For the People recap: Ranking the cases in Season 2, Episode 6
By Mads Lennon
This week’s episode of For the People focuses on Leonard Knox as he faces one of his most difficult cases yet and learns a harsh truth about his role model.
The cases on this week’s episode of For the People consist of: Sandra and Ted bonding over a newfound love of boxing and Jay tackling his first ever drug case with an unorthodox form of co-counsel.
Additionally, in the best-written case of the episode (and maybe show), Leonard must grapple with his own values pertaining to race and privilege in his life and in America during a challenging case against a man he idolizes. While the former two cases are serviceable, Regé-Jean Page and Leonard Knox absolutely steal the show this week. Here is my official ranking of all three cases from “You Belong Here”.
3. The case of Sandra vs. her distractions.
Ted catches Sandra being a workaholic, as per usual, and when he attempts to strike up a healthy bout of small talk, she awkwardly shuts him down. Sandra doesn’t answer questions like “what’s good?” without tying it back to her work at hand. Ted talks her into giving boxing a chance and it turns out, she likes it.
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Even though she’s married to her work, the boxing clears her head and makes her work better, which means it’s the one distraction she’ll allow. Emphasis on the word one, as she makes emphatically clear to Ted. Sandra isn’t willing to let her chemistry with him evolve into something more, she doesn’t want anything that could threaten to derail her career.
2. The case of Herbert vs. the government.
When a strange drug case falls into Jay’s lap (actually he begs for it), Jay has to take a trip to prison, where his defendant is currently housed. Herbert, Jay’s latest client, is being charged with trying to smuggle drugs after he is caught holding a tennis ball full of meth in the courtyard. Jay doesn’t believe the case will hold up in trial, especially with eyewitness testimony from one of the guards, he tries to get Herbert to take a deal.
The problem is, Jay isn’t Herbert’s only counsel. He’s also getting advice from a jailhouse lawyer named Randy who thinks his 25 years of reading law books in the prison library are equivalent or better than Jay’s years at law school.
By episode’s end, Randy does end up being helpful, he is able to get the guard to recant on his testimony and thus the case is dismissed by the prosecution. Herbert will be out of jail in 53 days! It’s a lesson for Jay, perhaps he should be a little more open-minded and willing to use the resources gifted to him. Though he got lucky this time, clearly.