Jimmy Baxter wants to be legitimate. That’s the whole point of the Baxter District, to attach his name to a seaside complex where the Baxter name can be associated with housing, education, local businesses, and a fun night out on the town. His criminal past and present would then get flushed out like toxins in the system, creating a future where he could be a true civic leader with connections to City Hall, the NOLA’s executive elite. It’s like a capitalist baptism, cleansing him of his sins.
Michael Desiato, who knows plenty about sin, has a good read on Jimmy’s aspirations for legacy. And in the middle of their conversation at the construction site, where Jimmy surprises him with a proposal to be his new “right-hand man,” Michael utters the most important line of the season: “There’s a world of difference between who we are and who we want to be.” That’s the reason why Michael, the once-proud judge known for his integrity and compassion, now hides behind the beard of shame he grew out in the clink. Because in his efforts to protect a son who would wind up getting killed anyway, he discovered some unflattering things about himself and what he was capable of doing. And though this season has been engineered as a redemption arc, he cannot be restored to the person he wanted to be. He found out who he is.
Jimmy’s sins are profoundly more egregious, of course. And yet here he is, trying to talk Michael — and himself — into believing a pathway to legitimacy actually exists for him. Never mind the sordid wheeling and dealing it took for him to secure the property or the mountain of bodies that stacked up before that as he earned the dirty capital to invest in the project. He also has a current deal going on with the Calabri family that allows him to get the financing he needs while feigning ignorance about the terms and conditions. The Calabris will have access to his ports over the duration of a multiyear construction. Whatever happens at those ports … well, that’s none of his concern, right?
In this penultimate episode of the series, Your Honor does fine work in assessing the true moral value of its characters, particularly Jimmy, who’s eager for a future in which his family can leave the past behind and live more peacefully under the law. But even given the opportunity to step into the confession booth and seek forgiveness for his sins, Jimmy cannot stop himself from lying. In an excellent scene, Fia turns up at his door asking for “one honest conversation” with her father, but he winds up approaching it with a lawyerly calculation: How honest can he be without alienating her forever? He can say that grandpa ran the mob in New Orleans and that he and her mother inherited that organization. He can say that “aspects” of the business were illegal and that he’d hurt people. But he hedges about the use of violence, saying that it was used when he “had no other choice,” and he cannot admit, under any circumstances, that he blew up the Jones family home. It has to remain a “gas leak” if he has any hope of seeing Fia again.
That talk between Michael and Jimmy on the construction site, then, feels like a meeting of equals, two compromised men who have had to lie to protect their family’s best interests. In fact, Michael kicks it off by thanking Jimmy for not telling Fia about his own mistakes because it would damage their relationship, too. “I’ve always had such a strong belief about right and wrong,” Michael tells Jimmy. “I don’t want to be the judge about that anymore.” Though Michael is trying to ingratiate himself with Jimmy in an effort to get Olivia the information she needs to prosecute him, his remarks are sincere in this moment. He’s fallen far enough to see Jimmy at eye level now, and he questions Jimmy’s road to redemption as much as his own.
In another fascinating subplot, Eugene Jones finally stands trial for killing Adam Desiato, bringing many interested parties to the court. The scene cleverly mirrors the open-and-shut murder case of Eugene’s brother, which an extremely guilty Carlo dodged with Michael, engineering a “not guilty” verdict from the bench. Eugene’s lawyer, Lee, knows her case is a loser, because her highly motivated client fired at Carlo in a public space and hit Adam instead. Her opening remarks to the jury are not about laying out a counter-narrative so much as stoking the idea that nothing they see or hear can be trusted. And given the shamelessness with which Gina lies on the stand about seeing Eugene pull the gun, she’s not wrong.
The trial opens up the possibility of combustible scandals and injustices connected to the case, given Eugene’s place at the center of [waves hands everywhere] this entire mess. But Lee’s appearance at Elizabeth Guthrie’s home at the end of the episode starts to bring the whole series neatly full circle. She comes with news that the prosecution, unhappy with the testimony of their mob-wife eyewitness, wants to add Michael to the witness list. That’s potentially damning to her already dodgy defense, despite Michael’s tarnished reputation. So what she really wants is for Michael to save Eugene by lying on the stand, bringing him right back to the court — and to that deep, deep moral abyss from which he’s tried to claw out. This is the sort of dramatic force the show has been missing most of the season. And it comes at the right time.
Beignets
• Well, it looks like Chris’s coup attempt didn’t quite have the juice. It’s not really his fault, either. There’s a scenario in which Little Mo, who has every right to be furious at his aunt for endangering and exiling him, links up with Chris and his purloined stash to launch Desire 2.0. (An idealistic venture. With quality drugs this time!) But family loyalty — and perhaps a sound understanding of Big Mo’s power — lead him to betray a man who just lost his brother to Big Mo’s tainted product. He doesn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger on Chris, though.
• It would seem obvious that an agent should text her mole while he’s riding right next to an infamous gangster, but Olivia must have missed that class.
• “I hate this place. I hate this courtroom for all it pretends to be. I hate this city in a way that only someone from New Orleans is allowed to hate it.” One of those only-in-a-TV-courtroom monologues. If it weren’t an opening statement, you’d expect the judge to say, “I’ll allow it” or “I want to see where this is going.”
• Speaking of “I’ll allow it,” it’s patently absurd for Jimmy to ask Michael to be his right-hand man, given the serious trust issues between them. But I’ll allow it.
