S02.E02: April’s Story

[Snazzy Daisy]

Quote

A nurse (Taylor Schilling) — who let her anger get the best of her — is put on trial after an incident of intense road rage.

Air Date: Oct 15, 2024

 

Other Cast — Danny Pino, Justin Chambers.

[Snazzy Daisy]

Road-Raged Driver Attacks the Woman Who Bumped His Car | Accused

 

[PupCal]

Excited to see Justin Chambers back on my screen!

[AnimeMania]

Taylor Schilling as April Harris 
Danny Pino as Jake Harris
Luca Thunberg as Wyatt Harris 
Justin Chambers as Tyler 
Carolyn Scott as Candace

[Spartan Girl]

The “victim” in this case was a douche with a capital bag. His death was as much his own fault as it was April’s. Unfortunately, because of April’s stupidity when everyone told her over and not to engage, there was no evidence to back her side of the story.

[DanaK]

Well that was a messy situation. The charges are probably the right ones because she didn’t kill him herself but she was definitely reckless when she didn’t have to be and that ultimately led to his death by accident. And he tried to kill her so if she had killed him, she might have a partial self defense story. But yeah, quite messy. She clearly had been holding a lot in

[possibilities]

She made a lot of mistakes. Leaving the gas station, following him in her car being the worst of them. The guy was an unrelenting asshole and he caused his own death by charging her after the accident and not looking for traffic, but there's no witnesses, so... maybe in addition to not engaging with raving assholes, we all ought to be wearing body cams to back up our stories.

Evenif he hadn't died, though, she was driving recklessly. That part is actually true.

We should have a better system of justice, because fines and incarceration aren't really making society better in most cases, or providing any kind of restitution for the victim's family. There's also not much prevention, so that people who are stressed out, or acting out, get interventions before the situation becomes deadly. The guy who died this episode was an accident wiating to happen, and if it wasn't her, it owuld have been someone else eventually who got sick of his behavior. He could have killed her with HIS reckless dxriving, too.

[Starchild]

So yeah, douchbag's death didn't bother me, although I did wonder how the guy who hit him didn't see these two cars spread out across the whole road. Man he barrelled through this accident scene at 90. I hope he had some charges too.

Speaking of charges, with as little support as she was getting from her hubby, I figure she could use a year's break, and she knew it lol.

[Snazzy Daisy]

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

This is more the Accused that I love/hate. Full of contrivances, misguided sympathy ploys and idiot plotting.

I am sorry but I just am not going to buy April's side of things. There is no plausible way that she goes from being so stressed out about Karev (I don't know if they bothered to give Justin Chambers' character a name or much of anything beyond "smug asshole" so Imma call him by his Grey's Anatomy name) following her and not knowing what he might do so not stopping or slowing to let him pass to being a maniac in her own right and chasing him. I don't see people in general acting like April did, not a nurse, and maybe it's sexist of me to think so, but particularly a woman. I think women are socialized for the most part different about anger and so for it to manifest itself like it was supposed to here breaks suspension of disbelief.

Karev's not much better. His logic was "I'm so pissed about the dings she made to my car I'm going to chase her at high speeds and make a number of maneuvers that in all likelihood that will leave my car even more damaged. Then when she somehow loses me, I'm going to doubleback to a gas station, which almost certainly has some surveillance cameras, and antagonize her further by kicking her door and talking smack about her. That'll show her!"

It's such a rarity for this show to have a married couple that seems to do more than tolerate each other. I think they can move away from the shrew/simp combo that we've seen a lot. 

It wouldn't have taken a lot to have made this whole scenario more plausible. Road rage incidents aren't that uncommon. They could have just drawn from an actual one more.

As for the legal stuff: they kind of skipped it for the most part, which I think is sort of odd. Even with the stretch of the facts, I think there's a potentially interesting set of defenses that they could have explored Was this a case of temporary insanity? Misguided self-defense after Karev's stalking and harassing of her? (Side note: was it ever made public what got Justin Chambers written out of Grey's?)

The way they drew up the scenario, it wasn't the actual driving that killed Karev. He was killed because he got run over by a speeding driver who for whatever reason ignored all the wreckage and the fact that there were people in the roadway in broad daylight. It seems to me (without knowing crim law in specific and without doing any research) that the act of the speeding vehicle would be altogether separate from the chain of activities April was involved in and thus she likely could not be guilty of vehicular manslaughter. I suppose if there is an equivalent to felony-murder where if you're engaged in reckless driving and someone dies, you can be held criminally responsible for that death even if it was caused by someone else.

 

[Spartan Girl]

Note to the writers: if you’re going to have a victim that’s a complete asshole, showing that they had a family had the end isn’t going to magically empathize with them. It didn’t work for the conspiracy theorist bitch last season and it didn’t work for this guy. In fact, given his behavior and how quick he was to try to strangle April, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was the kind of guy that abused his wife and kid—or at the very least had a side piece.

Edited 3 hours ago by Spartan Girl

[Chaos Theory]

The cast of this show is always really good and “Accused” is better than most at telling both/all sides of a particular issue.  
 

Road Rage is a real thing but it usually comes from some other place.  Some other stresses in your life.  That all being said April was way out of control.   Buuuut on the other side the guy who cut her off was driving like a maniac was a douchebag and it was only a matter of time before “something” happened. 
 

Side note :  Taylor Schilling’s characters really like going to prison.   

Edited 16 minutes ago by Chaos Theory

[marceline]

I actually enjoyed seeing Anger Bro get hit by that car. We don't see enough instant justice.

 

9 hours ago, Starchild said:

Speaking of charges, with as little support as she was getting from her hubby, I figure she could use a year's break, and she knew it lol.

Seriously. It looks like it would be a welcome break.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Usually the writers do a better job making the Accused seem sympathetic. April is a smug asshole in her own right. She never thought once seemingly about the consequences of her actions, how she could cost herself a job, her or Karev serious injury or their lives, leave Autistic!Son without a mother, etc.

It also seemed like almost no one cared about her. Simp!Husband wasn't even sad about losing her except as a buffer/caretaker for Autistic!Son. It wasn't like "Of course I'm distant from you! You went cuckoo for a moment and that resulted in someone dying. You're not the April I fell in love with." It's"Oh shit, now Imma have to parent this brat for a couple years solo? That's messed up." Grandma didn't have any meaningful lines. If a real-life nurse got into a road-rage incident that led to a death, I'd bet my bottom dollar that she'd have reams of letters from doctors, nurses, patients  

Putting aside the lack of plausibility in this scenario, I don't know if the apology speech was meant to reflect April's true feelings or was just her saying what she wanted the judge to hear, or what. To the extent it was supposed to be what she actually felt, it struck me as a lot of empty platitudes. 

Here's a quick attempt to script doctor:

April is working a stressful shift as a nurse, Autistic!Son's causing problems as before. This time, though, Husband refuses to pick him up, so April has to go pick Autistic!Son up. That further stresses her out and she has to deal with a boss who is pissed off at her for having to bail on a shift yet again and threatens her job if this keeps up.

On the way out, she runs into Karev and they get into a confrontation much as before. He accuses her of dinging her car. She denies it, flips the bird and drives off. She heads off and was expecting to plug her phone into the charger, but Husband took it and so she has no juice.(This makes way more sense than her not having charged the phone at home at the start of her work day).

Suddenly out of nowhere, Karev comes driving up to her, doing the road-ragey things that the show wanted him to do. Against the terror of Karev following her with his unknown intentions, April drives crazily trying to escape. In the process, she bumps him and he spins out and is injured. 

Karev lives to testify against her with a whole pack of lies that April was the one who was enraged, that she tried to kill him, and there's enough forensics to make it arguable that she caused the collision that injured Karev -- say, it was her front bumper and the back of his car that showed collision marks. The defense talks about how she's really a lovely person who was just super stressed that day. Finally she takes the stand and tries to set the record straight. In between courtroom scenes, Husband is sad about the possibility of losing her (rather than built-in child care for Autistic!Son) and apologetic to her for contributing to her stress, asks about how she's feeling, promises to love her no matter what. 

I could go either way on the verdict/sentence.

[Madding crowd]

I didn’t like this one. We didn’t get to see much in the courtroom besides the gas station attendant and nothing was said about the driver of the car that made no attempt to stop. Also nothing said about April trying to get help by calling 911 more than once. Of course she should have stayed at the gas station and I’m not sure I believe that she would have driven quite so recklessly after the jerk. 
Road rage happens but I don’t think it often happens after the perpetrator calls 911 several times. I felt badly for her son since dad and grandma don’t seem like they know how to deal with him. 
 

 

[marceline]

2 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Side note :  Taylor Schilling’s characters really like going to prison.   Is there something I am missing?  

I was thinking how Danny Pino always plays someone in a miserable marriage. 😀