But he doesn’t realize that the biggest possible problem is coming to fruition: Jimmy Baxter knows that Kofi wasn’t the one who ran over his son, because his son died on October 9 and Kofi was asked to steal the car on October 10. The possible silver lining to this damning piece of evidence is that it appears to come from the car that was waiting behind the Volvo at the gas station, and Michael was able to take a shot of that car before erasing the surveillance footage. (But at least he adds two bankers to the list of people noting his suspicious behavior!) His one countermove is to have the burner phone traced to the Algiers neighborhood, but an attempt to call the blackmailer’s bluff fails when he’s shown footage of his son at the gas station. Do you know where he is now?” Later, a blackmail offer arrives, asking for $222,000, which Michael discovers he can’t withdraw from the bank on so little notice. The text messages read: “This is your new phone, Judge. While overseeing court, Michael keeps hearing the bleeping of a cell phone, which annoys him right up to the point where he realizes it’s coming from the drawer next to him. Incredibly, the newest threat may be the weakest. Last time Your Honor dug the Desiatos this deep a hole was the moment that Kofi paid a visit to Carlo Baxter in jail, and the writers got them out of that pickle simply by having Kofi killed. All he has are his connections, which would seem to be powerful enough to get him out of trouble, but in fact are making things worse for him. At this point in the narrative, Walter White would be crafting improvised explosive devices or busting out a vial of ricin, but Michael doesn’t have that scientific know-how at his disposal.
But oh what a tangled web has been weaved by Michael’s deceptions, and he doesn’t even realize the full extent of just how badly things are going for him. Have I accounted for all the catastrophes, big and small? Probably not.
And now, Michael getting drunk with a gas station clerk in a scheme to scrub the surveillance footage and get information on a possible witness has led to impending disaster. Establishing a graveyard alibi the day after the incident has resulted in Adam’s grandmother puzzling over a very curious lie. Tasking extremely competent friends like Lee Delamere to serve as the driver’s attorney and Nancy Costello to look into the car theft has resulted in a thorough and ongoing investigation on both their parts. I’m reminded of a favorite image from Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple, where the effort to clean up a pool of blood merely ends up spreading more blood around- into the floorboards, onto clothing, into the sink.Įvery single effort to cover up the crime has backfired: Using political backchannels to dispose of the Volvo has resulted in the driver’s arrest and murder, the death of his mother and three siblings in an explosion, and threat of an all-out gang war. What if the Desiatos had done absolutely nothing? What if Michael simply drove home after discovering the hit-and-run victim was Jimmy Baxter’s son, scrubbed the Volvo of evidence as best he could, and simply left it at that? There’s no guarantee that people don’t find out the truth of what happened, but what we’ve learned repeatedly in this first half of Your Honor is that the cover-up has only led to greater and greater exposure.