case by case apocrypha: of the devil episode 2, pt. 1
We are back once again to Case by Case Apocrypha, the series in which right now we're playing of the Devil and having a great time. I'm a huge fan of great times, so that's great for me. Last time we finished off Episode One; this week, you're not going to believe this, but we'll be starting off Episode Two. I think this one will be a two-parter but maybe it will be even longer? We'll find out! Spoilers below.
Once again this one had a pretty convenient stopping point partway through. This time it was about four-ish hours of investigation segment, and it appears that we're on our way into a trial segment. I suspect based on things people have said that this will be the only trial segment, but maybe we get to investigate more later. Who knows!
So back in Episode 0 I wondered idly if we would continue the trend of defending someone who was on trial for a murder we committed. I didn't delve into that speculation, but I did wonder somewhat about the setup. It worked in Episode 0 primarily because we had whatever the opposite of dramatic irony is going on: Morgan knew that she had murdered the victim, but we didn't, as the player, so we still got to experience the feeling of piecing together a mystery.
In this episode, we start by descending into the city's underworld (literally and figuratively) to try to pick up a mask that will apparently just brick surveillance cameras that look at it. Morgan murders the four mid-level gangsters who are holding onto it for a mysterious client, cleans up the crime scene, frames the guy they had locked up in the walk-in, assuming that their gangster pals would just do some quick street justice and the problem would take care of itself, and leaves.
Then she is pressganged into defending this guy, who, as it turns out, is a yakuza bodyguard, on the charge of five murders, including a cop. You may recall she only killed four people down there, and she probably would have known if one of them was a cop.
So we get to revisit our crime scene, do our search, gather information. Morgan is in the awkward position of already having information about the crime scene that she can't reveal to the cops; we get to do some investigation and read the clinical descriptions of the evidence along with Morgan's commentary based on what actually happened.
Oh yeah, and our cop pal, London (he's the nice one), has given us a warning message from his underworld contacts to not expand this investigation beyond the scope of trying to help our client. (Hmm. I think I take back my "I think we won't be doing more investigation in the future" assertion, actually.) Then once we're done investigating and go to bed we get visited by another member of the yakuza family, who offers us some information and cryptic advice. No one is willing to say why we were the lawyer hired for this, only why one of the in-house lawyers wasn't. That includes her.
So we go into this trial segment with the sense, as we tell London, of the opposite of deja vu: we are in uncharted waters here; there are forces moving that we don't understand; we don't even have a clear picture of what happened at our crime scene after we left. It certainly feels like our beloved serial killing gambler lawyer is rather backed into a corner, though.
Anyway, part 2 of episode 2 next week! I'll see you then, friends.