'Perry Mason' Episode 3 Review: Emily's 'guilty' confession contradicts her dissent when faced with son's death
Emily Dodson's (Gayle Rankin) contrary behavior between the time that her husband confronts her about her affair and her bail hearing at court is proof of how innocence takes a backseat to theatrics in cases that receive attention from the public.
'Perry Mason' Episode 3 begins with Emily Dodson being meeting lawyer EB (John Lithgow) and her husband Matthew before her bail hearing. EB asks both Matthew and Emily to portray a united front at the court to ensure that he has moving room when it comes to arguing that Emily is no more a perpetrator in the case of her son Charlie's death than Matthew is. However, it is not a simple case of murder. The amount of spotlight on the case has got greedy politicians and power-hungry attorneys sniffing at the case. One such power-hungry man happens to be the District Attorney, who is on the case of Charlie Dodson's murder.
Initially, the state attorney was ready to charge Matthew for kidnapping and murder of his son Charlie. The concocted reason was that Matthew was the illegitimate child of the powerful businessman Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick) who wanted to milk money from his father and so used his own son to collect cash as ransom. Detectives Ennis and Holcomb also manage to procure a witness statement that puts Matthew at his residence at the time of the kidnapping, contrary to claims that he was not home.
However, Mason had found evidence of Matthew's wife Emily having an affair with George Gannon who is suspected to be one of the kidnappers. This evidence has the State Attorney switching gears and charging Emily instead, which puts Mason and EB in a tough spot because they're the ones to release the evidence against her. Now, they will also have to represent her at court. EB feels that the only way to go about this would be by ensuring that Matthew and Emily are on the same side despite Emily having cheated on him.
Of course, that is too much to expect and Matthew ends up blaming Emily for their son's death. He clearly tells her that if it wasn't for her affair, their son would have been alive at the moment. He is also angry that he couldn't be present for the funeral of his own son and that Emily had allowed a bunch of strangers to bury their son. The argument ends up becoming a loud row and soon Emily's dissent comes across loud and clear. She doesn't agree with the fact that she is the reason her son ended up the way he did.
However, at the hearing when the judge asks her stance regarding the charges filed against her by the state, she ends up confessing very softly "guilty". This brings about a huge uproar in the courthouse with the media attending and the public taking the very nervous and guilt-ridden Emily's word for it. She seems completely out of it when she says 'guilty' and this shocks EB more than anyone.
It isn't until he shakes her up a bit and makes her repeat after him, "not guilty". Despite being a housewife with no criminal record, Emily's bail gets set at a whopping $25,000 and from the looks of it, her husband and her father-in-law do not seem interested in funding her defense team because right after the bail hearing, EB's team gets fired.
Between standing up for herself before her husband and letting herself go at the court hearing, Emily's resolve has slowly begun to dissolve and when the detectives try to force a confession out of her, it is entirely destroyed. There is no saying what would have happened if Della Street had not interrupted the torture session. Emily's only hope is Mason, who happens to be the only person chasing the right lead. He has spotted inconsistencies in Detective Paul Drake's reports and just as expected he ends up confronting Drake to learn the truth. However, he gets punched in the gut instead. Drake is being followed by Ennis to ensure that he doesn't inform Mason about how he had found evidence that pointed at traces of blood leading to the terrace.
Initially, Drake refuses to tell Mason anything because of his pregnant wife. Later, he finds the right spot to not only tell Mason what he knows about the case but also hand over the half set of dentures that he had found. This ends up becoming a key piece of evidence that could help EB prove Emily's innocence.
New episodes of 'Perry Mason' air on Sundays at 9 pm ET on HBO.