The Judge is willing to humor him, despite no proof of whom the blood belongs to, and asks Edgeworth if he’s prepared to call more witnesses. He is not, as he admits he didn’t think this incident was related to the actual murder. People dress up like murder victims and try to break into their lockers on the same day as the murders all the time and it doesn’t mean anything! As the screen goes black, Phoenix blue-fonts that it is “time to call a certain Texas ranger to the stand.” Ugh, Phoenix, don’t humor that guy.
This is code for ‘Edgeworth’s ass.’
After Phoenix announces that he has a witness in mind but refrains from mentioning this person’s name, he and Edgeworth go back and forth a bit, with Edgeworth demanding to know the identity of this witness before he agrees. It’s almost like he’s worried Phoenix is going to call Larry Butz again, just to torpedo his own case in a blaze of glory. And Edgeworth can’t risk that. I am prompted to choose the correct witness, which is just unnecessary. “Why him?” Edgeworth wonders defensively when Phoenix says Jake Marshall’s name. Is he worried Phoenix is cheating on him? Or is he afraid Phoenix has found out that he’s been having some cowboy loving of his own on the side, with the man who modeled for Grossberg’s famous painting?
Phoenix, not wanting to announce his fingerprint findings, makes up something about needing to hear the security guard’s story. “The prosecution agrees to the defense’s request,” Edgeworth says, a little too quickly. Uh-oh, is Phoenix going to have to watch his man drool over some fake cowboy? “We shouldn’t need longer than 20 minutes to prepare,” Edgeworth adds, since Marshall is supposedly close by at the police department. The Judge allows a 30 minute recess, just for good measure, and now Phoenix is kicking himself now that Edgeworth is going to have a half hour of alone time to “prepare the witness.” Shit!
Out in the defendant lobby, Phoenix is faced with his scowling client, who doesn’t punch him in the nuts for his incompetence. That’s only because she’s resigned herself to a guilty verdict already. Actually, she seems somewhat impressed by him: “You called for Jake Marshall. It seems you’ve figured everything out.” Indeed he has not, and Ema points out that Lana is the one with the answers. “Why don’t you just tell us!? Mr. Wright is trying his hardest to protect you!” Ema cries. Yeah, he’s clearly got his client’s best interests at heart at all times. Ema gets pissed at Lana for being withholding, and just as things are at their most tense, Gumshoe pops up in the middle of the gathering and with a big grin on his face, and goes, “Hope I’m not interrupting anything, pals.” Once he realizes that he is, he starts to slink off until Phoenix calls him back. He doesn’t want to be all alone in the middle of a lady argument.
Through some more of Gumshoe’s enthusiastic dialogue, it’s revealed that he is there to deliver the SL-9 case files which Lana, using Phoenix’s name out of necessity, requested of him. Well, that’s a whole lot of weirdness. In this universe, it seems unlikely that Phoenix, a defense attorney, would have easy access to those documents. Especially from Gumshoe, who is clearly on Edgeworth’s side in this matter. And since I’m already bitching about this, couldn’t Lana have gotten these files to him sooner? That would have saved me a lot of exposition.
Yeah, Phoenix is going to get right on with reading that pile of books.
The documents, as you can see from the screenshot, consist of several books and large piles of papers. That is more reading than Phoenix has done in his lifetime, and he’s supposed to get through all this before the end of Lana’s trial? Right. Gumshoe must have looked at the files himself, because he mentions that he was surprised to find out Lana was a witness in SL-9. But even more surprising is what Phoenix reveals after glancing through the file — Ema was also a witness in the case. She acts confused by this until she suddenly gasps, “No, it couldn’t be… Lana! This “SL-9 Incident“… Is that…” Of course it is. “That” turns out to be the “Joe Darke Killings,” the public name for SL-9. Joe Darke? Really? They might as well have just named him “Generic Serial Killer Man.” But Ema has a strong reaction to this bland name and after screaming “no” multiple times, she runs off. No one seems the least bit concerned about this, and Gumshoe is even like, “Welp, I’ve got a date with Mr. Edgeworth’s photo and a bottle of hand lotion. See ya!”
Phoenix thinks to himself about how everyone is connected to the SL-9 case, even Ema. It’s quite unbelievable that Ema, as traumatized over this case as she seems to be, would not have caught on that this SL-9 everyone keeps talking about was the same case she was involved in. Was she just all, “Hey, I know all these people from a disturbing serial murder case two years ago, but they must be constantly talking about a different serial murder case they investigated two years ago!”? She even saw a bunch of the evidence from SL-9 — did she think it was a different broken jar and knife? Ugh, the writers are doing a terrible job with these “twists.”
“This can’t be just a ‘coincidence’,” Phoenix says out loud finally. “Knowing you, you just might be able to figure it out,” Lana lies. So she wants him to solve the case and went through the trouble of getting him the files, but she won’t actually speed up the process by telling him anything. She’s giving more mixed messages than Edgeworth.
Although it hasn’t been close to half an hour, it’s already time to head back into the courtroom to face off against Jake Marshall. First, I take a look at the SL-9 documents that Phoenix has at his disposal, expecting to have to wade through a lot of content, but there’s only enough information to fit on a single page. Either a lot of trees were killed unnecessarily, or this is the only part that Phoenix is able to read.
In addition to what we already know about the case, there is a list of victims — six names total — as well as a list of witnesses and investigators. Lana and Ema were the only two witnesses, which makes me jealous of the defense attorney who only had to cross-examine two people, and both Lana and Gant are listed as “Executive Investigators.” Several things worth noting here — first, not only is Lana the chief prosecutor at the age of 29, but she was a high ranking detective before that? And no one bothered to mention this during the many, many discussions of SL-9? Ema didn’t even let on, which is weird. Plus, how does that investigator hierarchy work? Why are there two executive investigators, but one head investigator? Why would Niceguy be responsible for the evidence storage instead of Lana or Gant, since they apparently outrank him? Oh, and one final piece of information — one of the names on the victim list is “Neil Marshall.” Stay tuned for more on this guy, since we know last names can never be shared by unrelated people.
When court reconvenes at a quarter past noon, Phoenix realizes that Ema hasn’t returned. I’m sure his only concern is that he doesn’t have a teenage girl next to him for moral support, but that’s not enough for him to actually do anything about it. He’s mainly trying to see if Edgeworth looks like he’s been ridden hard by a cowboy in the last thirty minutes. He doesn’t look sweaty or roughed up, so that’s a relief. Less of a relief to me is Edgeworth calling Jake Marshall to the stand. I was tired of this motherfucker pages and pages ago, so you can only imagine how not in the mood for him I am after dealing with Meekins and THE VIDEO.
Things get off to an unpromising start as Edgeworth asks the witness for his name and occupation. Of course Marshall turns this into a wild west metaphor, but Edgeworth smoothly finishes his sentences in a more coherent manner. Phoenix is not happy with this interaction. Eventually, Marshall’s incoherent ramblings manage to piss off the Judge who orders him to give his testimony “in English.” The language isn’t the problem here, it’s the horrible crimes he’s committing against it. And now I’m picturing the Judge as an angry Tea Party racist who just wants people learn English already or they can giiiiiiiit out. He does kind of look like one of those Duck Dynasty assholes.
But he is a screamer and spends a lot of time blowing.
I feel like I’m being unfair to the Judge here — after all, he seems fine with Phoenix and Edgeworth eye-fucking each other in front of him and manages not to sling homophobic slurs at them or give a speech about how vaginas have so much more to offer than buttholes. Anyway, onto Marshall’s first testimony, which covers his movements on the day of the crime. There isn’t much here we don’t know — Marshall was assigned to guard the evidence room but blew off work that day. According to him, it doesn’t matter because of the “two security systems” protecting the room. He kind of has a point there, although we’ve seen how well those security systems work. He also refers to the evidence room as a “bone orchard” which is pretty amazing. I feel like this is what Edgeworth will name his summer house with its sprawling lawns and well-tended fruit trees. Or it could be another gay bar.
After the testimony, the Judge remarks to Marshall, “I can’t say I particularly care for your attitude…” He clearly can’t stand the guy, and I want to give him a high five and take back all the mean things I just said about him being a crazy wingnut. Phoenix asks Marshall to elaborate on the two security systems — after all, there are technically three. The two Marshall knows about are the security cameras — more than one camera? I don’t even want to go down that rabbit hole — and the card reader. He acts confused when Phoenix asks him about the fingerprint locks. “He’s not that good with machines… or with following orders,” Edgeworth clarifies, like he knows this from personal experience. “Everyone’s got their weaknesses, now don’t they, Mr. Prosecutor?” Wow. The fact that Edgeworth is inappropriately flirting with Marshall says more about his troubled state of mind than all the worried comments from Gumshoe and Ema combined.
The cross-examination goes exactly as expected, and Phoenix’s main takeaway is that it’s a miracle Jake Marshall still has a job. Phoenix should be thankful that people in this universe aren’t fired for poor performance. We learn once again — from Edgeworth, speaking like a normal human being — that the security tapes are erased every six hours unless something strange and/or criminal is recorded. The only other piece of information not covered in the testimony is exactly what Marshall was eating at the “street-side saloon” where he was supposedly hanging out during the crime, because we really give a shit. “Not even Angel’s steak lunches can beat that parlor’s vongole sepia pasta,” he says. I had to Google this, and apparently it’s squid ink pasta with clams. While black noodles seem like something that would appeal to this game’s male cast, I just can’t get past the clams. Phoenix remarks on Edgeworth’s uncharacteristic silence, as if the prosecutor is putting all his effort into trying not to vomit.
Another pot-kettle comment from Phoenix.
Despite Marshall’s many claims that he was not in the building that day, much less the evidence room, Phoenix thrusts forward the…fingerprint data, I guess. Marshall tries to explain away his fingerprints as something that happened during the normal course of one of his rounds on a totally different day. “I only wish it were, Officer,” Phoenix lies, because he doesn’t actually give a shit, “but you see… your fingerprints were covered in blood!” That is still overstating it by quite a lot, but the Judge doesn’t know this, so he practically has an aneurysm. Same with the peanut gallery. Phoenix explains that he had to work his luminol magic like a science wizard in order to find said fingerprints, hoping that Edgeworth will be attracted to his geeky intelligence. Maybe he secretly loves nerds!
Marshall doesn’t lose his shit and strangle himself with a lasso, so Edgeworth deduces that he must have an explanation for the prints. Of course he does — this isn’t going to end without half a dozen increasingly pointless testimonies. Speaking of which, the Judge orders Marshall to testify about the fingerprints. Drinking heavily on the stand, Marshall explains that his fingerprint was on the locker for completely legitimate reasons, and the bloodstained fingerprint left by the murderer was just a coincidence. “Or didn’t you know the murderer was wearing gloves?” Marshall adds. Phoenix, furrowing his brows in a way that is just going to cause wrinkles, blue-fonts that Marshall is totally hiding something. Hopefully not the sausage with Edgeworth.
On the other hand, homo men have a lot to do with everything.
Right away in the cross-examination, Marshall establishes that the locker with his prints on it was actually his locker back when he was a detective, and he still has access to it even though he was demoted. Why would this be the case? It’s been two years since he was demoted — he wouldn’t have any solved cop killer cases that still need to be transferred. Why would he need continuous access to this locker over the years? And Marshall had no reason to question it either, because he didn’t even know about the fingerprint locks despite being in charge of the evidence room. But none of this is ever explained, probably just accepted as one more stupid fuck-up on the part of the police department.
Back to the fingerprints. While it might seem unlikely that the non-bloodstained forefinger and thumb prints just happened to line up with the other bloody half of the hand, it actually is just a coincidence as Marshall claims. I won’t spend too much time rolling my eyes over this one since there are so many more ridiculous coincidences to come. It turns out that Marshall’s suspicious-sounding statement about the murderer wearing gloves is just because he has basic reading skills and read the report about the bloody handprint on Gumshoe’s locker. Just so we’re all up to speed here, that means that the murderer left a bloody, gloved handprint on Gumshoe’s locker, then half a bloody handprint on Marshall’s locker, but only cleaned up the latter for some reason we may or may not discover.
Marshall randomly brings up THE VIDEO, claiming that since he is not on it, there’s no way he could be involved in the murder. First of all, this makes me hate him because fuck that stupid video and I never wanted to see it again. Second, I am so confused about what is going on here. I thought that when Phoenix went out of his way to prove that Niceguy wasn’t in THE VIDEO, that meant that he had also determined that no one was killed in THE VIDEO after all. And the large wiped bloodstain that Edgeworth mentioned must have been made during a separate incident that took place in the evidence room. It can’t be related to this one, because who the fuck would have cleaned up the blood? To sum up, Marshall could still be involved in the big fucking bloodstain incident without having a starring role in THE VIDEO.