'Emperor of Ocean Park' Episode 1: One wrong move foiled Judge Garland's big plans
Contains spoilers for 'Emperor of Ocean Park'
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Forest Whitaker appears as Judge Oliver Garland in MGM+'s latest mystery series 'Emperor of Ocean Park'. The plot revolves around his complicated career as a judge and his sudden death which leads his children on a mission to search for the truth.
The opening scene of the series shows that Judge Garland has died of heart attack. As the episode progresses, we get a glimpse into a flashback from the year 2007 when the Judge was gearing up for the next innings of his life.
Judge Garland was aiming to be the next Supreme Court Justice in 'Emperor of Ocean Park'
In 2007, Judge Garland was nominated to become a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
He was quite excited as he believed that decades of his hard work would finally pay off. He firmly believed that he would get selected for the prestigious position.
On nomination day, a bunch of people protested against him, probably for one of his previous judgments.
The text on a placard read, "My body, my choice" while others called him "liar", "fascist" and "sellout". It remains unclear why people were protesting against him but we believe that his recent judgments may have been perceived biased or regressive by some people.
Despite this, the Judge believed that he was right about his decisions and bravely walked through the crowd.
What happened during nomination in 'Emperor of Ocean Park' Episode 1?
Senator Edelman seemed to be quite agitated with Judge Garland's nomination. He kept bringing up controversies from Judge's past to weaken his probability of becoming the Supreme Court Justice.
He first brought up the case of Alonso vs Secure-Tech where Judge Garland presided as the Judge. He mentioned that Garland favor in favor of the company that fired an employee who abandoned his post upon suspecting a carbon monoxide leak.
Senator implied that Garland believed company policy was more important than a person's life. Judge Garland stood by his decision, mentioning that Senator had presented his ruling in a twisted manner.
When this didn't work, Senator brought up Judge's connection with Jack Ziegler (Torrey Hanson ), a former CIA operative turned criminal.
Judge Garland eventually failed at the nomination and it sadly became the most memorable part of his career after his death.
Was Judge Garland helping Jack Ziegler in 'Emperor of Ocean Park'?
The episode doesn't explicitly mentions why Judge wasn't nominated but we can assume that it was because of his alleged connection with Jack.
The debut episode has also not revealed much details about why Judge kept in touch with Jack despite his criminal records. However, it has turned into the most intriguing part of the plot.
As mentioned by Addison, Judge Garland was loyal but he wasn't stupid. In the upcoming episode, we hope to find more about what the Judge was up to and if Jack was involved in his death.
'Emperor of Ocean Park' Episode 1 is now available to stream on MGM+