Her Deadly Game

On Monday morning, the courtroom is swamped with media and spectators, but the trial starts promptly at nine o’clock. Ambrose and Keera give their opening arguments, and the rest of the first day is spent questioning the 911 dispatcher and police officers, as well as Syd Evans, Anne’s family’s attorney. With Evans, Ambrose delves into the terms of Anne and Vince’s prenuptial agreement, and Patsy cross-examines.

At the end of the day, Keera and Patsy return to the office, where Ella and Maggie are still working. Bernadette brings them dinner. Patsy reviews the day’s transcript while Keera looks at her notes on Lisa Bennet. The trial hinges on Lisa: Ambrose needs to convince the jury that Anne was alive when Lisa left the house, and Keera needs to convince them of the opposite. When she gets an email from Jack Worthing, she opens it and then calls Harrison.

When Harrison picks her up, Keera gives him another name from Jack: Phil McPherson, a wealth manager. They drive to his home, and he tells them that, unlike the others, he doesn’t recognize the name Jack Worthing. Phil worked for Vince’s wealth management firm, LWM, but left the firm after Vince threw a stapler at his head in a fit of rage. Immediately after the incident, Vince settled with him in exchange for a confidentiality agreement, but he’d never apologized. Phil also tells them that, because of how the firm is structured, Vince doesn’t have to disclose his previous conviction or any complaints about the firm. The firm thrives because Vince makes such amazing returns—Phil still doesn’t understand how he does it.

Keera and Harrison realize that Vince is a fraud. Whomever Jack is, he is sending them to these particular people to create a picture of Vince as money driven and willing to do anything to profit, a pattern that extends all the way back to his childhood. Harrison wonders if Vince’s lack of apology or remorse indicates sociopathy. Keera, however, focuses on the fact that even if Vince is guilty, the gun remains unexplained—he would’ve had to buy it ahead of time and therefore know about Anne’s call to Syd Evans.

Unable to sleep that night, Keera turns to her online chess match with the Dark Knight, whom she now knows is Patsy. She continues with her strategy of pretending to be on the defensive but knows she is close to making her move. She can tell when Patsy realizes that he’d been distracted but continues to fight, which is characteristic of him. She reaffirms her strategy for the trial—she will wait until Ambrose makes a mistake while distracting him with her seeming incompetence.

Although Lisa is scheduled to testify first thing the next morning, Ambrose puts Rossi on the stand. After lunch, Patsy cross-examines Rossi, and Keera can tell that he is at the top of his game. When he goes off script, however, she gets worried. He asks about Anne’s prescriptions, showing the jury that Anne had numerous opioid prescriptions, all from Lisa. Keera then understands her father’s strategy: He is creating an impression of Lisa as someone who overprescribed opioids for her best friend. His strategy ensures that when Lisa does testify, the jury’s perspective is shaped by this portrayal. While Ambrose tried to throw them off by switching witnesses at the last minute, Patsy has turned the change to their advantage.

Patsy asks Rossi about the crime scene: the air conditioning, the candle, the burn mark on the oven door, and the water on the floor. He also points out the awkward angle the shooter would’ve shot from and questions why the gun was left on the floor. Most importantly, he asks who the other suspects were, and Rossi names Lisa Bennet. From then on, Patsy’s questioning focuses on Lisa. He forces Rossi to admit that they had no evidence that this was the first time Anne confronted Lisa about an affair. Patsy points out that if she hadn’t known ahead of time, neither did Vince.

After a break, Ambrose calls Lisa to the stand and takes her through her relationship with Anne. Keera’s questioning focuses on the prescribed opioids, and she forces Lisa to admit that she doesn’t know what Anne would’ve done as revenge for the perceived affair.

As the trial continues, Harrison is still trying to land on a theory about how the murder occurred. In the courtroom, Patsy and Keera work well together, and Patsy is sharp, clear, and energetic. For the first time, Keera sees him as the “Irish Brawler” in the courtroom and finds his strategy brilliant. Ambrose is keeping them busy with paperwork, but Ella and Maggie handle it. At night, Keera goes home and plays chess online with Patsy.

When Ambrose calls Litchfield, the medical examiner, to the stand, Rossi is curious to see how Keera will utilize Anne’s cancer. To his surprise, she doesn’t bring it up when she cross-examines Litchfield. He doesn’t understand why, but then she remembers Ambrose coming to the station to go over the examiner’s report, something he’d never done before. After the trial concludes for the day, Rossi asks the clerk for the submitted copy of Litchfield’s report.

The day before closing arguments, Harrison still hasn’t come up with another theory. Keera is going to have to argue for reasonable doubt using the Lisa-as-killer theory. However, in her mail, she finds a large manila envelope with no return address. She is astonished by what’s inside and realizes she can win.

Keera tells Harrison about the envelope’s contents: a different version of the autopsy report, one that reveals Anne’s stage-four pancreatic cancer. Keera has a new theory: Potassium nitrate and cotton fibers were remnants of a fuse, and Lisa, knowing Anne’s diagnosis, helped her die by suicide. Keera and Patsy know that they must stall for time so that Harrison can put this final piece in the puzzle—the trial is due to end that afternoon.

Patsy sends Keera to the courtroom alone, claiming to have an idea about how to stall. Keera drags out the questioning as much as she can. After lunch, she calls Litchfield back to the stand, but Patsy is still missing.

Keera questions Litchfield, who tells her about Anne’s cancer. He also reports that Ambrose told him to remove the cancer references and resubmit his report. After that revelation, Keera prepares to call Harrison to the stand, but before she can, Patsy stumbles into the courtroom, clearly drunk. The judge clears the courtroom and calls Keera and Ambrose to her chambers. She reprimands Ambrose for manipulating the report and asks if Keera wants a mistrial, but Keera wants the trial to continue.

Keera returns to the office, convinced that Patsy has ruined both the trial and the new dynamic of the firm. Maggie and Ella both play their usual roles, claiming that he is asleep on his office sofa. However, when she goes into his office, he is wide awake and sober. He tells her that he used his reputation to stall for time. When she brings up the harm to his reputation, he says he’s ready to step back from trials and act as an advisor. Now that he has seen Keera in the courtroom, he knows she can take over the firm’s trial work.

The next morning, Keera calls Harrison to the stand. They work their way through his theory, showing a video reconstruction of the crime. It explains how Anne and Lisa created a fuse with the cotton string and stump remover and then froze the gun’s butt into a block of ice and placed it on a towel on the counter. The fuse was tied through the oven door and the gun’s trigger, and Anne held one end in each hand. She lit one end of the fuse with the candle and then tugged the other end to pull the trigger. After she was shot, the fuse burned away. Because the air conditioning was turned off, the ice melted and the gun fell to the floor, leaving a puddle of water on the counter.

Ambrose tries to undercut the impact of the video by pointing out that Anne couldn’t have done it alone, but Keera uses that to confirm that Lisa helped. She hears a sound and turns to see that Vince, at the defense table, has snapped his pen in two.