Maybe you, like me, thought it was impossible for Rusty to make any worse decisions. He already hid evidence in the trunk of his car, omitted information from his own defense team, tried to bribe Liam Reynolds into confessing, and beat the living hell out of Brian Ratzer, not to mention cheated on his wife and impregnated his mistress. But in “The Witness,†Rusty outdoes himself. In the absence of Raymond, who turned out okay after his heart attack but had to stay under observation at the hospital, Rusty decides that he will represent himself at trial.
It’s not like Judge Lyttle didn’t give him options. Even Nico and Tommy, who are doing everything they can to orchestrate Rusty’s downfall, couldn’t have thought up a plan so diabolical. In fact, Nico pushes for a mistrial — he thinks Rusty’s competence in administering CPR to Raymond while Tommy stood watching stupidly made him look “heroic.†It’s true that while Rusty, Lorraine, Tommy, and Nico wait at the hospital, the press reports on Rusty’s “act of heroism.†But that’s not enough for me to agree with Nico’s assertion that Rusty is “a pretty charming guy.†We know him better than the jury, but even then, this is the first time in public or private that Rusty has done anything for someone other than himself.
Rusty continues to (try to) redeem himself in the waiting room of the hospital. He’s kind and attentive with Lorraine; seeing his compassion, Tommy tries to replicate it, though he admits that from him, it “rings hollow.†But when have we ever seen Rusty be normal for more than ten minutes? In their meeting with Judge Lyttle, Nico and Tommy move for a mistrial; Mya and Rusty oppose the idea, and Mya offers to take over as Rusty’s attorney. Insanely, everyone laughs her off. In the last episode, Mya checkmated Tommy with one simple question and has proven her wisdom in the pretrial phase. Raymond brought her on when the case was getting too unwieldy to handle by himself. I wish I could say I don’t know why all these men underestimate her.
Nico laughs at Mya’s suggestion, which is when Rusty goes kamikaze, though he makes it seem like he’d been thinking it all along. Judge Lyttle makes it clear she thinks it’s a terrible idea for him to represent himself but allows it on the condition that if Rusty even tries to give his version of events, he’ll be “subject to full cross-examination,†the one thing that Raymond and Mya were working to avoid this whole time. On his first day as lead counsel, Rusty while in the bathroom meets Tommy, who bizarrely comes in just to wash his hands. Would it have been too on the nose to have them at the urinals together? I can’t decide. Maybe it would’ve been out of sync with the tone of the show, but I would’ve appreciated a humorous beat in the absence of my dear Raymond.
Raymond, by the way, watches Rusty go rogue — as Eugenia puts it later — at the trial from the hospital. Rusty comes in late, wearing a trenchcoat in what looks to be another suicidal move to look deliberately villainous. He shows no awareness whatsoever that he is cross-examining a twelve-year-old kid whose mother has been brutally murdered. Okay, the kid accused him of the act and continues to do so virtually daily. Michael wasn’t much nicer to his mother either — Rusty shows the texts between them, in which Michael says things like “I wish you were dead†and other such insults. At first, these sentiments don’t seem that strange for an angry kid who felt abandoned by his mother, but taken all together, they’re quite incriminating, and Rusty is not afraid to twist the knife. He ends his examination by yelling at him, “Did you kill your mother?†In a callback to when Reynolds lunged at Carolyn from his seat upon conviction, Michael’s dad — who, by the way, Rusty also accused of murdering Carolyn — leaps at Rusty but is restrained before he can get to him.
The whole thing is enough to freak Nico and Tommy out, so they decide to bring in Rigo as a witness. Against the protest that Rigo might be too decidedly in Rusty’s camp, Nico argues, “So was Eugenia. It’s about asking the right questions.†Eugenia’s loyalty to Rusty has been presented confusingly. I won’t say she turned too easily — Tommy all but threatened her job — but the relationship between her and Rusty is wishy-washy. Eugenia is an important piece in the greater chessboard of the plot, but there’s no room to develop her character, so she becomes pliable to the story’s needs and, therefore, devoid of any actual solidity. In the car with Rusty, as he tries to pry out of her what Rigo will testify to, she wonders if Carolyn had told him that she was going to keep the baby, sending him into a murderous rage. Because he is allergic to ever helping himself, Rusty tells her to get out of his car in a scary way. Not violently or aggressively, just … scarily.
For the first time, I feel like Nico and Tommy should be more confident than they are. In his cross-examination of Michael, Rusty comes off as volatile, insensitive, and emotional — he accuses this bereaved kid of murder, speaks loudly and breathlessly, and points around at everyone. He does an okay job demonstrating that there is something disturbing about Michael, but by the time Rigo takes the stand to testify to the prosecution that she had no part in the “bribe†that he offered Reynolds, he’s not exactly coming across as canny, clever, or sane.
One of my favorite Rusty moments so far is when he’s at home later that night, sitting on the edge of his treadmill and dripping sweat. He’s gripping his head in his hands, and when Barbara asks him how he’s doing, he can barely put a sentence together. “I was a little too zealous in my assertion of my innocence,†he blurts out, looking like he’s about to cry. Maybe for the first time, he looks like shit. Some readers have brought up reservations about Gyllenhaal’s casting, and I think beyond his youthfulness, part of what’s stopping his performance from resonating more completely is that he looks too put together, too good. Harrison Ford, who played Rusty in the 1990 movie adaptation, is devastatingly handsome, but he has a melancholy about him, a forlornness. When Rusty is not looking like a psychopath, he’s looking like a hot quarterback, an image at odds with the usual picture of a state attorney.
The point of the scene with the treadmill is to establish that Rusty has “gone back†to taking Ritalin (partly the reason why he looks so bad), which Barbara is concerned about, and Rusty argues he needs it in order to stay sharp. His kids are also worried about this habit, calling the fact that he’s taking the pill the day before he testifies “fucking stupid.†In my recap for episode six, which was the first to be fully devoted to the trial, I mentioned that it tends to dominate the legal thriller: once we arrive in the courtroom, we pretty much stay there, the action escalating by virtue of the circumstance. It’s a trope, not a commandment, but like all genre tropes, it serves a purpose. Learning on the last third of the second-to-last episode of a miniseries that our main character has a drug issue throws off the balance of the action — it’s either coming up now because it will come up in trial, in which case, I’d rather have the surprise element along with the rest of the jury, or it won’t come back up at all, in which case, why tell us? Like the consistent flashbacks, it’s the kind of thing that, on the surface, seems to be adding tension to the story but, in reality, is just standing in the way of the genre’s inherent narrative momentum.
Rusty ends up wired on Ritalin on the eve of testifying because he used his cross-examination of Rigo to determine his version of events, violating the one rule that Judge Lyttle had set for him. Before taking the stand, she gives him one last chance to take a mistrial, but he passes on it. Enraged, Mya storms off on him. “I’m done,†she declares after finally telling him some stuff he doesn’t want to hear. “You’re Rusty Sabich, and you can do whatever you want, right?†She says. But still, she’s too nice to him. Ahead of his testimony the following day, she calls him with advice and encouragement, and when he takes the stand, she’s there at his counsel table. Next to her is Raymond, who — cleared by his doctors — shows up in the courtroom like a fairy godmother. Even though Rusty keeps making the worst possible decisions, people do keep showing up for him, which can only mean they fully trust his innocence (or are otherwise taken by his supposed charm).
But just as Mya had predicted, there is nothing remotely salvageable about having Rusty testify. After his performance, Nico gives Tommy all he’s ever wanted: a word of validation. “That was remarkable,†he says about the composure and elegance with which Tommy obliterated any ounce of credibility Rusty had managed to establish with his heroic act. To his credit, Rusty is also implacable for most of his testimony, but then he begins to wobble — and once he wobbles, it isn’t good.
Tommy shows the video of him going ballistic on Ratzer, who emerges from the audience like an apparition. Rusty’s explanation about what led him to beat up Ratzer is fairly convincing — the extraordinarily stressful conditions of his current life have led to a loss of judgment, but it still doesn’t mean he’s a killer — but by the time Tommy brings up his scuffle with Kumagai, he’s well done for: “When tempers flared, and you grabbed [Kumagai] by the lapel, did you decide to do that, or did you just snap?†There’s no way to answer the question that won’t make him look worse. “So you snapped,†Tommy concludes as Nico smirks greasily.
Unfortunately, Tommy has a point. Taken together, “The Witness†and “The Elements,†last week’s episode, confirm his theory that Rusty is liable to snap — that’s what happened when he grabbed Barbara after she confessed to her liaison with Clifton or when he intimidated Eugenia into leaving his car. It’s impossible to not have the same up-from-your-seat reaction to Tommy’s rhetoric trap as when Mya caught him with the HR complaint. His maniacally vengeful work has been leading up to this, and he rises to the occasion; Peter Sarsgaard’s snapping fingers are still ringing in my ears. The moment is all the more resonant because it’s played straight — the courtroom scene builds tension from its inherent gravitas. The show could do with more of this and fewer flashbacks, speculations, dreams, and Rusty running on the treadmill. This is what I want: people one-upping each other in front of the bench so compellingly that I forget I ever took a side.
“What now?†Barbara asks Rusty later that night, and it’s all we can wonder about. Tommy goes home happy with himself, but his smile quickly vanishes when he gets to his house. Someone broke in — all his papers are strewn around, and though thankfully his cats are okay, the fire poker — the mysterious, elusive, mythological murder weapon — sits menacingly on his kitchen counter. A note is taped to it. It reads, “GO FUCK YOURSELF.†We did just see Rusty at home speaking with Barbara, which I think implies this Godfather-style flair isn’t his. If only cats could speak!
Addendum
• Lorraine receiving the news that Raymond will be okay in the hospital is perhaps this show’s most touching moment. Elizabeth Marvel is phenomenal as Raymond’s wife; even though she is a minor character in the show, she makes her every second onscreen a memorable one.
• “I love you,†Rusty tells Barbara when she calls to ask about Raymond in the hospital. “Yeah, bye,†she replies. Their marriage is perhaps past the point of salvation — we haven’t seen Dr. Rush individually or collectively in a while — but Rusty does put his arms around Barbara as they climb the steps of the courthouse early in “The Witness.â€
• We see some more flashbacks of Rusty and Carolyn in this episode, but the standout memory here is when, during the office’s traditional first-conviction tie-cutting ceremony, Tommy goes in to kiss Carolyn’s cheek and she dodges his touch. Remembering this, Tommy tears her tie off the wall, then his own — a bolo — and wears it as a kind of amulet the day Rusty takes the stand.
• Where is Dr. Rush? I’m still thinking about how the show set up the fact that she’s a smoker, then we never saw her again. This is one of the uncrossed-tees I’m hoping will reemerge in the finale, along with the fact that Rusty hid Kyle’s bike in his trunk and whatever freaky knowledge is in Brian Ratzer’s possession.
• I say this having not seen the finale and with a potential spoiler warning: Given that it’s taken a wide range of liberties so far, it’s impossible to say whether Presumed Innocent’s killer will match the source material’s. However, I think it’s still the most plausible option. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen or don’t remember the movie, but I think they’ll keep the killer and add an accomplice. Kyle has been awfully quiet since that picture of him on the bicycle in front of Carolyn’s house came out, and while I don’t think he would’ve done it all himself, it seems that the show is conspicuously obstructing his character. I’ve mentioned before that Jaden, who is less directly involved, gets much more airtime. Maybe they’re keeping him in the dark so that the reveal, when it comes, is more shocking. Involving Kyle in the murder would also put Rusty in a terrible and compelling situation — his son would become a casualty of his own obsessive search for justice — therefore creating buzz, anticipation, and material for the show’s now confirmed second season. It might even make him wish he had taken that voluntary-manslaughter charge after all!