Perry Mason (Season 2) Episode 5: Earlier, we saw Perry Mason fall into a dilemma about the Gallardo brothers’ case. Since the brothers confessed to shooting Brooks, Perry felt cheated. He started questioning whether he was fighting for justice or not.
Thanks to Della and Paul bringing him back on track, the latest episode shows them fighting for their clients by finding the weak spots in the prosecution’s case. As always, there are repeated attempts to silence him and to deny basic human dignity to his clients. Still, the defense council stays loyal to the Gallardo brothers while often treading on murky waters.
*spoilers ahead*
Perry Mason (Season 2) Episode 5 Recap:
Perry Mason’s Chapter Thirteen revisits the past of the Gallardo family members. Raphael (Fabrizio Guido), Sofia (Stephanie Hoston), and Mateo (Peter Mendoza) visit an empty lot at the Brooks stadium. They recall the times they lived there and have fond memories of it. That’s where Mateo asked for Sofia’s hand in marriage. He promised to create good memories in their future together. However, back in the present, he contemplates its futility.
Meanwhile, other lovers from the narrative enjoy their newfound romance. Della (Juliet Rylance) wakes up in bed with her new love and keeps ringing Perry’s (Matthew Rhys) house phone to remind him to be at the court. He picks up none of her calls while being busy swooning over Ginny Aimes (Katherine Waterston). Soon after, Ginny zaps him out of his fantasy world, and he recalls that he needs to fight for his clients who are guilty of their crimes.
Frank Finnerty (John DiMaggio) is persistent in his work to malign Perry’s image as per Lydell’s (Paul Raci) orders. While he tries to sway public opinion against Mason, Thomas Milligan (Mark O’Brien) passionately makes a case against the Gallardos and highlights how the city lost a promising man (aka Brooks). Milligan’s strategy is to use the all-white jury’s inherent prejudice against these brothers while conveying Brooks’s death as a tragic loss. Then Perry takes the stage and calls out the trials to be a ‘racist witch-hunt.’ He introduces the possibility that someone else could have wanted Brooks killed.
Later on, Paul (Chris Chalk) goes to meet Councilman Vincent Taylor to speak about his sister – Noreen’s case. Paul asks about her relation to Brooks and gets told about an accident. Paul continues to dig deeper and questions how the stadium issues fit into this equation. Vincent refuses to share the truth and instead insults him. That insult makes Paul even more confident about their connection.
In the next court hearing, the prosecution invites Brian Walsh (Brian Gattas), a city bus driver who drove the route that the Gallardos frequently traveled from. Milligan manages to establish a timeline and get a story out from Brian – where the Gallardos come across as the obvious suspects. Since the jury buys into it, Perry questions the accuracy of Brian’s claims. He shows the jury how most of Brian’s verdict was speculative.
Outside the courtroom, Perry tells Sophia and Luisa (Onahoua Rodriguez) that they need to look for other possible suspects. The women already had someone in mind. Flashback to the last episode’s ending – Sophia found a cache filled with cash under a car. Luisa shows it to Perry, and he decides to look for those who forced the brothers to murder Brooks.
Back at his office, he brainstorms with Paul and Della about who could have hired the Gallardos for murder. Earlier ‘robbery gone wrong’ argument never sat right with him. Paul considers Detective Holcomb a possible suspect, while Perry considers Taylor as the suspect. Taylor has a motive for revenge for his sister’s present condition. Besides, he has the power as a councilman to hire the Gallardos as the perfect patsies while keeping himself safe. Despite Perry’s passionate plea for this theory, Della considers it a conjecture. Still, Perry wants to follow this lead at least as a roadmap for their investigation.
Back in court, the prosecution asks for a brief recess with the defense council. Hamilton Burger (Justin Kirk) proposes a bargain deal where the Gallardos will get life imprisonment in San Quentin without an option for parole. They only have to plead guilty and agree to get their verdict to be broadcast on the radio. Perry smells something fishy in Hamilton’s sudden urge to show compassion. On the other hand, Milligan remains needlessly arrogant about their side and does not like this deal either. Still, as the DA, Hamilton offers it as a one-time and a better deal than a death penalty sentence.
Perry and Della start thinking about who would have threatened Hamilton for him to go soft all of a sudden. Perry goes to the prison to speak with the Gallardos. That’s when Raphael reveals that the McCutcheon stadium was built on the land where their families used to live once. The police dragged them out overnight, saying that they were trespassing on the McCutcheon family property. Their houses were burnt, which ended some of their lives.
Perry tells the brothers about the DA deal, and Raphael rejects it. He is willing to share the name of the person that hired them. Mateo sees a possible threat in doing so, but Raphael considers the possibility of justice. Anyhow, Perry calls Hamilton and tells him that the brothers won’t take the deal. While Milligan starts riding on the horse, already considering it his win, Hamilton brings him back to the ground. Unlike vain Milligan, he believes that Perry must have something bigger in store to reject their solid deal.
Meanwhile, Perry learns that a man named Ozzie Jackson hired the brothers. He says that this person will be recognized by his feet since he always wears sneakers. So, Paul asks Morris (Jon Chaffin) whether he saw it around his workplace. Morris confirms that Ozzy was a part of Perkins’ crew.
So, Paul enters Perkins’ establishment and first establishes a connection with this gangster. Perkins shares his recent legal troubles, because of which, he now finds men snooping around in his work for no reason.
After making him feel eased up to speak, Paul comes back to the topic of Ozzie and his relation to Brooks’ murder. He wants Perkins to share the middleman’s name, who paid Ozzie to get the job done. He uses the photos of Perkins with Ozzie to manipulate him into finding the man at the earliest. If not, he threatens to get the word out to the DA about Ozzy’s relation to him and to get him imprisoned.
Meanwhile, Perry keeps examining the evidence photos hoping for a flaw. When he puts his glass on a fingerprint photo, he notices that it’s a mirror image of written digits. It gives him a clue to fighting the prosecution on their fingerprint claims. Later, in the court, Milligan diligently fights his case. He tries to cut any doubt of Gallardos not being the killer. Since fingerprints are unique, he finds his argument impossible to refute.
Then Perry walks in to question Mr. Barston to accept the fact that the fingerprints on Brooks’ steering wheel could not have occurred naturally. It would have been possible only if someone had transferred them onto them. At that moment, Perry intently accuses the police or the prosecution of planting the evidence. The judge stays racist while trying to ignore Perry’s claims. But he knows that he has successfully planted a seed of doubt in the jury’s minds.
Later that night, Jen (Anita St Pierre) takes Della to a lesbian bar. Della feels an adrenaline rush since she had rarely been open about her sexuality to the world. While she tries to enjoy this romantic night, a man smoking a cigar keeps a watch on her. The same man followed Perry earlier around the Gallardos’ place. Looks like, Lydell is hellbent on keeping the defense council’s mouth shut and hoping to find dirt on them. It is highly likely that he will use Della’s identity against the defense council’s side and pollute their image in the jury’s minds.
However, not everything is morbid in this world. There’s Perry, who has finally opened himself up to a possibility of a relationship. While trying to reconnect with his family, he is also forging a connection with Ginny, albeit with a school-boyish awkwardness. There is a constant air of flirtation between them, and they both relish it in the honeymoon phase of their romance.
Meanwhile, Paul and Clara’s peaceful night gets interrupted by Perkins’ call. Paul reaches Perkins’ establishment to meet Ozzie sitting in the room. Only then does he realize the danger of threatening someone of the stature of Perkins. Paul tries to assure the man that their deal is done now that he gets to question Ozzy.
But Paul’s words do not satisfy Perkins. He makes Paul repeatedly beat Ozzy until he confesses the truth. Finally, Ozzy admits that he was hired by a man whose wife got addicted to the drugs he sold her. He received ten grand to get the job done and says that the woman drove a blue Lincoln. By then, Paul gets traumatized by what he had to do in order to get his job done. He returns home, contemplating the morality of his actions.
Perry Mason (Season 2) Episode 5 Ending, Explained:
Milligan seems too anxious that he might lose his case to Perry. So to make the defense council weaker on the court, he calls Pete (Shea Whingham) for some advantage. Through Pete, he wants to gain inside knowledge of Perry’s recent investigation. It is unclear how much Pete chooses to share with Milligan. It rests upon whether he chooses to stay loyal to his friend or to the money.
Meanwhile, Della returns home in the morning to get confronted by Hazel (Molly Ephraim), who smells her likely affair. On the other hand, Perry returns to his place and finds a sound coming from his bedroom. He walks up there to find a toy train circling around, which feels like a threat from Lydell to Perry’s son. Overall, the defense council is under fire for their call for justice in a world where ‘justice’ appears to be largely a farce.
