The best part about winning is the joy that comes with it.
Perry’s victory turned pyrrhic in the months after the Dodson case, and on Perry Mason Season 2 Episode 1, we found a man so lost he was barely living.
He spent his days being distracted and questioning every aspect of the justice system, whose flaws he witnessed every waking day.
Winning the Dodson case came at a great cost, personally and professionally.
Instead of setting people free, the truth he uncovered proved too much for Mrs. Dodson, who had since committed suicide.
[Voice from written letters] Dear Mr. Mason, when will I be fully cleansed? I continue to ask God for guidance, but I fear he’s turning his back on me. Dear Mr. Mason, what did we win in court? What’s my freedom worth? My boy, Charlie, is still gone.
Mrs. Dodson
Losing a child was too traumatic for her, and no amount of cases and arrests would free her from the pain.
To win the case, Perry had to go against the corrupt LAPD, and to guess that he was some pariah in the halls of justice would be an understatement.
We met a man who was buzzing through life. Not quite dead and not alive either.
His days were occupied with civil cases he wasn’t interested in defending, and nightmares marred his nights.
Della had to step up to ensure the firm didn’t go under.
One way to do that was to switch from criminal to civil law, and the case we found them in the middle of was a prime example of why he hated practicing civil law.
Della: You’re the one who suddenly wanted to give up criminal law and go civil. This is civil.
Perry: You’re the one who said civil law is what kept firms in business. I’m just being practical.
It paid the bills, but at what cost?
In the case of Mr. Grice vs. Mr. Patel, it was clear that Patel had not done anything wrong. The man had raised the sales for Mr. Grice’s shop in astronomical percentages and was underappreciated.
One could argue that he was also wrong for opening a shop similar to Mr. Grice’s, but the evidence was thin. If Mr. Grice had relied on his talents, it was rational that those same talents would bear the same results.
But Mr. Grice was in the wrong. The man was greedy.
I’m fighting for my life, and I need fighters by my side. Now, I thought you were that man, but maybe I was wrong. Because fighters kill. You don’t seem to have it in you to finish the job. Do I need to find another fighter?
Mr. Grice
He made outrageous demands that he knew Patel would be unable to meet, and even after his attorneys advised him, he went against them.
That was daylight robbery, and it was what he wanted.
The case highlighted what Perry detests. There was no justice in that. There was no clear evidence that justice could be met. It was the word of a powerful man against a poor man. And as is always the case, the powerful man emerged on top.
Being in the front-row seat — quite literally — of such proceedings and outcomes was a great source of stress for him.
The only way he could remain sane was by tuning it all out such that Della had to make objections on his behalf.
As he went through that crisis, new players established themselves in the city.
We met an ambitious young father who couldn’t quite get from under his own father’s control.
He was not perfect by any means.
In the first scene, he had just finished participating in an extreme sexual act with a prostitute a short distance from his children and wife.
I’m not sure what he did or what he was into, but it appeared that he had hurt that woman seriously. Not to kink shame, but if my guess is correct, it is very weird to choke someone with a belt to the extent they can’t swallow water. Even worse if they didn’t consent to it.
He was behind the fire in the boat speakeasy, and that being the final days of the Prohibition Era, the victims had little to no recourse, less legally.
His most ambitious plan, however, was bringing a baseball team to Los Angeles. No controlling father was going to stop that.
Some people are ahead of their times, and Brookes was one of those people. He had grand ambitions of fortune once he introduced people to something they didn’t know they wanted.
Just because Perry blew one case of police corruption wide open doesn’t mean corruption ended. Brookes was in bed with some quite dangerous people — corrupt cops. He used them under the promise of enriching them.
Most responsibilities of running the firm had fallen on Della’s shoulders. She prepared and sought potential cases, met with potential plaintiffs, prepared arguments for cases, and, when need be, objected in court despite not being a lawyer.
She was also not thrilled with the state of things, but the firm seemed to be developing, so that was a small price to pay for success.
Apart from playing mommy to Perry, she had to sit through endless meetings and listen to spoilt people go off about the most stupid stuff.
In one such meeting, she met someone.
The sparks flew from the moment she and that lady laid eyes on each other, and oh my god, weren’t they cute together?
Anita: Well, I’ve given any number of cards to women in powder rooms. Unless you are that graceful honey, about 5 foot 7 with steel blue eyes as deep as the Arabian sea. Perhaps I vaguely recall.
Della: Yes, well, that’s a relief. Because besides the excellent typeset of your card, nothing much about you made much of an impression on me at all.
As a queer relationship in the early 20th century, it has the potential to end badly, but I’m still going to hold out hope for as long as possible.
We also checked in on Paul, who had lost his job in the police department.
He was roped into following an individual in which the police are interested, but that rarely ends well.
The biggest shocker was Brookes’ murder. Given how much screen time he had gotten, his death was sudden and unexpected. I expected him to last much longer.
“Chapter Nine” did a great job of getting us up to speed with this universe after over two years, interestingly connecting both seasons and setting up the conflict for the rest of Perry Mason Season 2 without revealing too much.
The 1930s looked as vibrant as ever and rife with crime.
Will Perry give up on civil law and revert to his true passion in criminal law?
Who do you think killed Brookes? His father? The cops? The baseball team representatives? His wife? His sexual partners?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Denis Kimathi is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. He has watched more dramas and comedies than he cares to remember. Catch him on social media obsessing over [excellent] past, current, and upcoming shows or going off about the politics of representation on TV. Follow him on Twitter.
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