Perry Mason (Season 2), Episode 3 Recap & Ending Explained: After a hiatus from handling criminal cases, Perry Mason returns to his comfort zone. Now, he is fighting for justice for the Gallardo brothers, who are wrongfully convicted in Brooks McCutcheon’s death. While Thomas Milligan diligently pursues their prosecution, Perry fights for the innocent brothers with Della’s firm support.
Now that Paul has again started working for him, Mason is likely to find his groove. He still hasn’t become used to the legal formalities and the mode of conduct. However, this new case makes him excited since he is pursuing something worthwhile.
The latest episode shows him figuring out ways to make his argument strong while trying to act with the utmost decorum expected in a courtroom. Let’s dig right into what happens in the same. Spoilers ahead.
Perry Mason (Season 2), Episode 3 Recap
While on a search for Brooks’ questionable deals on the Morocco gambling ship, Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) and Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) stumble upon Detective Holocomb (Eric Lange). Luckily, Mason manages to save himself and Paul from getting killed by him. However, they get an understanding of Holocomb’s connection to the murder. The episode starts with Holocomb’s wife asking him to get one of their properties sold. They seem to need money and are looking to get out of town. She seems aware of some of his unpleasant secrets.
On the other hand, Mason calls the San Haven nursing home to get some information on McCutcheon in regard to their residency. He realizes that Brooks is not their patient. But he needs to find ways to investigate how he is connected to this facility. So, later in court, he tries to prolong the final hearing so that he can investigate it. He fights for the Gallardo brothers saying that they are being prejudiced against for being Mexican. But the judge (Tom Amandes) is not empathetic to that cause.
So Mason pleads with the jurors to hear Mateo (Peter Mendeza) and Raphael (Fabrizio Guido) separately. With Della’s (Juliet Rylance) help, he also talks about different laws to support their argument, as if it’s his second nature. While he finally gets some time until their next trial, it is much lesser than what he expected or required. Meanwhile, the Gallardo brothers find pieces of glass in prison in their food. They have to suffer inhumane treatment by other inmates for oh-so-obvious reasons.
Meanwhile, on a radio programme, a white broadcaster spews hatred against them and calls for a need for mass deportation. After hearing that, Paul learns from his brother-in-law, Morris (Jon Chaffin), that, after Perkins’ arrest, he and other black folks have lost their job since Perkins was the one actively hiring them. Paul has to bear that guilt on his conscience while fighting against another injustice amidst the hostility against non-white Americans.
In the office, Della keeps working late to sort out some files. Anita (Jen Tullock) gives her a flying visit. Sensing Della’s hesitation, she decides to take a step to form a bond with her. Since she takes that step, Della also takes one herself. In the heat of the moment, they finally kiss each other.
Mason still suffers from remorse for Emily Dodson’s death. Fighting for the Gallardos seems like his way to repent. So, he goes to prison and asks the Gallardo brothers for personal details beyond the one pertaining to the case. He learns that, unlike his early assumption, they were born and brought up in LA. They were landowners, and the city people snatched their family farm from them, who later also burned down their family house.
Compared to that, Mason recalls losing his house only due to his procrastination in paying taxes. Maybe that guilt makes him fight for them even more passionately. After forging a connection with them, he tells them about the fingerprint evidence. They deny ever being near Brooks’ car. But during that dialogue, he learns about them getting tortured by the inmates. So, Mason decides to go meet the judge for help.
The judge rants about the Japanese coming over to the USA and stealing their jobs. Unfortunately, he is caught up in the same hatred and hostility as the common folks, despite being a so-called purveyor of justice. Just through his smugness to assert his dominance, you sense his lack of openness to see the world as belonging to anyone but the likes of him. Nevertheless, Mason requests for his clients’ protection in custody from the ongoing abuse.
The judge seems to have made up his mind that the Mexicans are culprits and, thus, refuses to lend a helping hand. Before leaving, he speaks about his early career days filled with thoughts of idealism and how he got disciplined to disregard equality over the years. He sees that as maturity and Mason’s fight as naivety. Seeing the judge not playing around with words and calling out his righteousness naive, Mason retaliates and calls the judge out for his lack of compassion as someone with his position. The judge then begrudgingly provides safety for the Gallardo brothers.
The next day, Della and Mason go to meet Camilla Nygaard (Hope Davis). She is perceptive enough to realize they are there to learn her relation to Brooks. Della mentions his business dealings from the gambling ship while Della adds to it his real estate issues. Mason eventually hits a nerve in her when he asks about San Haven. She refuses to share those details but leaves him with a name – Ms. Lawson. What is the nature of Brooks’ relationship with this girl? He is about to find that out.
Mason goes to the San Haven residence to ask to meet Ms. Lawson and gets stopped by the front desk. But he tells some legal clause to make her go away and find some time to sneak into Lawson’s room. He learns that she was the sister of someone whose name starts with a ‘V.’ Before getting thrown out of the facility, Mason takes her photo. Then he brainstorms with Della and Paul her possible relation to the McCutcheon family. He knows that her name is Noreen, and she is probably in her thirties.
Mason is more confident in his theory of Holcomb killing Brooks for some money issues. Through that, he could have owned the entire ship instead of just half of it. Paul also feels confident in that hypothesis. The two lay out an elaborate story of how Holcomb could have gotten the brothers to become perfect patsies for Brooks’ murder after killing Brooks himself. Della thinks Milligan will rip them apart in court if it goes on trial since they have no evidence to support their argument. They decide to work on the same front.
Paul goes to the neighborhood where Gallardos live. He stumbles upon two kids shooting rats as if it’s acceptable. Based on that contact, Paul gets their father’s name and looks for a gun supplier from their neighborhood. He rents out all the guns to check if the bullet marks match the pictures from the evidence of Brooks’ death. As per his assumption, one of them does.
Meanwhile, beyond working on the case, Mason tries to be a better father. Even his ex-wife, Linda, seems to have agreed to move to LA to co-parent their son, Teddy. However, when she leaves him at Mason’s place, instead of helping him with his homework, Mason takes the kid out for a movie. Mason takes the kid out for a movie. Because of that, the next day, Mason has to deal with Teddy’s new teacher – Ginny Aimes (Katherine Waterston) – about Teddy’s unfinished homework. Mason says he wanted Teddy to have a day out from the stress. While speaking about that, he also reveals that he and Linda are divorced. Subsequently, Ginny lets both him and Teddy off the hook.
Lydell (Paul Raci) gets a visit from one of Brooks’ debtors called Dick Rile. He asks for Brooks’ last few payments, which Lydell agrees to repay immediately. But after that, Rile has to forget he has anything to do with the McCutcheon family. He makes it clear by thrashing a piece of skin before he leaves.
Later, Mason gets picked up by Lydell’s men, who bring him to their boss. Lydell wants him to let go of fighting this case. He implores Mason for the sake of the well-being and mental health of his children and family. Mason sees Lydel’s cry as crocodile tears and asks him directly about Noreen Lawson. Lydell understands that Mason is digging further into his son’s past. So, he brings Mason’s guilt of Emily’s death to the discussion. ‘What good did your help do to her if she eventually decided to die’ he asks. Mason does not give in to his petty efforts. So Lydell outrightly threatens to burn him to the ground.
Perry Mason (Season 2), Episode 3 Ending Explained
Back in the office, Mason shows Della a letter he received from Strickland related to Emily’s death. This was his method of revealing it to her and allowing her to suffer alone. Mason also reveals learning about it three months when she kept reaching out to him before Emily’s death. He refused to call a shrink for her, thinking those were her petty death threats for attention. He regrets all that he couldn’t do to help her through it.
Della says she understands why Mason abandoned solving criminal cases. She says he should have told her before since she is now in an equal position in the firm. He can do nothing much beyond apologizing to her. Meanwhile, Paul goes back to the gun dealer and asks whether he sold one of those guns to the Gallardo brothers.
After getting pointed a gun back by that supplier, Paul realizes that it is not just a single case. The systemic issue will continue to cause anguish to those like him because of separationists. He tries to digest what he just witnessed, even if it makes his case stronger. He feels numb by the thought of how he also partook in it, almost like this gun dealer, by being an enabler for Perkins’ arrest.
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Perry Mason (Season 2), Episode 3 Links: IMDb, Wikipedia
Perry Mason (Season 2), Episode 3 Cast: Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Shea Whingham, Justin Kirk
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