Cut to the smirking Larry Butz on the witness stand. The camera pans over to Payne, who asks a single question: “Mr. Butz. Is it not true that the victim had recently dumped you?” And the plot thickens! Butz, who has suddenly sprouted an absolutely fabulous set of rouge spots on his cheeks — in a shade of pink that really sets off his eyes — goes all psycho shark chompy over this question. It’s worth noting that many of the sprite animations are intended to be over-the-top, and a textual description doesn’t really do them justice. You kind of have to see psycho shark chompy to believe it.

Jesus cripes!

So Butz starts screaming about how he and this chick were still totally an item. “We were great together! We were Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony!” he insists. Phoenix, morphing from “WTF” face to “Oh Shit” face, points out that those particular romances…didn’t exactly end well. Oh, that silly Butz! “I wasn’t dumped! She just wasn’t taking my phone calls. Or seeing me… Ever,” Butz continues, causing Payne to point out that he just described a textbook example of “dumped.” Now that we know that Cindy Stone was not Butz’s girlfriend but his ex-girlfriend, she will henceforth be referred to as ButzEx. Because then I don’t have to type as much. Yeah.

Also, I’m going to guess she caught Butz doing the thing to Phoenix that resulted in Phoenix owing him a favor, and that triggered the dumping. Because I’m a recapper and I can make up my own backstory if I want and you can’t stop me!

Payne continues to drive the knife in deeper by announcing that in addition to the unceremonious dumping, ButzEx was also getting it on with other dudes. “She had just returned from overseas with one of them the day before the murder!” When Butz calmly and rationally expresses his disbelief via more chompy shark faces, Payne produces another piece of evidence — ButzEx’s passport, from her recent trip to Paris. We establish two or three more times that yes, ButzEx returned the day before the murder. I will repeat that, since it’s obviously an extremely complicated concept: she returned the day before the murder. I think we’re all clear on that now.

Through all of this, Butz looks as shocked as an adult woman being asked out by Seymour. Like, how could a hot sexy model want to date guys that aren’t goofy homosexuals? Inconceivable! Payne is not finished with his description of ButzEx’s behavior. Apparently, not only was she seeing other dudes, but she had multiple “Sugar Daddies.” Sounding rather bitter, Payne explains this concept to Butz, making ButzEx out to be a rather shallow bitch. Which might be true, but clearly Payne has some personal issues with this, most likely related to the fact that he could never manage to pick up any sugar daddies of his own. And now it’s too late! He’s already past his prime, and it’s just not going to happen for him. Alas.

Of course, Payne had something else in mind when giving this whole anti-victim spiel. He’s trying to provoke Butz into a major league freakout over the victim’s vile nature, thus proving that he murdered her in a fit of rage. It’s obvious to us that Butz didn’t have the slightest clue about his beard’s extracurricular activities before this point — he’s simply not crafty enough to lie convincingly about his ignorance. Therefore, it stands to reason that he didn’t murder her out of jealousy as Payne believes. And this is all assuming that he even had any actual interest in her, which…yeah. However, this type of outburst will do more to influence the judge than any of those silly things like facts or reasoning, so Mia warns Phoenix to prevent Butz from answering this leading question.

That doesn’t sound very pleasant from a sexual standpoint.

At this point, Phoenix gets a “choice” about how to proceed. He chooses to listen to his boss, since obviously she paid attention in her boring law school classes, and attempts to deflect the question. Pointing out what I said before about how Butz didn’t know about the sugar daddies — since if he did he would have probably tried to snag one for himself — Phoenix adds, “That question is irrelevant to this case!” This assertion is accompanied by Phoenix’s trademark Pointy Pose. Again, if you’ve ever seen a picture of or reference to Phoenix Wright, you have seen this pose. I will describe it for those of you who have never looked at a picture on the internet — basically, he thrusts his arm outward, pointing his finger in a rather dramatic and somewhat phallic manner, accompanied by the Piercing Stare of Truth.

PENIS!

Although Payne eeps at this sudden display of competence from Phoenix, Butz isn’t about to show any sort of intelligence or self-preservation here. He roars, “That cheatin’ she-dog! I’m gonna die. I’m just gonna drop dead! Yeah, and when I meet her in the afterlife…I’m gonna get to the bottom of this!” I don’t think anyone in their right mind would consider this a declaration of murderous intent. Unless, of course, he’s intending to make someone laugh themselves to death over his flagrant display of idiocy. Plus, this outburst just solidifies the fact that Butz knew nothing about ButzEx’s sugar daddies on the side. Poor Phoenix just cringes over at his podium, wondering why his butt buddy is making such an ass of himself over a stupid beard.

Unluckily for Mr. Butz, the judge totally buys Payne’s argument that Butz was motivated by jealousy. I stand by what I said before regarding “anyone in their right mind.”

Now that Payne has established this rather weak motive, he asks Butz about his whereabouts on the day of the murder. Specifically, did he visit ButzEx’s apartment? “Heh? Heh heh. Well, maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t!” Butz responds suspiciously, proving my previous statement about how he can’t lie convincingly to save his life. Phoenix, naturally, can read Butz better than anyone: “Uh oh. He went.” Now Phoenix gets another “choice.” I know that I’ll eventually get to make actual decisions in this game, but that doesn’t make this fake choice stuff any less annoying.

Well, that answers the ‘spit or swallow’ question.

I have Phoenix choose the “answer honestly” option, because he feels that open communication is important to their relationship. For some reason, Phoenix feels the need to signal Butz rather than just instruct him to answer honestly. He does this via a series of trademark poses, making it obvious that he and Butz have their own private type of sign language, since Butz understands him. How cute!

So Butz admits that he went to ButzEx’s apartment that day, which I’m sure she would have been so happy about since she’d already dumped him and all. Nothing better than exes showing up at your doorstep unannounced. The gallery erupts over this bit of testimony. This makes Phoenix feel a little better, since he’s not the only one who had absolutely no knowledge about any of the case’s details. Seriously, I can maybe, maybe buy that Phoenix would not have told Mia that he knows the defendant. That is, if I took the world’s biggest bong hit. But Phoenix is the dumbest lawyer ever if he didn’t even talk to his client about this. I can’t think of a single reason that Phoenix would not know that Butz went to his ex’s apartment on the day of the murder. So that will be your job, once again:

 Loading ...

After telling the judge to “chill,” Butz adds that his beard was not home, and therefore he didn’t even see her, let alone bash her head in with a naked man statue. Suddenly, the “Objection!” graphic appears onscreen, accompanied by someone screaming “Objection!” in a high-pitched, screechy girl voice. Um, apparently this is Prosecutor Payne. Now that we know what his speaking voice sounds like, it’s difficult to imagine anyone taking anything he says seriously. And yet the judge totally does. I think you get what I’m saying here about the judge’s level of sense. Payne elaborates on his shrill objection — he believes Larry Butz is lying. Even though, say it with me now, we know he can’t lie for shit. But wait! Payne just happens to have a witness who, um, witnessed the entire thing and can prove without a doubt that Larry Butz is the killer. Who, oh, who could this be? More importantly, why did Payne even bother to call Butz as a witness? He could have “proved” the jealousy motive and Butz’s supposed presence at the crime scene without forcing me to recap that fucking meltdown on the stand. Jerk.

The witness, the person who discovered the body of ButzEx, is one Mr. Frank Sahwit, a humble newspaper salesman. I don’t think any of you are going to be surprised when I tell you that old Frank is our murderer in the fuchsia suit. If this does surprise you, you’d probably do very well at Phoenix’s law school. More importantly, the “witness”‘s name is obviously a play on the words “saw it.” Because he’s (supposedly) an eyewitness — get it? However, I am going to once again dig deeper into the symbolism at play here. “Frank” most likely refers to another popular term for “hotdog.” And hotdogs are phallic. “Sahwit”? Well, the guy’s probably a pervy voyeur who likes to watch young, attractive men do it. How sick! Who would enjoy something like that?

See, you guys miss these hidden meanings when you get stuck on the obvious puns. Expand your mind.

On the stand, Frank moves his body from side to side in this really sycophantic manner, while keeping an equally kiss-ass smile plastered on his face. Everything about this guy screams “SUSPICIOUS!” and not just because we know he’s the killer. Because it’s that fucking obvious, you can rest assured that no one will pick up on it for a while.

First, Payne asks the guy some routine questions about his occupation — specifically, is he a newspaper salesman. “Oh, oh yes! Newspapers, yes!” Frank replies, practically adding, “And I’m totally not the real murderer trying to frame someone else for the crime! Really!” This continues to pass by the judge unnoticed. Instead, His Honor asks for Frank’s testimony about the incident.

Here’s where we encounter our first actual testimony. It doesn’t work like the question-answer system we’ve all seen on TV (or possibly in a real courtroom). Instead, the judge asks the witness to testify on a particular subject. The witness then, via a series of text boxes, tells the story. This part is fairly simple, but the game designers like to drama it up with some suspenseful and ominous music. Also, just to help us out so we don’t think the witness is, like, giving us the plot of the movie he watched yesterday, there’s a blinky “Testimony” label in the upper left of the screen. Remember, most of us didn’t go to law school like Phoenix did, so this very confusing!

Frank gives his account. In a nutshell (hee…”nut”), when he was going around inside the apartment building, selling newspapers, he saw Larry Butz leaving the scene of the crime. Because Butz left the door ajar, Frank became suspicious and had to check it out. When he looked in the doorway, he saw a dead chick on the floor. Oh noes! But he didn’t go inside at all. Since the dead chick’s phone was out of order, he used a public phone in a park nearby. He’s quite certain of the exact time of the incident: 1PM.

After this, Phoenix has a moment of crisis. “I can’t defend you against a testimony like that!” he telepathically yells at his special friend. However, recall if you will the single case-related item in Phoenix’s possession at the beginning of the trial: the autopsy report. Recall also that Phoenix supposedly read the case file multiple times within the past day or so. Given that Phoenix doesn’t know any of the details of the case, such as Butz going to the apartment or the existence of an “eyewitness,” we can probably assume by now that the case file only consists of the stupid autopsy report. Well, the autopsy report states that the victim died between 4 and 5PM. Right there, huge contradiction. Dogs could figure this one out. Shit, Shion could figure it out.

The judge asks why the phone wasn’t working, although he doesn’t ask how the witness would know this if he didn’t enter the apartment. According to Payne, there was a blackout in the apartment building at the time of the murder, and thus the victim’s cordless phone was all screwy. I know this is totally fascinating stuff, but Payne enters the blackout details into evidence, so I have to cover all of this. I don’t want to blindside you with surprise evidence later!

Speaking of blindsiding, when the judge tells Phoenix to proceed with the cross-examination, Mr. Wright hasn’t the slightest fucking clue what he’s talking about. Jesus Christ in a cravat, did he have to blow someone to pass the bar exam? I think that’s really the only explanation at this point. Obviously I’m aware that turning Phoenix into a mental vegetable is the game designers’ way of introducing the player to the game system. I just really wish they had done so in a way that didn’t make me imagine Phoenix giving sexual favors to completely unhot and probably old guys in order to become a lawyer.

Some spooky organ music that sounds like it belongs more in The Count’s castle than in a courtroom plays as Mia gives Phoenix the lowdown on cross-examinations. She’s all, “Expose the lies, dumbass!” “Lies! What?! He was lying!?” Phoenix freaks, like someone just told him he accidentally had sex with a vagina. With much more patience than I have, Mia explains — slowly, as if to a mentally handicapped child — that if his client is innocent, then the witness has to be lying. She also proves herself a much stronger person than I by not screaming “DURRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!” in his face.