultimate episode maneuvers all of the pieces into place for a dramatic finale.
This recap of Your Honor Season 2 Episode 9, “Part Nineteen”, contains spoilers.
As much of a cliché as it might be, “Chapter Nineteen” of Your Honor is the quintessential “calm before the storm” episode. We’re close to the end of the second season now, and with multiple distinct but interrelated subplots burbling away, this is the kind of hour designed to shuffle them all right to the brink of tipping over into calamity. Things don’t look good for Michael, Eugene, Lee, or any of the show’s “good guys”, but then again things aren’t looking too great for the bad guys either, even if they remain a step or two ahead.
Anyway, let’s break it down.
Your Honor Season 2 Episode 9 Recap
Why does Michael have to testify in Eugene’s trial?
So, let’s start with Eugene’s trial and why, ultimately, Michael is going to be forced to testify against him. In short: The prosecution need Michael as an eyewitness to Adam’s death because Lee has just about convinced the jury that the present witnesses, namely the Baxter family, aren’t exactly reliable. You know, given that they’re mobsters and everyone seems to know it.
To be fair, it was kind of ridiculous that Gina thought her testimony would hold any weight whatsoever when it was so breathtakingly obvious that her string-pulling had gotten this ball rolling in the first place. She claimed to have seen Eugene pull the trigger quite clearly, but Lee tied in her knots about the circumstances of Kofi Jones’s death, and how Carlo had just so happened to be transferred to the same facility as Kofi at the request of his mother. The implication is clear. So, the prosecution can’t rely on the jury buying into Gina’s testimony. Hence Michael being called to the stand.
Of course, Lee wants Michael to lie on the stand, which he’s not prepared to do. But he might have to. Or, he might get up there and tell the whole truth, which wouldn’t be good news for anyone, since there has been so much flagrant corruption in New Orleans that everyone from himself to the mayor and the entire Baxter clan would be looking at a stretch in jail.
Why does Jimmy offer Michael a job?
You’ll recall that in Episode 8, Michael had volunteered to bring Jimmy down so that Olivia wouldn’t use Fia as her insider instead. That plan begins in “Chapter Nineteen”, with Michael visiting Jimmy, ostensibly to tell him that he doesn’t intend to take his place with Rocco and Fia. But when the two of them take a ride to the new Baxter development, Michael super suspiciously texts Olivia in the back of the car, right next to Jimmy, and it’s a little unclear whether Jimmy sees the messages or understands the true intent of them. Either way, Michael is absolutely terrible at this.
But Jimmy still has use of him, especially now that Gina is repeatedly cutting him out of family affairs. He wants Michael to be his right-hand man so that he can develop a legitimate enterprise that isn’t subject to pressure from the Calabri Family and his father-in-law.
Of course, Michael can’t trust Jimmy as far as he can throw him, which after his prison diet isn’t very far. But since Fia later tells Jimmy that he’s being watched by a U.S. attorney, he pulls the plug on the Baxter District anyway, meaning that Michael’s job offer has presumably been rescinded with it.
Who does Lil Mo side with?
Lil Mo is given an offer in “Chapter Nineteen”. He can either side with Chris, who is planning to usurp Big Mo and usher in an era of Desire 2.0, or he can continue to side with his family, despite all the ways that family has wronged him (and indeed Chris, at the expense of his brother’s life.)
Ultimately, Lil Mo sides with Big Mo. He sells Chris out, and Big Mo shoots him and his co-conspirators dead.
Obviously, Big Mo made a huge mistake with the dodgy drugs, and she has been selfish in her running of the gang. But Lil Mo believes in family above all, and he couldn’t be compelled to turn against his own. Chris died proud of the disruption he had caused and the stance he had taken, which I suppose will have to do.
You can stream Your Honor Season 2 Episode 9, “Part Nineteen” exclusively on Showtime.
