S02.E06: Val’s Story

[Snazzy Daisy]

Quote

A divorced mom (Cobie Smulders) is the primary suspect in her ex-husband’s death.

Air Date: Nov 26, 2024

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

Hopefully this is good enough to get the taste of the last time I saw Cobie out of my mouth. #justiceformariahill

Edited November 21, 2024 by Chicago Redshirt

[AnimeMania]

Cobie Smulders as Val
Eric Johnson as Trey 
Kai Kirton as Oliver

Dina Shihabi as Jordan 
Shawn Doyle as Patrick 
Vella Lovell as Marta 

Next Episode (New Time): 2-Hour Season Finale: December 3, 2024     Fox    8pm

[Spartan Girl]

Well it was nice to finally have an episode where the main character didn’t wind up taking the rap for the guilty party.

[Starchild]

As a true crime aficionado, and especially since hearing about the case of Jane Hurshman and Billy Stafford decades ago, I agree with the concept that women who kill their husbands in self defense at a time when they are not immediately under threat should have a more nuanced assessment of their circumstances. Unless they are extremely lucky (and the vast majority just aren't), women are simply not physically able to defend themselves at the moment they are being abused, often to death. The threat of death against themselves and their loved ones for even thinking of leaving simply must figure in to any "murder" case.

That said, the resolution of this case just felt ridiculous. I know I've complained about episodes of this show ending ambiguously too often, but if this is the kind of unambiguous ending they're going to write, please just go back to being vague.

[DanaK]

Well that was different for this show. I liked it, though not quite how Val contrived to get Jordan’s case dismissed

Edited November 27, 2024 by DanaK

[Madding crowd]

I liked seeing the women supporting each other instead of being at each other’s throats. I was hoping Jordan would invite Val and Oliver to live with her in the big house while she got her bills under control. The way Jordan set up the electric thing seemed pretty complicated and not something you would pick up by watching your dad work on cars. 

[marceline]

Oliver sure didn't seem to miss his dad much, did he? His dad died and he just kept it moving. He probably had his own little plan to kill dad.😀

One of the painful things about this show is watching people do insanely stupid things. This and the road rage episode had me screaming at the stupidity. As soon as I saw Val getting that spare key, my first thought was about doorbell cameras especially in that kind of upscale neighborhood. Meanwhile I had mad respect for Jordan. Her plan was a good one. She covered well when Val came to pick up Oliver from the party.

Cobie Smulders really is underrated as an actress. This character really got on my nerves because Smulders wasn't afraid to make her annoying. 

Edited November 29, 2024 by marceline

[possibilities]

I like that they had her counselor say you have to feel your feelings and not try to bypass them and force a resolution without going through the stages.

Sometimes people do get stuck in their anger, grief, or whatever. But I have also known people who will stuff everything down, or numb themselves to get past it, and that leads to a lot of problems, too.

We need to get better, collectively as humans, at handling feelings in a healthy way instead of letting them get bent into destructive forces.

Even the abuser in this situation-- he clearly had a rage problem nobody addressed, including him, and a culture that allowed him to compartmentalize it and act charming in public and violent in private.

There are so MANY things that get shoved out of mind on our culture, probably in most or all cultures, as far as I can tell (it just varies what and how, from place to place), but stuff doesn't go away until it's actually dealt with. And then it festers and really bad shit happens.

Whether it's supposedly individual things like anxiety, addiction, battering, depression, confusion, rage, high blood pressure, headaches, or some other or larger scale thing like the stress of trying to get a job when you don't have child care, or not being able to get help when your spouse threatens to kill you, or any other widespread social problem, shit happens and when it's not able to be addressed and resolved, it gets worse.

I think the kid knew on some level what his father was. That is why he was able to move on so easily. It was reflected in his drawings, too.

[Snazzy Daisy]

Val should’ve called 911 and let them deal with it.

I know this is Val’s story but I’m drawn to Jordan instead, a more nuanced character. Am glad that in the end she stays in Oliver’s life.

On a shallow note, what happened to Eric Johnson (Trey)? He used to be so handsome.   
 

[Chicago Redshirt]

One of the better eps this season, I'd say. At least, fewer nitpicks.

Overall, they seemed to crib a lot from the general Perry Mason formula  - a super unsympathetic victim, a defendant who totally had means, motive and opportunity to carry out the murder and who puts themselves in an incriminating position, only to have the real murderer revealed on the stand through questioning and to give a dramatic confession. Maybe that's why I liked it better than most.

But one thing about Perry Mason was that those cases were unequivocally murders. It seems like it would be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not merely an accident that Val stumbled on much as she said, and that Val was guilty of anything worse than failing to report the death, terrible timing and worse judgment.

The cops, seems to me, would have no reason to go looking for the neighbor's security video (or for that matter, anyone's) since on the surface it would seem like an accidental death. Like I could buy it if there was a neighbor who went out of their way to say Val was there and proved it with the security camera.

I thought that it was going to be the case that either Jordan deliberately set up Val or that Val and Jordan plotted the murder together to exploit double-jeopardy. It was pretty telling that Jordan already knew something was up when she called and just left a message accepting that Trey supposedly was cool with Oliver going home early with Val. No way would Trey be good with that.

I thought they were going to go into a dark apple-doesn't-fall-far-from-the-tree and make Oliver be an abusive psycho brat at the end too, when he couldn't find the right colored pencil and that he was going to snap on his mom.  

It seemed weird that they went out of their way to make Val an EMT and then had her plead ignorance as to how to orchestrate an electrocution death. Seems more probable to me that an EMT could come up with a way to shock someone to death better than the average person. 

I think the thing I like best about the show is it gives work to actors I like. Good to see the one who played Heather from Crazy Ex Girlfriend as one of the rare Accused defense attorneys who had a little meat to their role (even though she technically did not actually do much to achieve the win other than listen to Val) 

Yes, Whitney from Smallville looked rough, but I'm assuming some of that at least was for the role. 

[possibilities]

This was about the happiest ending a show can have when it's a murder story.

I liked that the women showed solidarity with each other, and that the kid was not a horror like his father. 

I don't know how realistic it is, but I'm in the mood for some aspirational or inspirational storytelling lately, because the world seems so gloomy.

[TV Anonymous]

Was Valerie convicted or acquitted though, or was it just the prosecution dropped the case? Without conviction or acquittal, I do not think that the 5th Amendment applies. 

The police could have easily identified who tampered with the electrical circuitry considering that Jordan did all of that without gloves.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 1/12/2025 at 3:27 PM, TV Anonymous said:

Was Valerie convicted or acquitted though, or was it just the prosecution dropped the case? Without conviction or acquittal, I do not think that the 5th Amendment applies. 

The police could have easily identified who tampered with the electrical circuitry considering that Jordan did all of that without gloves.

Even if Val only had charges dismissed against her, they effectively have created a situation where there would be enough reasonable doubt to prevent an ethical prosecutor from trying to bring a case against her. 

It doesn't seem to me that finding Jordan's fingerprints on things in the house would be indicative of guilt. There's nothing inherently suspicious about her fingerprints on stuff in the garage since it's her garage too, and the way in which the tampering was achieved wouldn't tip its hand too much to "must have been murder."