‘61st Street’ Recap: ‘The Two Trials’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Seven of ‘61st Street’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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These days, conversations revolving around corruption and concern regarding the American Justice System focus squarely upon law enforcement and understandably so. For the past few years have exposed to everyone, the wanton corruption and systemic racism present within police precincts around the nation and of course… the actions of the worst the police force has to offer, has led to mass protests and news stories that work to expose these injustices through and through. But it isn’t enough to look at just the enforcement arm of the justice system and place all the blame upon it for corruption and the issues that we now face, when it comes to how the system treats Black people in America.
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For the courts are also part of the problem, since they hand out tough sentences to African Americans with impunity, making it clear that Black people are seen as a problem in the court’s eyes, and it doesn’t help that, lawyers, play games with people’s lives in an attempt to be seen as the next great leader of a city or a hotshot attorney, when they should be focused upon the truth. And it is our laser focus elsewhere that allows for this to persist and that is precisely why last night’s episode of 61st Street on AMC and ALLBLK is such an important story. Because ‘The Two Trials’ is a tale that squarely focused upon these problems to further shed light on the injustices that Black people face in America, and to start the conversation that needs to be had, revolving around reform of the justice system.

Which are feats this tale accomplished, by getting the trial of Moses Johnson underway. Wherein we saw those injustices firsthand. Since the District Attorney’s office, played up every stereotype imaginable, to paint Moses as some kind of bloodthirsty cop-killer, one motivated by wanton rage and a fury that made no sense. But Franklin was quick to go after that particular trope with impunity and spoke to a need to really look at the truth over theatrics and well, lies, and sticking to that mantra… not only exposed the shortcoming of the courts and the theater that it allows to persist, courtesy of lawyers that have their win and loss record, and polls and future in mind above anything else. But it actually helped him to begin to win this case. Since he made Lieutenant Brannigan look to be the racist fool he is and helped the jury to understand the games that were being played here.

But alas, easily shifting the scales of justice in Moses’ favor would indeed make this story a fantasy outright, and that’s why a pair of big problems presented themselves in this tale.  In that, Brannigan and his stooges, one of which is dating Moses’ mother, went to great lengths to suppress the bullet evidence… by switching out Detective Logan’s gun in court to put Franklin’s team on their heels, and to complicate matters further… Franklin’s push to keep the truth out there at all costs, might bring his marriage to an end. Since the recording implicating Brannigan arrived on his doorstep in the middle of the night and Martha knew that if that recording is used to win the day, the trouble it will create will hurt a great deal of people, and she cannot stand for that, leaving Franklin at a crossroads. 

However, what matters more, is that this series once again offered up deep and powerful observations about our modern world and the problems plaguing our justice system and it once again handled it in such a brilliant and direct and outright powerful manner… that the audience was undoubtedly left speechless by the end of this tale. Since this story made it clear that reforms to the system are required for problems that run deep and that so many innocent men or minor offenders have been sent to prison because of the color of their skin and the stupid stereotypes we allow to persist and well, that definitely gets a conversation going and it also leaves us wondering… how this trial is going to come to a close. Because Moses’ future now hangs in the balance of two vastly different scales, one weighed down by prejudice and lies and a painfully difficult decision. Until next time.  

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