The Hostage Taker
As we slowly head toward the season finale, All Rise returns this week with a very tense and dramatic episode; we see many of the characters in danger when a man on trial take Lola’s courtroom hostage. This also causes some important and interesting developments in relationships for some, as well as some intriguing revelations for others. Episode 16 of All Rise starts with Emily arriving at work and meeting with Sara, who tells her about the date she had the night before with guy called Ben. Mark’s case involves a psychic called Celine who has conned a lot of people, while Emily’s client Ephraim Bowles has shot at a policemen who they were trying to kick off his land. While Sherri is a little too harsh with Perry when he brings her breakfast, Lola is surprised to see Benner in court today. She is here with her son Ben, who turns out to be Sara’s date from the night before. Lola feels a little awkward as she is also meeting Attorney Jean Frost to talk to her about Benner. Lola then sits with Frost to talk about Benner and the Coopriani case she was involved in. She explains that the company bullied her clients into accepting low settlements and mentions that 6 months after the trial, an anonymous source leaked legal documents showing that the company knew they were poisoning their employees but did nothing. She thinks the lawyers of the company, including Benner, would have known about it and therefore must have hidden the evidence. During Mark’s trial, he interrogates the psychic, who soon starts to act possessed and warns that bad things are upon them as we see the lights flickering. At the same time, Lola’s trial starts but Ephraim refuses to stand up as he believes the trial is not legal and claims that his land was taken without cause. When listening to detective Perry on the stand talking about evidence of bullet holes, Ephraim becomes outraged and decides to take one of the guards hostage using his gun. The swat team and police soon arrive and start negotiating with Ephraim. He tells them he wants a helicopter and cash or he will have to start taking some action. After a while, Lola manages to convince him to release the members of the jury for now as he will still have the others to keep as leverage. After letting them go, Perry tries to take control of the situation but Ephraim quickly knocks him down. Meanwhile, Jean Fox waits for Benner in her office to give her a heads up about Lola questioning her. While in lock-down, Benner and Fox catch up on what they have been up to for the last few decades, then move on to the Coopriani’s trial as they argue about how Benner acted. The latter decides to come clean and reveals that she was the one who leaked the documents. At the same time, Mark and Luke are stuck in another courtroom with Judge Laski and discuss Luke’s relationship and what steps to take next in their trial. Back in room 802, Ephraim becomes increasingly agitated and gets ready to shoot Choi. Lola and Emily try to calm him down and eventually manage to get him to drop the gun. After this, Ephraim considers killing himself as he doesn’t see any other solution so Lola tries to talk to him about his reasons for being there. Meanwhile, Sherri tries to convince Ephraim’s estranged daughter Alice to speak to his dad. After Lola tries to make Ephraim see sense, the monitor turns on and Alice starts speaking to her dad. She asks him why he’s doing this and he replies that they took his land and everything he has. She tries to convince him to stop and tells him she still needs him. This is enough for him to hand the gun over and the police storms in to arrest him. Everyone is then allowed to leave. Mark makes sure Lola is okay while Luke is relieved Emily is safe. He tells her he loves her but before she can respond, Sara arrives and hugs her. Sherri, who had an emotional day too,visits Perry and apologises for being too harsh earlier in the day. The episode ends with Sara going for drinks with Ben while Lola is unable to reach her husband again. She breaks down in tears as she wishes she could talk to him. Heading out, she sees Benner hugging Frost goodbye and then tells her that they will pick things up later. This latest episode of All Rise was quite the refreshing one; steering away from its usual formula of weekly cases we see one of the accused taking the law in his own hands and taking the whole courtroom hostage. This was quite the tense chapter as we see Lola, Emily and Choi trying their best to keep the criminal calm while we see their friends on the other side anxiously waiting and trying to come up with a solution. This latest event has caused quite a ripple in our characters’ relationships, which was quite interesting to see evolve further. The show has managed to keep this character development going throughout its season so far and while All Rise is still not the strongest drama out there, this latest twist has certainly kept it from growing too stale. Whether the series gets picked up for a second season remains to be seen but for now, it remains a decent enough legal drama for fans of this genre.
