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Perry Mason and the case of the intentionally ambiguous finale - The A.V. Club

Perry Mason and the case of the intentionally ambiguous finale - The A.V. Club

Perry Mason and the case of the intentionally ambiguous finale - The A.V. Club
Aug 10, 2020 2 mins, 9 secs

It’s fitting that the finale for Perry Mason’s first season begins (or nearly does) with misdirection.

Ennis snarls and sneers, and it all seems to be going surprisingly well, but all the while, Della and Burger trade looks in a manner so indiscrete that it’s easy to assume Barnes will cotton on to the fact that Burger is a supporter of the newly-formed Mason And Associates.

Except that’s the whole deal with Perry Mason, or at least with the versions of him that existed before this one.

Perry Mason loves to get a person on the witness stand; he moves the pieces around, gets into the minds of those involved, hoards information, fudges things here and there, and waits for the opportunity to drop the truth like a mighty gavel.

That Perry Mason doesn’t want to see charges dropped; he wants to win in court to make sure his clients are freed for good and to make sure the true culprit is revealed in the end.

The cleverest thing about this gripping, if cumbersome, finale is its willingness to play with audience expectation, and that’s not limited to what we expect of the Perry Mason of yore.

But it’s worth acknowledging that for all this episode’s interest in the tension of ambiguity, there’s an awful lot of resolution (this would make a solid series finale, had things played out differently.) After their confrontation last week (and earlier in the episode), Perry summons some grown-up impulses and finds a way to bid Lupe an appropriate and warm farewell.

And of course, the big news is the official opening of Mason And Associates, destined to be called Mason And Street.

And of course, it’s revealed that Perry had Pete bribe a member of the jury—and then we learn that there were three holdouts, not one.

Now that all the shouting’s done, it’s hard not to feel a bit like Sister Alice and Tatiana Maslany were both a bit underutilized this season; there’s no bigger surprise in this episode than the fact that she’s not even a factor in the final days of the trial.

“You can have all the truths on your side,” Perry tells Pete earlier in the episode, “but if you can’t prove it, if you can’t hold it in your hand, it don’t exist.” And that’s exactly where, after that excellent final scene, we leave things for Alice—with God, with Perry, with herself, with the truth, with the future.

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