‘Presumed Innocent’ Episode 6 Recap: The Defense Collapses

To paraphrase “Pinball Wizard,” it’s a legal thriller — there has to be a twist. And so there is. Just when things seemed to be going well at Rusty’s trial, or at least as well as can be expected in the absence of a viable alternate suspect, his lawyer and friend Ray Horgan has some kind of episode. After a rambling non sequitur of an opening remark toward Carolyn Pohlemus’s estranged, angry son Michael, Ray keels over. By the look of things at the end of the Presumed Innocent Episode 6, he will not be getting up.

By now you know to expect a surprise at the end of every episode of this show, but this one’s a doozy. Just for starters, it blows up the entire case, which really had been going quite well from Rusty’s perspective. Ray baits that insanely angry medical examiner into getting insanely angry on the stand by luring opposing counsel Tommy Molto into ignoring his boss Nico’s wishes and continuing to question an obviously unstable witness. Nico doesn’t hide his displeasure…nor his suspicion that there’s something fishy about the skin evidence found beneath Carolyn’s fingernails.

In addition, Ray gets a much more staid and respectable expert to admit that the skin and saliva from Rusty found on Caroline could indicate that he kissed her rather than killed her. Audible gasps from the gallery for the alliteration there, the equivalent “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Well done, Ray!

And he masterfully defends Rusty and undermines Tommy when he takes advantage of Tommy calling up a colleague who dislikes him, Eugenia, by getting her to point out that it was Tommy, not Rusty, against whom Carolyn had filed an HR complaint. Eugenia may not have approved of the affair and may not have liked Carolyn personally, but she dislikes Tommy, who “gave Carolyn the ick,” even more. (You know…Eugenia loves Rusty, hates his enemy Tommy, and hated his lover Carolyn, and has been weirdly prominent, and sure didn’t want to testify…Hmmmm…)

About the only thing Raymond doesn’t manage to do is get the Liam Reynolds theory into the official record. Could he have weathered the storm that young Michael’s testimony was shaping up to be? A lot of it gets stricken from the record as speculation on the kid’s part, but once you hear him say “I wanted to look in the eyes of the man who murdered my mother” a few times, it’s gonna stick, even if the judge tells you not to let it. 

But director Greg Yaitanes, working off a script by Sharr White and Miki Johnson, starts planting the seeds early enough that you’re not even sure what you’re looking at until it starts happening. I’d been taking Ray’s startled reactions and angry cries of “objection!” as evidence he’d been caught by surprise, or just thought of some compelling new angle. It didn’t occur to me it was the start of his brain exploding. Expert work by all involved, especially actor Bill Camp. 

So what now? In the short term, it may redound to Rusty’s benefit. Quite without thinking, he rushes to Raymond’s aid, first performing CPR, then holding his terrified wife Lorraine as EMTs use defibrillators on him, to no avail. The jury will see all of this. They’ll remember it. 

Good thing, too, because Rusty is not covering himself with glory anywhere else. At home, it’s a miracle Barbara is staying with him, especially after he responds to her admission that she kissed Clifton the Ph.D bartender by actually getting briefly physical with her. But all she does is skip a day of testimony she’d likely have skipped anyway. Even so, juries notice that kind of thing too. Also, she’s crying on the shoulder of Lorraine, who already believes Rusty killed Carolyn. How’s she gonna feel about him now?

Presumed Innocent is a good-looking show in a non-ostentatious way, and that’s true throughout this episode. Little moments like Barbara and Rusty hugging in their living room. Tommy returning home and displaying genuine, uncomplicated happiness as he hugs his adorable orange cat. Jaden clinging to Rusty almost for dear life. The almost expressionistic positioning of Rusty, Mya, Ray, and Barbara for the camera in their meeting discussing Barbara’s demeanor in court. It’s nice to feel rewarded for watching.

There’s something else emerging from this trial, if it wasn’t already apparent: Rusty and Carolyn are kind of unpleasant people, at least under certain circumstances. There’s the affair, of course, but beyond that, Rusty has an explosive temper and a lack of boundaries. Carolyn rubbed colleagues the wrong way, hid evidence, and abandoned her child, who has some choice words for that decision even as he’s testifying in hopes of putting Rusty away for her murder. 

That’s the king about magnetic people like Rusty and Carolyn: They’ll repel some people just as surely as they attract a lot more. The mystery here is which category of person is responsible for what happened to Carolyn? Someone who found her unbearable, or someone who found her irresistible?

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.