Conviction, episode eight

A woman is chiseling away at a wall. She kicks down a door and escapes into a basement. She makes her way upstairs and finds a man, dead. She flees out the door.

Wallace enters the CIU office and meets up with Hayes. They talk about the woman that went missing ten years prior that escaped that morning. Turns out another man is in prison for her kidnapping and murder. He confessed but Hayes suggests a prosecutor railroaded him. The prosecutor on that case? Sam.

Tess starts explaining the case of Sierra Macy (Allie MacDonald). She was a bit of a rebel in school and the cool young teacher befriended her. Josh Fleck (Sean Kleier) is now serving a life sentence because he lied about picking Sierra up on the night she went missing. Her blood was also found in his truck. Sam wants to be involved, the team thinks he should recuse himself but Hayes is all for him facing his mistakes, literally.

Sam and Maxine head to the prison to interview Josh. He’s angry with Sam and wants to get out. Maxine gets him to talk about the night in question.

Hayes talks to Wallace about Sam’s involvement and then Naomi and the investigation into all of his cases. Then she and Sam head to Sierra’s house. There are cameras following Sam’s every move. At the house Hayes heads in to talk to Sierra while Sam lingers and asks her mother Carla (Kathryn Erbe) how she’s doing. She smacks him. She blames him for destroying her hope.

Sierra and Hayes talk about her time in captivity. She doesn’t remember her life before. It was so different. She is fuzzy on the details of her abduction. They know that Gunther, the dead man, didn’t do it. Sam is adamant that it was Josh but Hayes finds another explanation for her blood being in his truck. She was a cutter and had done so earlier that evening.

Frankie is presenting about the blood and Sam gets even more defensive. Someone has to go reinterview the witness and he volunteers but Hayes says no and sends Tess and Maxine instead. Also, Maxine is still taking prescription pills.

They head to diner and talk to the waitress that saw Josh and Sierra together. She keeps telling them that something wasn’t right about their relationship and that she saw them leave together. Tess calls her on that because it would’ve been impossible for her to see. She admits that she didn’t, that the detective said that they needed someone to confirm it so she just said it.

Naomi comes by the office to talk to Hayes about Wallace. He is facing charges of leaking the name of a confidential witness to Hayes. She says that he didn’t and that she’s willing to take the stand and testify to that. Naomi tells her that that could get her in trouble but she says she’ll do it anyway.

Sam goes to talk to the detective that he worked with on Sierra’s case. They argue about Josh and Vince (Michael Brown) gives Sam new information. He had been accused of sexually assaulting a student at a different school. He had pleaded guilty before it was mentioned in Sierra’s case though so it was never brought to light.

Maxine and Sam are talking to Josh. They bring up the other girl and Josh admits that it was consensual. He says that she told him she was 20 and that’s why he did it. Sam goes off the deep and Josh says that Sam is just looking to keep him in jail. He leaves and Maxine says that Josh is right. In her car she takes more pills.

Frankie talks to Hayes about a memory retrieval treatment that involves drugging Sierra. She agrees to it but wants to be careful with Sierra.

Wallace has summoned Hayes to talk about her testimony. She says she stole the name and he says he left it for her to find. He wants to take the deal to help her, and the CIU. She says that he will lose his political career and he says its okay with it.

Frankie and Sam meet Dr. Lorraine Maltin (Ellora Patnaik), Sierra and her mother to do the drug treatment. They walk through the night of her abduction. She pieces it together and remembers being put in a trunk and then kept at a house for a few days before ending up at Gunther’s.

Sam is at a bar drunk texting Hayes. She shows up and they talk about him thinking of himself as too good. She tells him to get with it. The next morning he goes to Sierra’s and talks to her mother about her boyfriend Liam. He seems to be a suspect now.

Jackson is in Hayes’ office. They talk about her helping Wallace. He thinks she’s trying to win him back. She says she wants him to owe her.

The team is meeting to talk about the case. Sam presents about Liam and has new information on him. He might have sold Sierra to Gunther. Hayes says to bring him in.

Liam (Trent McMullen) talks about his time living with Sierra. He calls her a mess makes it pretty clear that he thought she got what was coming to her. Sam accuses him of selling Sierra. He lawyers up. Tess asks how the interview went and then she and Sam talk about facing mistakes and making them right.

Wallace is talking to someone from the state’s attorney’s office about taking the deal. Hayes interrupts and says that she got the name from an anonymous letter that she traced back to a paralegal that is now dead. How convenient. She’ll have to take the stand.

Sam goes to see the waitress at home. She invites him in.

Maxine talks to Tess about Liam. He looks less like a suspect, especially when Frankie brings in evidence pointing at someone new. The waitress.

Sam is starting to talk to the waitress when he hears chimes, much like the ones Sierra remembered hearing when she was first kidnapped. The waitress is involved. And when Sam realizes that and turns around she has a gun pointed at him. She confesses and seems about ready to pull the trigger when the police, including Maxine come in and arrest her.

At the prison, Sam tells Josh what happened. Josh is still upset though. People will still think he was involved and he blames Sam for stealing ten years of his life. He gets out and the media is waiting, as is Sierra. She hugs him.

Maxine is in her office when Sam comes in to thank her for saving his life. He admits he needed a wake-up call. He offers to listen if she ever wants to talk. After he leaves, she takes another pill.

Hayes goes to visit Wallace. She realized he was manipulating her all along. He was promised something else and she presses until he admits it was a federal judge position. Naomi interrupts. The state’s attorney is dropping the case. Cause for celebration. She invites Hayes to stay but she’s not interested.

I felt like the mother’s boyfriend made sense as a suspect but they kept saying that he was suspicious because he had enough time to drive her to Gunther’s and make it back home which contradicts what she said about staying someplace with chimes for a few days. I’m glad it wasn’t the teacher but on the whole it just seemed dumb. Why did the waitress do it? For her boyfriend? Stupid.

Conviction, episode seven

A kitchen is set on fire. Intentionally. With someone trapped in the basement.

Maxine goes to an AA meeting. She’s been having a rough week because of the suicide in the last episode.

Wallace invites Hayes to his office. They banter about Naomi before he pitches a case to her. She agrees to it and then he mentions that there is a documentary being made about the incarcerated man and that the filmmakers will have full access. She is not interested but he pushes her.

They start to discuss the case. A man, Leo Scarlata (Jason Furlani), was accused of burning down his parent’s restaurant. Someone died in the fire. His brother proved an alibi but it was not enough. They decide to conduct interviews and research the fire. Documentary maker Paul Slatkin (Christian Campbell) needs them to keep in mind he only has one cameraman but Hayes doesn’t care.

She feels that he is exploiting Leo. They argue and when she leaves to head to the prison he tries to follow. It seems as though his privileges there have been revoked though. Vince and Rita Scarlata (Carlo Rota and Nola Martin) are present when Hayes talks to Leo. It turns out the other brother Anthony (Jason Cerbone) and Vince aren’t exactly in touch anymore.

Sam tries to talk to the judge but she is pretty convinced that Leo is where he belongs. Frankie and Maxine meet with Anthony. He is keeping the family business up and running. Frankie walks through the scene of the fire and pieces together what happened. It was deliberate, arson. He and Maxine hypothesize that the man that acted as a hero, the one who ran into the fire after hearing screams, is actually the arsonist.

The team meets to discuss Karl Wimer () as a suspect. Hayes continues to blow an airhorn so that Paul can’t film them and he eventually leaves. Then they move on to actually discussing Karl. He doesn’t have a criminal record but does have a “hero record.” This wouldn’t have been his first saved life. So “either he’s Batman or there’s no such thing as heroes.”

Paul catches up with Sam and starts asking about Hayes and then moves on to Maxine and how she handled the suicide. Sam sees quickly that Paul is manipulating his words but it’s too late. He can’t rephrase or back down.

Frankie and Tess talk to Karl. He appreciates what they are doing for Leo but says that he started the fire, and admitted to doing so in the letters he wrote to him. Hayes goes to talk to Leo again and Paul is present this time. She asks him several times and makes him swear that he didn’t start the fire. He offers to pinkie swear it.

Paul is talking to Frankie in the lab about forensics. The conversation movies to his own time in prison and he admits that Ray “saved his life.” Sam sneaks into the office that Paul has been using and goes on his computer to delete the files of his interview. While he’s doing that he finds an interview with Vince that shows a prior identical act. Paul and the brothers have been holding out on Hayes.

Hayes takes this new information to Wallace and he points out that they are trying to accomplish the same thing. Hayes says that doesn’t matter because she wants justice based on the truth. She calls both Paul and Wallace whores before leaving the office, breaking Paul’s camera in the process.

The team has another meeting and Hayes tells Tess to keep digging on Vince while she looks into the insurance payout.

Paul talks to Maxine about her time on the force and then turns to the suicide. She won’t let him turn a man’s death into entertainment and walks out.

Hayes talks to the insurance company that handles things for Vince and finds out it was laundered alright. He was in deep with gambling debts. The payout saved his life.

Vince and his wife come to the office. They deny any involvement in the fire and storm out of the office. Maxine and Sam argue about how the suicide was handled, Maxine takes a prescription pill.

Sam says that Vince’s alibi checks out but Frankie suggests a delayed trigger. He and Hayes hide out in the elevator to discuss it without Paul filming it. They have to get samples of Karl’s skin and blood from the time of the fire to see if there are chemicals present.

Wallace talks to Paul about Hayes, and running for office.

Frankie and Tess run tests on the blood samples. They clear Vince but find evidence suggesting Anthony set up his brother for monetary gain.

Maxine and Sam talk to Anthony and he reveals that Leo must have unknowingly started the fire when he was cleaning up after his cat at the restaurant.

Tess has her turn for a one on one with Paul. They talk about her work at the CIU and her testimony that got someone wrongfully convicted.

Hayes goes to visit Leo and explains that if he admits his mistake, they can argue that the fire was an accident and he can get his sentence reduced. He won’t do it though. He follows the rules and won’t say otherwise. Paul thanks her for trying to help Leo but she still thinks that she could have done more.

She is back in her office when she gets an idea. Leo follows the rules, his “chore chart” to the letter. So she checks the chart. The accident was orchestrated by the person that made the rules, Vince’s wife Rita.

Maxine questions Rita and she admits to it, though she didn’t know someone would die. Vince is done with her and the NYPD is waiting to take her into custody.

Vince goes to pick Leo up and Antony shows up as well. The brothers share a tearful reunion, with Paul filming the whole thing.

Back at the office, Hayes finds behind the scenes footage Paul left for her. It’s from Wallace’s interview. In the segment he says that he’s never met anyone like her, and he probably never will.

I’m glad they got Leo out. Was Karl actually a hero all the time though? He didn’t have any skeltons in his closet? And this documentary, what is going to come of it or will it not even be mentioned again?

Conviction is new Mondays at 10 p.m.

 

Conviction, episode six

There’s a protest. Chants of “we want justice” while police block a street. A gunshot rings out and a cop grabs her neck before falling to the ground.

A black 15 year old was “accidentally” shot and killed by police because he matched the description of a robbery suspect, Wallace announces during a news conference on television. Frankie cynical while Sam believes exactly what Wallace is saying. Hayes walks in refreshed. She’s back at her brother’s place sleeping in a bed and wants to bring out justice in their next case. She has a few options before Frankie mentions a radical black activist Porscha Williams (). Sam is opposed and Tess just wants them all to stop fighting. Hayes says they will take another look.

Sam is sent to the prosecutor while Hayes and Maxine go to meet with Porscha. She says that she was trying to work with law enforcement and saw shouting as her only way to be heard. She swears on her little girl’s life that she didn’t kill the officer.

Tess goes for coffee and a snack and seems nervous with the guy behind the counter. After paying she leaves him a tip and he thanks her. She heads back to the office and watches Frankie work on a digital recreation of the time of the shooting.

Sam talks to the prosecutor about the case, the move to Albany, the lack of color on the jury and her sentiment about the defendant’s rebellion being contagious. She doesn’t back down.

Frankie is about to head out to get more coffee when he notices that one of the eyewitnesses from the trial is not where he said he was during the shooting. He’s more than a block away. He couldn’t have seen it. He lied.

Charlie Rossmore (David Patrick Flemming) is at the office talking to Maxine and Sam. He first denies it but when they tell him he’s going to end up in jail for vandalism otherwise since there is footage of him destroying a cop car. He admits to lying and then Maxine tells him she’s going to get him locked up for perjury. She is about to notify the victim’s family when Sam points out the protesters near the front door.

Hayes goes to tell Wallace about which case they selected and finds their mutual ex- Naomi (Ilfenesh Hadera) in the office as well. Wallace tells Hayes that he knows. The protesters beat her to it and then dismisses her. Hayes suggests she and Naomi get a drink while she’s in town.

Maxine talks to the victim’s wife, who was also a cop. Ryan Blake (Nicholas J. Coleman) explains the scene and then talks about how he doesn’t work patrol anymore so that he doesn’t have to be around “those people.”

Sam talks to the other witnesses but none of them are telling the same story. Frankie, Maxine and Tess check in on the digital portrait and find another woman that looks very similar to Porscha, close enough that the witnesses could have confused them even. It looks like they have another suspect.

They bring this other woman, Layla (Jennifer Mogbock), in because she has a rap sheet herself and she says that she broke her leg when the shot was fired so she wouldn’t have had time to stash the gun. They can look into that.

Tess and Frankie talk about gunshot residue and false IDing. She explains that her aunt was murdered when she was a kid and it was her testimony that sent an innocent man to prison for five years. That man now runs a coffee cart uptown and she goes there every day. She doesn’t know what to say to him. Frankie suggests asking for forgiveness.

Hayes and Naomi talk about Wallace and the case before the conversation gets a bit more personal and they talk about their history together. They are interrupted by a phone call from Wallace. Naomi leaves.

Maxine stops Tess to tell her that Layla’s alibi checks out and Tess introduces her to Porscha’s husband and daughter. Ryan Blake staggers into the room and tries to pick a fight with the husband. Maxine stops him before it can get that far. They leave and Maxine is alone with Blake. She tells him to accept that Porscha might not be the killer and he tells her that Porscha might not be MLK and hands her a picture of their client with a giant automatic weapon.

Hayes and Maxine go to talk to Porscha about the picture and it gets heated. Maxine tries to defend herself but gets too worked up and walks out. Hayes stays for a few more minutes and finds out the coroners van was there for two hours after the shooting.

Maxine goes to see her father and talks about how difficult it is to be a mother and a cop and a black woman in America, how people only see race and she doesn’t know what to do or how to protect her son. He tells her to keep doing what she’s doing and raise him right. That’s all she can do.

The team brings in the ME and they talk about how the van’s engine trouble could have affected his findings. Turns out it was definitely a 9 mm but it might have come from behind her instead of in front. Who was behind her at the protest? Her husband.

Hayes goes to update Wallace and he agrees to let Porscha free but Naomi says no. It’s a bad idea and bad optics to let her free without catching the real killer so the release will have to wait until the killer is found.

Frankie and Tess head out to retrace the protester’s steps.They know where the officer and Porscha were standing and now can tell the trajectory of the new shot. Frankie figures it out and finds the bullet. After some ballistics testing it seems that one of the eyewitnesses, a rent a cop, might be the shooter after all.

Sam and Maxine head over to talk to George Stayner (Tony Nappo) but he runs. They corner him and try to get him to talk. He says it was an accident. He tells them he can’t go to jail. She is able to talk to him but he shoots himself in the end.

Porscha is released from prison and Maxine is there to talk to her about the people that are watching her and what she started now.

Tess goes back to the coffee cart and introduces herself but before she can get any further he makes some small talk.

Hayes tries to talk to Maxine and she admits to being a drug addict. She needs to go see her son to feel better. Hayes drinks alone and then leaves a message for Naomi while heading to Wallace’s office. She looks in and finds Wallace and Naomi together.

I feel like this show had a lot of potential. It’s topical and relevant but that might be what turned viewers off of it. It’s not much of an escape. I’m glad this one had a happy ending though. I’m happy they didn’t give up and got Porscha out. The Wallace and Naomi bit at the end was super predictable.

Conviction is new Mondays at 10 p.m.

Conviction, episode five

Hayes spent the night in her office and while she looks great after the interview, Wallace and her mother do not. Jackson is still not answering her calls and when she gets to the team pitch meeting, Maxine recognizes what she’s trying to do right away. She wants to ease her privileged guilty so she wants the most downtrodden case they can find.

Sam pitches the case of Will Jarrett (Grayson DeJesus). He went through six court appointed attorney’s and was sentenced to 40 years. He allegedly killed Debra Porter (Sarah Stevens), a woman that ran a charity that helped Will. His DNA was found at the crime scene and he lied about the last time he saw the victim.

Sam and Hayes go to the prison to talk to Will and he talks about how much love and respect he had for the Porter family. They overpaid him, kept him fed, even invited him to holiday gatherings. It was the closest thing to family he’s ever had.

Maxine goes to talk to the Porter family, husband David (Kelly AuCoin) and son Sean (Thomas E. Sullivan). She explains what the unit does and David is quick to categorize Will as an animal. He explains that they had a happy home and a loving family before Will destroyed it. Then he politely kicks Maxine.

Frankie goes to visit Rey in prison. He has an appeal coming up and wants Frankie to ask Hayes to help him. Frankie is hesitant but relents and says he’ll ask. Back at the office, he is carrying the file and Tess sees. She asks why he didn’t pitch it and he explains what it is.

Tess tells him that if its important to him he should ask Hayes but if he wants her to take a look first, she will. He thanks her. Meanwhile, the evidence for the Porter case is delivered.

Hayes goes to see Wallace. She brings him ibuprofen as a joke. He throws it out and tells her he’s done. He knew she would blow up eventually. They will continue to have a professional relationship but nothing more. She hands him a paper and leaves.

Tess and Frankie sort through the evidence. They find a bloody shoe print, size nine. Will is a size 11 but this was never submitted in court.

Hayes is still sleeping at the office. She calls Jackson and leaves an voicemail before making her way into the conference room. They are discussing the boot print. Apparently, the evidence box it was in got lost in the lawyer shuffle and that’s why it was never used. Frankie identifies the boot owner because its expensive. David Porter owned the boots.

Hayes and Frankie go to visit him. He says that they argued over Sean. His wife spearheaded sending him to boarding school. He was not on board but she said he needed discipline. Frankie insinuates before Hayes straight up asks if he killed his wife. He denies it. They bring up the boots and he says he gave them to their gardener Luis Torres (Nicco Lorenzo Garcia).

Frankie and Maxine go to talk to him. They ask him a few questions about his whereabouts and his boots before he makes a run for it. Frankie tackles him.

Hayes calls Jackson again. Still voicemail.

Sam and Maxine question Luis. He admits to seeing the body but got scared so he didn’t call the cops. He also says that he stole money and expensive things from the house and that David didn’t give him the boots. He saw them in the garbage and asked for them. He then explains that Will is guilty. He had assaulted Luis before that day and broke his arm in three places.

Hayes and Sam go to talk to Will about Luis. He says that he caught Luis robbing the Porters and confronted him. While Will was defending himself, Luis fell and broke his arm. They ask if he threatened to kill Luis and Will says that if he had done that, why wasn’t it mentioned when Luis was questioned by police.

Tess talks to Frankie about Rey’s case. She says there would be grounds for appeal because it reflects another case but there is video evidence of him committing the crime. Frankie gets defensive.

Sam and Hayes get back to the office and are trying figure out if Will or Luis is lying when Maxine interrupts. A search of the gardener’s truck has turned up what appears to be the murder weapon.

Maxine says that DNA was found on the knife. It is the murder weapon. Everyone wants to move in to pick up Luis and set Will free but Hayes slows them down. It all seems a little too convenient. She thinks that the real killer is out there and that Luis was framed too.

They decide to get Luis picked up for a 24 hour hold while they keep working the case.

Hayes calls her mother. She comes by the office and they talk about making things right with Jackson and Wallace. Her mother says that Jackson will be fine in time and suggests talking to Wallace about her feelings. She gets a call. The team found something.

Frankie got video footage from all of Luis’ clients and they find that he was in fact set up. The knife was planted and the person that put it there? Sean Porter.

Sam and Hayes talk to Sean and David Porter as well as their attorney. David says that Sean planted the knife, on orders from Will who continues to manipulate his son, even from behind bars. Hayes says that they could have Sean arrested with a sentence of life with no parole and David remarks that if she can avoid jail, he’s sure his son will be just fine.

Hayes and Frankie go to visit Will in prison. They tell him that they have the evidence and he’s excited that they are going to lock Luis up but when they tell him about the conversation with Sean and David, his story changes. He tells them he is guilty not Sean and that he deserves prison. They leave and are trying to figure out why he did that when Frankie suggests for love. Sean and Will were together and that didn’t square up with his mother’s view of the perfect family so one of them took her out. But which one?

Tess, Sam and Frankie go to the Porter house and reenact the murder. Based on the wounds and blood patterns, they deduce that Will and Sean worked together to kill Sarah.

Hayes goes to visit Will on her own. She thinks she can egg him on and get him to talk. She tells him that it was a game to Sean. Will was nothing more than a patsy and he didn’t really love him. Will gets defensive and provides them with a video evidence. The murder was premeditated and both played a part.

Hayes calls Jackson and he answers! She grovels and apologizes and he responds and then tells him about the case.

Maxine accompanies police to arrest Sean. David is resigned when she talks to him. They weren’t opposed to Sean being gay, just of his relationship with Will. He wasn’t like them and they wanted Sean to have better.

Hayes goes to talk to Wallace. Tells him they wrapped the case and then asks about the investigation. He’s brought in an investigator. An ex-girlfriend of his, and of Hayes’ too for that matter.

Frankie is waiting in Hayes’ office when she gets back. They talk about Rey’s case. She agrees to take a look but he’s not sure if Rey should get out. He says he loves him or he did but he doesn’t know what’s right. She tells him to let her know when he knows. He leaves, with the file.

This wasn’t a bad episode. They are all kind of the same and I could take it or leave it on the whole. I guess that’s why the episode count was cut. It’s only going to air eight episodes and will be done probably by the end of the month.

Conviction is new Mondays at 10 p.m., for now.

Conviction, episode four

Hayes’ arrest and the coverup are the top news story of the morning. Jackson gives her a pep talk before she heads to work. Wallace is at the office and when she asks if she’s fired he basically responds with not yet. His job is safe despite his involvement and she has to go and try to plead her case during a live primetime interview in four days.

She heads to the conference room and asks the team to present a new case. They don’t have one prepared because they thought she was being fired. Tess comes up with one though. Their first female client. Penny Price (Teri Polo) is serving a for murder. She was convicted of poisoning her son Owen (C.J. Dube).

They spend time watching her vlog and see the way her autistic son treats her but are still hesitant about how to approach the case. His death was declared the result of salt poisoning from downing a bottle of soy sauce. Tess’ belief is that the death truly was accidental.

Sam and Maxine go to visit Penny in prison. She has a bruise on her face because people in prison don’t like child killers. Sam is harsh on her as she tries to explain what life was like for her while she was raising Owen.

Hayes goes back home to prep for her interview with Jackson while Frankie and Tess go to visit Dr. Jane Soto (Sheila McCarthy) a toxicology expert that consulted on the case. She was never called to the stand. They talk to her and find out that he didn’t die of salt poisoning. He died from an injection of insulin. He was definitely murdered.

Sam is still pretty adamant that Penny killed Owen. Tess wants to find proof that she didn’t. She suggests the father Greg (Tim Guinee) and then goes to follow up on that. Jackson comes to the office to continue prep with Hayes but they are interrupted by Tess and Maxine. Greg’s alibi is false. Hayes and Tess go to visit him.

Hayes talks to Greg and he admits to having an affair while Tess talks to Penny’s daughter Emily (Molly Brown). She talks about how hard things have been but how good of a mother Penny still is. Now its on Emily to hold the family together.

They talk to Greg’s mistress, Candace (Mary Ashton) who explains that she gave Greg an ultimatum the day of the murder because she wanted a family of her own. He stormed out, well before the time that Owen died. His alibi is a bust.

The team tries to figure out if it is possible for Greg to have slipped in unnoticed but it doesn’t seem likely. Tess and Frankie head to the Price house to run a simulation. Wallace stops by the office for an update on the case, and to find out how Hayes is holding up with the interview prep.

Tess and Frankie do a mock run through of what Greg would have done that day. He didn’t have enough time to administer the insulin and get out of the house unseen. He isn’t the killer. Moreover, there is no evidence that Penny isn’t.

The team meets again. Greg has been ruled out but that doesn’t mean it was definitely Penny. They still haven’t tracked down the home health aide Eduardo Peligro (Edsson Morales). They have found someone commenting on Penny’s vlog that seems to be him though. Tess drafts a warrant to bring to a judge and Hayes goes for more prep with Jackson.

Tess gets turned down and calls Hayes, who isn’t upset about ditching prep again, to talk to the judge. Judge McCutcheon (Michael Pemberton) isn’t anti-privacy as he claimed. He’s anti-CIU but Hayes drives a tough bargain. She backs her argument up with a legal precedent and he relents.

Hayes rushes to the interview and is ready to rock and roll. Dan Harris is already on hand and he tries to rile her up and he is successful. She tries to maintain the charade but can’t do it. She eventually speaks from the heart about how she is where she is because of the privileges afforded to her based on her last name. Since she has it, she might as well use it to benefit those that don’t though right?

After reviewing his e-mails and texts, they find that Eduardo had access to insulin and that the day after Owen’s death his sister was in a diabetic coma because she missed a shot. They track down him down in East Harlem and Maxine and Hayes go to pay him a visit.

He claims that he was hoping for Owen to be moved to a facility and that he loved him like a son. He even says that his sister Jazmin (Ana Golja) and Emily were good friends. She confirms this and says that Emily would hang out at her house because it was less stressful than home. She was there the day before the murder, and knew about Jazmin’s diabetes.

Hayes crashes Emily’s visitation with Penny. She confronts her about murdering her brother and she starts to cry and confess but Penny tells her to stop talking. She that she killed Owen with the insulin shot and will tell that to any judge and any jury to save her daughter.

Hayes goes to give Wallace an update on the case. He thanks her and then dismisses her somewhat abruptly. She thinks she knows what the problem is and hands over her letter of resignation but that’s not it at all. She’s a hero on twitter for keeping it real but now Wallace is under investigation. He tells her to leave.

Hayes is leaving the office with a tree for Jackson, because extending a single olive branch wouldn’t be enough, and Tess is still there. Tess says she had to take care of her mom when she was younger after her aunt was murdered. She says that not everyone gets a second chance.

Hayes gets to her apartment building to find out she isn’t allowed upstairs. Jackson has instructed the doorman not to let her up and many of her belongings are piled in the lobby. She walks outside and starts to cry.

I thought this episode was very predictable. As soon as they established that Penny had a daughter it was easy to figure out she did it to save her mom and that Penny would take the fall for it. The fact that Wallace is so nasty to Hayes annoys me because he should’ve expected the investigation either way. Overall I was not impressed with this episode at all.

Conviction airs Mondays at 10 p.m.

Conviction, episode three

Hayes and Wallace are both walking the red carpet at a fancy event in New York. He insists on talking over her during most of the interviews. In the process he reduces the CIU to a “noble cause soundbite.” Hayes does not look pleased. She goes to the office to find a new case.

When the rest of the team shows up, the conference room looks ransacked. As they contemplate what to do, Hayes emerges from under the table, still in formal attire. She was asleep. She found a new case. A bigot that has been accused of bombing a mosque on the anniversary of 9/11. It’s a heinous crime for sure but one she is not convinced the man in jail committed it.

Sam and Maxine go to visit Rodney Landon (Mike Doyle) in prison. He claims to be a veteran opinionated professor that was seen walking his dog, not bombing anything. He maintains his hate for Muslims and Maxine thinks he is guilty. Sam, less so. He’s interested in pursuing the investigation. Hayes tells them to figure out how he got bomb residue on him, when he was picked up by police less than an hour after the bombing.

Frankie and Tess go to see Professor Peter Shaunessy (Thomas Mitchell), an expert that Frankie learned from.He’s created a replica of the bomb scene to see if residue matches, which would help prove

Hayes goes to see Wallace. She updates him on what case they’ve chosen. He doesn’t see how there could have possibly been a problem with that case. It was open and shut but he doesn’t try to stop her.

The bomber had to know the schedule of the imam and the mosque to be able to get in and out without being spotted. The bomb was rigged in a desk drawer, set to go off when the drawer was opened. When the imam came back to his office after lunch with his associates that’s exactly what happened.

Hayes visits the widows of the bombing victims to notify them of the investigation and talks to Kadisha Abdullah (Anna Khaja) about the Koran. Frankie’s test shows that the residue doesn’t match. He doesn’t think that Landon built the bomb. Tess is also skeptical though Maxine remains convinced. Sam looked into the police side of things and found one of the officers involved in the case sued the department due to pressure to close cases.

Sam and Maxine go to question the former officer Stan Sowinski (). He believes that Landon was a good collar. He actually lied in his lawsuit when he claimed he was pressured to plant evidence and rush cases. No one in the unit would’ve framed Landon, he says. They’d be more likely to bomb it themselves.

Maxine and Sam report back to Hayes. They believe him though. Hayes suggests looking into rivals that would’ve benefited from the death of the imam. Wallace storms into Hayes’ office and tells her to back of the police. As soon as he leaves, she tells the team to double down on the cop angle.

Maxine goes to see her father, John (Nigel Gibbs), and asks if he knows anyone in the unit involved. He tells her he doesn’t and she calls bull. She tells him she will find a source herself. John just doesn’t want to see a cop like her wasting her talent at CIU and while she admits it wouldn’t be her first choice, now that it’s her job she’s “not going to half-ass it.”

She is walking though a parking garage alone when a man in a ski mask approaches her from behind. She grabs him and pins him to a car before he tells her he just wants to talk. Her father sent him. He’s from the unit they are looking into.

The rest of the team can’t find a bad word about the imam anywhere. He was beloved by all. As they discuss it, Maxine comes in with inside information. The residue wasn’t planted but police had been trailing Landon for weeks prior to the bombing. At the time of the incident, they were searching his apartment without a warrant and found a journal detailing the bombing.

The journal led to picking him up so quickly, but because it was found illegally the journal, and everything that comes from it, is inadmissible in court. If they go public with this, Landon is guaranteed a new trial, without the most damning evidence, the residue.

Hayes confronts Wallace about the search. He tells her that she should have left well enough alone but she couldn’t do that. He says that Landon was picked up because he was on a watch list and was seen casing the mosque, not because of the journal. She doesn’t believe him and they argue about trust. She left him in Chicago not the other way around and he rips into her, saying she can’t trust anyone and just wants to get under their skin and be unpredictable for the sake of it. She tells him she’s just doing her job.

Hayes and Sam visit Landon in prison asking about the journal and he owns it. He says that he is protecting the country from enemies foreign and domestic. He wanted to build a bigger bomb and blow up a different mosque for a higher body count.

When the team meets, Hayes says that they need to find a way to prove that someone else is guilty because while Landon may have been planning something, it wasn’t the crime he is in prison for. Sam has had a change of heart. He sees that the unit is for “giving the finger to public opinion and defying all expectations” but Landon needs to stay in prison.

Frankie agrees with Sam and says he won’t help with this case. Hayes fires him and he says fine and starts to walk out. Tess tells him to stop. This is a good job for someone with his record and he shouldn’t lose it just because his boss is being a bitch. He sits back down.

Hayes goes to see Wallace about the team being right. Should she drop the case? He tells her that she won’t and that if they prove the conviction is wrong Landon will be released and be under 24 hour surveillance. She has an epiphany.

What if they were focusing on the religious side of things but the cause was something else? Much like Hayes’ father, the imam spent a lot of time mentoring the young women in the community, also like her father he could have cheated on his wife with them. Maybe this is not a hate crime but a wife scorned.

They get a warrant and search the house where Maxine finds the bag that Kadisha used to carry the bomb to the mosque in. There is still trace evidence. Sam goes to tell Landon what happened. As it turns out she used the guidelines on his blog for making the bomb. Landon leaves the room still ready to wage a war on Muslims.

Sam sees another prisoner when he is leaving the prison and asks to meet with him. Back at the office, Frankie thanks Tess for standing up for him. Hayes gets a call from the prison. Apparently a rumor circulated that Landon was getting out for snitching and when another inmate approaches him, Landon stabs him with a shiv. He commits a felony on camera. He’s not getting out of prison anytime soon.

Hayes thanks Wallace for his help and apologizes for “a lot of things including Chicago.” She kisses him and while they make out their phones start chiming. Hayes reads a text and tells him to put on the tv. It’s the reporter Lisa Crozier. She has footage from the holding cell the night Hayes was arrested for possession. The jig is up.

It was really predictable that Hayes would look into a bad guy after Wallace annoyed her and this vague “oh she ditched him in Chicago” thing isn’t all that compelling either. I like the rest of the team for the most part. I just don’t really like Hayes, or Wallace, which is a shame.

Conviction is new Mondays at 10 p.m.

Conviction, episode two

We open the episode to find each character going about their normal daily routine. Tess is eating a balanced breakfast. Hayes is in bed with a man (he’s alive, she checked.). Frankie is working out and Sam is being approached by a reporter about rumors that Hayes was caught possessing drugs. The reporter, Lisa Crozier (Sarah Allen), tells him that if he confirms it the job as head of team is his. He declines.

Once at the office Hayes wants everyone to pitch cases that they could potentially work on this week, especially big cases in Wallace’s rise to fame. Tess comes up with the “Prospect Three” case.

Mike Kurzman (Carl Lundstedt), Seamus Gadsen(Kaleb Horn) and Brian McKinney (Stephen Scott Scarpulla), known as the Prospect Three, are ten years into an 18 year rape and felony assault. The victim Zadie Daniels (Cassandra Freeman). After hours of questioning all three confessed to assaulting her though they later recanted.

Frankie and Sam go to the prison to speak with the three. Mike says that he was a stupid kid and confessed because he thought he was “king of the world.” Brian says he didn’t know either of the other guys prior to that night. Seamus says that everything said that night was a lie.

Hayes, Tess and Maxine watch the recorded confessions from the original questioning and find that all of the boys were fed information about a brick during the interrogation. While they discuss the information available, the team decides to question another young woman attacked that night. Harper stops by, mostly for a photo op.

Frankie and Maxine retrace the steps of the boys and Zadie to see if the timeline makes sense. It doesn’t make sense. Zadie would have been standing alone in the park for nearly ten minutes. The team is back to square one.

Harper gives Wallace a heads up on what case they are looking into. He calls a press conference so that it looks like he was aware of the plan all along and that he called for it.

Maxine and Sam track down one of the Zadie’s former coworkers, Lewis Anderson (Fred Weller). He tells them that he and Zadie had been flirting for weeks and ended up going out for drinks the night she was attacked. They had rough sex in the bar bathroom, which is how her watch, a key piece of evidence in the case, was broken.

Hayes and Maxine confront Zadie about it. She says that she didn’t know when she first woke up, that the police, nurses and everyone else told her she had been raped. She went with the story even after Lewis told her he truth because of how it would make her look.

Hayes takes the new information to Wallace and after discussing his sealed juvenile record they realize Brian might be guilty while the other two are innocent. It’s all or nothing for the release.

She presents the information to the team and leaves it to them to solve while she goes to a campaign event for Harper and figures out that the earlier visit to CIU was just to spy for Wallace.

At the office Maxine realizes that the boys weren’t all picked up together. Seamus and Mike were eight kids ahead of Brian, which gives him ample time to attack Zadie by himself. She texts Hayes the discovery.

Hayes tells the team to keep looking for evidence and Sam finds out about him assaulting his former foster sister years earlier. He was caught because the foster father found the sister’s shirt under his bed, like a trophy. In the current case he may have also kept a trophy, in this instance beads that Zadie got at the bar with her co-worker earlier that evening.

Hayes goes to the prison and talks to Brian. She gets him to confess which helps get Mike and Seamus released. Hayes goes to tell Wallace of the news and he coyly asks how he can make it up to her. She tells him to find another spy because she’s never going to sleep with someone already in bed with her mother.

Maxine talks to Tess about the case she testified at years prior. Tess made a mistake in identifying a witness but the man she accused is okay. Maxine looked into him and he’s doing well, has a coffee cart in the city, but Tess doesn’t want to hear it. She tells Maxine to mind her business.

Hayes speaks to the press, in hopes to deflect attention from Zadie because after all that happened, she is still a victim. It doesn’t help.

Sam talks to Lisa about Hayes and how Wallace thinks she’s the right choice to run CIU. Lisa promises to break the story about Hayes’ arrest with or without his help.

I liked this episode a lot more than the first one. It might be because they didn’t give it quite the happy ending that the pilot had. I was expecting every week to be an open and shut solved case with the wrongly accused going free but it is refreshing to see that that might not be the case every time.

Conviction is new Monday at 10 p.m.

Conviction, episode one

Conviction is a new show this season premiering at 10 on a Monday night after two hours of Dancing with the Stars. I know that Hayley Atwell stars as a former first daughter heading a team of people that investigate potentially wrongful convictions. Atwell is best known for her role as Agent Peggy Carter in the Captain America movies and her eponymous show that aired for only two winter seasons on ABC. The rest of the cast is a mix of people that you’ve probably seen in a movie or show at some point but don’t remember there name.

We first meet Hayes Morrison (Atwell) in lock up. She’s being told by District Attorney Connor Wallace (Eddie Cahill) that this whole legal fiasco can be swept under the rug if she agrees to head the Conviction Integrity Unit, a department comprising lawyers, detectives and forensic experts who re-examine cases where there is suspicion of wrongful conviction. He reminds her that if she doesn’t agree she will be once again disgracing the family name and ruining her mother’s election chances. Needless to say, she takes the gig.

Morrison reports to work and meets her team including Sam Spencer (Shawn Ashmore), paralegal Tess Larsen (Emily Kinney), forensics expert Franklin “Frankie” Cruz (Manny Montana) and head investigator Maxine Bohen (Merrin Dungey).

Their first case is a young, black man, Odell Dwyer (Maurice Williams) that was convicted of shooting his girlfriend by an all white jury eight years prior.

The prosecutor tells Larsen and Spencer that the jury selection was “by the book,” that only a few black people were in the pool and the judge excused them for other circumstances.

Morrison discusses her punishment with her brother Jackson, Daniel Franzese, begging him to save her but he merely points out that she owes Wallace the next three years. Spencer goes to Wallace and threatens to leave the team because he was promised the leader position. Wallace tells him to stick out until he runs for mayor and that his “loyalty will be rewarded.”

When Bohen corners Morrison about her lackluster performance as leader, she comes clean that she is only doing this because she was busted the previous night for possession of cocaine and that “this is her prison.”

When Dwyer’s mother turns up at the office she is furious at the way her son is being used as a political prop. She confronts Morrison about it and while they can’t promise he will be exonerated, they do promise to stay on the case.

The team continues to investigate and the evidence of Dwyer’s guilt mounts. He was on steroids. He tried to buy a gun. His girlfriend, Anna, was scared of him. Her mother maintains that he did it.

Wallace finds Morrison in his office that night pleading to be fired. “Remember fun, wild and transgressive is actually messy, destructive and dangerous. This unit could do good but I won’t, can’t,” she explains. She snorts a white powder substance off the desk but he confirms that it is not cocaine.

Morrison decides that she should try to bury Dwyer if they can’t save him and Cruz is not pleased. At a fundraising event for her mother Morrison dances with Wallace until her mother cuts in to point out that Wallace saved the family and that she needs to keep the job or go to prison.

After talking with Dwyer, Morrison is convinced of his innocence and the team renews their efforts to free him. Cruz and Larsen investigate the alleged time of death while the rest of the team pours over case information and comes up with another suspect.

They solve the case and prove that Dwyer was playing football at the time of Anna’s death. He is freed from prison and Wallace gets the happy ending he wished for.

I want to like this show because I like Atwell and I was a big fan of Manny Montana on the show Graceland but I don’t think I will be able to stick with this for very long. It’s super predictable and pretty cliched. Obviously Morrison will sleep with Wallace. Probably at the worst possible moment for her mother’s campaign. And she’ll get caught. It’s just trying to hard. I’ll give it another few episodes but I will probably drop it before the winter hiatus.

There is a new episode next Monday at 10 p.m.