Flashbacks Part 2
After last week’s episode, we return for another flashback-heavy slice of drama as we see the time between Aaron Wallace being imprisoned and rising up to become prison attorney. With lots of time jumps and some interesting drama, for the most part this ultimately serves to fill in the blanks as we gear up for the final push for Wallace’s freedom. Episode 10 of For Life begins moments after Wallace is found guilty in court. His Father gives him some encouraging words and pleads with him to survive, as the bus arrives to take him to prison. Wallace walks into his cell and immediately throws up as he realizes things aren’t going to be easy. After rejecting joining one of the crews inside the prison, Darius visits him and reassures his friend, telling Wallace he’ll be getting a lawyer involved. On his way back to the cell, he’s attacked by one of the inmates, Cat Green, and thrown into solitary for a week. Day 27 sees his stint in solitary come to an end but in the process Captain Foster finds potatoes in his cell. Wallace takes the blame for the contraband to protect his cellmate and goes on to represent himself in prison court. Henry happens to be the Judge and Wallace impresses him enough to drop the charges. Only, that’s not the end of it as prison guards grab him and break his arm, with Warden Cyrus watching this unfold on the prison monitors. With Green after him and no gang inside the prison walls to back him up, Wallace makes a bold decision to go after the man and shank him. Only, when he gets to that point he’s unable to follow through when the man mentions his kids. Indebted to the Kingpin inside the prison after he helped orchestrate the shanking, Wallace is forced to apologize and strikes a deal inside, promising to get Shotgun out of solitary to square their debt. It works too but the Warden threatens him going forward from here. Day 986 sees Wallace’s lawyer refusing to continue, seeing it as a hopeless case. With nowhere else to turn and fueled by Maskins’ ascension, Wallace begins learning law. As we see him go back to his cell and start reading, we jump forward several times as we see Wallace pass the bar and praised by the other inmates. He’s also given words of wisdom by Henry who comes to help his character witness. Unfortunately Warden Cyrus is the real wild card here, prompting Wallace to gather all the influential inmates together and encourage them to write letters of complaint. After some convincing they do, and it seems to works as Cyrus is forced to pack his things up and leave. In his place is Safiya who starts making radical changes around the building. Wallace meets Safiya and thanks her for what she’s done, as the episode ends. With an episode chock full of flashbacks and segments from Wallace’s early time in prison, For Life delivers enjoyable enough drama but this week ultimately feels like a stop-gap between last week’s heavy drama and the upcoming final two episodes. For the most part For Life has been a decent enough prison drama but the two flashback episodes have slowed the momentum down quite a bit. As we approach the final act of this show, one question remains – will Aaron Wallace walk away a free man at the end? I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
