This week’s All Rise delves into the idea of perception, both inside and outside of the courtroom.
The latest episode of the CBS crime drama takes its title from the name of a character played by Amy Acker (Suits, Person of Interest). Georgia Jennings first meets Judge Lisa Benner (Marg Helgenberger) outside her dry cleaners, then resurfaces as the professor leading a special seminar that questions the value of witness testimony in trials.
Jennings preaches the idea of “unconscious bias” and that it influences the way judges interpret the behavior of people in their courtrooms. Viewers can decide for themselves whether or not they agree with her, but that’s the strength of All Rise; the show presents an idea, not an absolute. This episode, though, is a bit more blunt than most.
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That storyline directly connects with the case of the week, where Emily Lopez (Jessica Camacho) has to disprove the testimony of two eyewitnesses as she tries to defend an accused jewelry store robber while Mark Callan (Wilson Bethel) is suddenly thrust into prosecuting the case with all of two hours of prep time.
Emily hammers the jewelry store owner, with an assist from Judge Benner, who also questions how the woman could have seen the defendant’s birthmark. (For those wondering, she is legally allowed to do so.) Suddenly, Benner is consulting Georgia on the robbery case; this would hold more weight if she wasn’t also obviously flirting with her. The romantic subplot undercuts the value of the professional discussion, and it’s not a shocker when Benner acquits Emily’s client, either.
There’s a fair point to be made here about biases (both conscious and unconscious) and All Rise takes a good swing at it; however, it would have been more effective if the show had dug into that more, or at least not intertwined it with Benner’s personal life.
In the “interesting but also creepy” department, Mark also gets a call from the mysterious person who provided him the damning video in the Deputy Rashel case—informing him that there will be another package. It’ll be intriguing to see how far All Rise wants to stretch that, considering there was so much potential beyond that one case.
The package doesn’t turn up until the closing moments, and it’s a list of names with no context, one of which is Luke Watkins (J. Alex Brinson).
That’s something meaty that has the potential to be topical and emotional—especially if you saw the teaser that followed this episode—which is something that “Georgia” doesn’t nail. All Rise has established a great balancing act where it gives enough to both its issues and its characters, and generally is able to service all if not most of its cast in every hour.
This episode was a little too singular; however, that means there’s going to be a lot to go through when the series returns from its post-basketball hiatus. And we’re going to get the whole rest of season 2 uninterrupted, which is a major plus.
All Rise airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. The series will return April 12 after the conclusion of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.