Your Honor Season 2 Premiere Recap: Grief Can Be a Prison — Plus, Grade It!

Your Honor‘s Michael Desiato is still reeling from last season’s tragic ending as Season 2 opens — but as he soon learns, things can always get worse.

Sunday’s premiere finds Michael rotting away in a prison cell (!), haggard and scrawny and sporting a wildly unkempt beard. He’s so grief-stricken over the death of his son Adam, he has no will to live. He won’t even eat, so the prison staff has to force-feed him a vitamin shake by sticking a tube through his nostril and down his throat. (Ew.) A prison therapist encourages him to find a way to “learn to live with it,” but a catatonic Michael has no desire to even try. In a flashback to the night of Adam’s death, we see that the shooter Eugene managed to evade the pursuit of a chasing Carlo (his intended target), and Jimmy’s daughter Fia was left shellshocked by her boyfriend’s shocking demise.

As the cops searched for Eugene, Big Mo assured Jimmy the kid’s attempt on Carlo’s life wasn’t a sanctioned hit, but Jimmy still wanted Eugene handed over to him. Big Mo sent her men out to find Eugene, and once they did, they left him locked up in a storage unit. Back in present day, Michael gets a visit from assistant U.S. attorney Olivia Delmont (Rosie Perez). She knows Michael conspired with Jimmy to rig Carlo’s murder trial — ah, so that’s why Michael is in prison — and she wants his help in bringing down the Baxter crime family. Michael doesn’t have anything to offer, though; at this point, he just wants to die in peace.

Carlo goes out looking for Eugene and gets taken captive by Big Mo’s men, and she calls Jimmy letting him know his son has gone rogue. He warns her to “tread very carefully” — sounding like Walter White! — but she emphasizes she’s just trying to avoid an all-out gang war, with her men eventually returning Carlo unharmed. Michael’s mayor pal Charlie is in hot water, too: Adam’s murder has voters worried about crime right before an election, and a staffer warns him his poll numbers could drop if he doesn’t nip this case in the bud.

Fia visits Michael in jail, telling him she sent him a bunch of letters he never answered and asking him if Adam actually loved her. Michael says he doesn’t know, but Adam was “a terrible liar,” so if he said it, it must have been true. He pleads with her to leave him alone, though, and his grief haze leads him to volunteer for a prison rodeo where he sits with other prisoners in a bullring playing cards while a huge bull stomps around them. The bull charges at Michael and hits him so hard, he flies through the air — although it doesn’t kill him, like Michael was seemingly hoping.

Carlo and Gina prod Jimmy to go after Eugene, but Jimmy plays it cool: “Patience is not inaction, and violence is not a demonstration of strength.” Little Mo hauls Eugene out of the storage unit and puts him on a bus out of town with a wad of cash, later telling Big Mo that he got away. Big Mo was hoping to turn Eugene over to Charlie and the cops, but she knows Charlie needs to solve this case for his public image, so she tells him to pin the crime on someone else and she’ll make sure Eugene never shows his face again. The cops pay off a coroner to say an already dead body is Eugene’s, with Charlie crowing on TV that the killer has been brought to justice.

Olivia comes to see Michael again, telling him she can get him released if he’ll help her investigation into the Baxters. Michael is still uninterested… until Olivia plays a recording of Michael’s confession, which implicates Charlie, too. Unless he wants his friend run out of office and facing jail time, Michael needs to get onboard. Next thing we know, Michael is walking out of prison and answering a call from Olivia on a burner phone: “You made a good decision, Michael. I’ll be in touch.” Oh, and Fia writes Michael another letter… while taking care of her newborn baby. Wait, so is that Adam’s kid?!

What’s your verdict on the Your Honor season premiere? Give it a grade in our poll, and drop your thoughts in a comment below.

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