Phoenix is this close to having to confess where he got it, when the judge, for maybe the first time ever, makes a deduction of his own. Holding Phoenix and Edgeworth’s respective lists next to each other, he declares, “These lists… They’re… They’re different from each other.” But we’ve received no hints of this whatsoever! “It would appear, Mr. Edgeworth,” the judge goes on, thoroughly enjoying himself, “that the evidence list you were handed two years ago…was incomplete. These two lists…fit together to form one.” Oh, wow. Did the judge just prove Phoenix and Edgeworth’s true love? They come together so perfectly! Like a fuchsia tab into a blue slot! Even better, the judge finishes, “You can see the marks here, where they were torn apart from each other.” Just like the emotional scars Phoenix and Edgeworth sustained when they were torn from each other’s lives by tragedy and changing elementary schools!
Since Phoenix and Edgeworth figuratively completing each other in court is the best thing to ever happen, Phoenix of course has to be a buzzkill by returning everyone’s attention to the evidence list itself. “So you see, Mr. Edgeworth. It’s quite obvious what happened,” he says. Putting his hands on his hips and smiling seductively, just to be a jerk, he concludes, “Two years ago…only half of the evidence in that case ever reached you.” Edgeworth practically has a witness stand breakdown: “What…WWWHHAAAAAAATTTTT!?” I have to concur, with maybe a little less caps-lock, with Edgeworth. I’m sure he is freaking out because this is yet another betrayal of his Penetrating Bond of Trust, but how could there even be twice as much evidence when it has been stated about five thousand goddamn times that the police were desperate for evidence because there fucking wasn’t any?
Deep, calming breaths.
The judge bangs his gavel to get Edgeworth to stop sobbing, and brings us back to the picture, noting what an amazing coincidence it is that Detective Niceguy didn’t just hand Ema a blank sheet of paper from the printer tray on which to draw it. He was probably too busy complimenting Angel Starr for drinking Skinnygirl vodka and trying to get her weight “under control.” But Phoenix has an epiphany, if we want to call it that, about the list: “If this list was torn in half, then that means…” The judge is worried because Phoenix’s eyes are bulging out of his head like he just saw Edgeworth flash him. But Phoenix asks the judge to flip over the completed list, since there might be more of Ema’s drawing on the other half. “It’s possible,” Edgeworth says, taking a look. “Let’s see… MM! MMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!” Edgeworth is back in Quasimodo mode, but that exclamation could also mean the other half of Ema’s picture is a nude version of Jake Marshall’s gay cowboy painting.
Edgeworth gets really excited about Meatball Night at the courthouse cafeteria.
Then…ugh. The worst thing happens. Edgeworth recovers and shows the court what is drawn on his list: a shadowy object that is unmistakably the head of the Blue Badger. As if this isn’t bad, and bizarre, enough, the Blue Badger Theme of Lazy Shitty Chiptunes also makes an unwelcome cameo, in case anyone didn’t make the connection on their own. “That’s that…that thing!” the judge cries. “That thing that was dancing in the evidence room!” The judge is clearly hostile toward the Blue Badger, and for that he earns my respect. Edgeworth snarks that the Head/Chief Detective must have “used this for his blueprint,” which makes no sense at all, if this drawing has been in Edgeworth’s possession all this time, but I don’t give a shit about the origin story of the Blue Badger, and neither should you.
Finally, the evidence list is updated in the court record–for clarity’s sake, the full drawing shows the Blue Badger’s head floating in midair above the two stick figure men. Given that, as boring as it is, I know the object in the hand of the standing man is a knife, and not a dildo, it’s hilarious that Ema put so much effort into depicting the overhead object in so much detail, but the knife is a rectangle held in the hand of a blocky stick figure. Maybe because he is thinking the same thing, the judge asks Ema to provide a new testimony about her picture. Ema replies, “…Huh? Oh, Y-yes, sir, Your Honor!” and Phoenix wonders what’s wrong with her all of a sudden. “She seemed to be thinking about something when she saw the picture,” he blue-fonts. Yeah, about how shitty of an artist she is? And how the figures in her drawing, according to her scientific analysis, are totally not about to get naked?
The Blue Badger likes to watch.
In her new testimony, Ema says this picture is an exact representation of what she saw, because “The flash of lightning was so bright all I could see were shadows.” Despite the obvious problem with this, the judge derps, “Well, I don’t see any contradictions here. This clearly shows Joe Darke about to murder Prosecutor Neil Marshall.” Yeah, that’s totally what I see, and not Faceless Stick Man A about to jam a mysterious long hard object somewhere into Faceless Stick Man B while the Blue Badger jacks off from a sex swing on the ceiling. This picture may as well be a Rorschach Test.
Pressing on all of Ema’s statements unearths a lot more details I need to pay attention to, because that’s totally what we need at this stage of the trial: more exposition. I very much resent that each of the three recaps we’ve done for this case has involved a different crime and crime scene, each with its own pile of exposition and annoying witnesses. It’s not fair–I put in my time with this shit once already. First, Ema tells Phoenix that this picture was drawn a few days after the murder, since she was too shocked to do anything immediately, but Edgeworth has to add for her, “During that time the detective team was reorganized. Detective [Niceguy] was placed in charge…under the direction of Damon Gant and Lana Skye.” But all of those detectives have already been linked to the initial Joe Darke investigation! Gant was present when Darke was being questioned! The only person who needed to change was the prosecutor. Why do the writers keep adding these unnecessary details that just make everything make less sense? Are they trolling me?
Speaking of that, how about we talk about the idea of Ema being taken hostage, because the more we learn about it, the less it works. Pressing Ema’s statement about the shadows, Phoenix wonders if that means she couldn’t see the identity of her savior. She could not, not only because of the darkness, but because she was knocked to the floor. “Darke had a tight grip on me, but when Mr. Marshall jumped on him, I was knocked away. I turned around, and that’s when the lightning flashed.” Let me make sure I have this right: Darke, who was armed with a knife, took this young girl hostage and had her in his arms. (Way better to take a hostage on the top floor instead of JUST FUCKING LEAVING THE BUILDING.) Neil Marshall came in and, without hesitation, jumped him? So Darke didn’t threaten to, like, stab her? Or was Neil Marshall just a foolhardy meathead who didn’t consider the consequences of leaping at an armed person with a hostage? And even if it did happen this way, how did Ema get knocked away by the two of them grappling if Darke had her in his grip? Wouldn’t she have ended up between them? As usual, the truth is being clouded by Ema’s naïve worldview: Darke, when he saw that his pursuer was his clandestine prosecutor lover, shoved his hostage away so she wouldn’t interfere with their sloppy makeouts.
Fortunately for Phoenix, the blowjobs are more of a bonus.
Phoenix clearly has something on his mind when he presses on Ema’s final statement, because he asks again if this picture is exactly representative of the scene, and follows up with, “It wasn’t influenced in any way from your talks with the detectives?” Edgeworth gets all prickly about this, even though it’s a valid point if she waited three days to draw it. The judge has to ask point-blank, just so I understand what I have to do, “Mr. Wright. Is there something that’s bothering you about this picture?” Again, the narrative attached to this picture would indicate the stab came from the front, and we know it didn’t, but for no good reason I cannot point this out. Nor can Phoenix go to his usual standby, “Those stick figures could be anybody!” The capper is that I’m not even sure why Phoenix feels the need to pick apart Ema’s testimony, and I’m sure Phoenix has no idea either. He can carp about Reaching out to the Truth all he wants, but no one present has even a sliver of a reason to think Ema’s testimony regarding a two-year-old crime is the key to understanding how Bruce Niceguy’s body ended up stuffed in the Penismobile’s trunk. When Phoenix does eventually connect those dots, the link to Ema’s actual testimony will be so tenuous it may as well not exist.
ANYWAY. The smoking gun, or dildo, is Ema’s depiction of the murder weapon. Of course, this leads me to present the weapon itself, but for whatever reason that is not acceptable. Instead, I must present the autopsy report and drive myself further round the bend, since the biggest problem in that report is still not up for discussion. Rather, Phoenix thrusts out the autopsy report and non-explains, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this picture the witness drew…contains a blatant contradiction!” Ema insists she drew it exactly as it happened, so the judge prompts Phoenix to point out the contradiction.
THANK YOU
Phoenix must specifically point to the tip of the weapon, and not just the weapon in general, a lesson I learn when I point to the wrong bit and Phoenix whines about the drawing being too shitty to function, which makes Ema cry. (Worth it.) But when Phoenix does point to the, uh, tip of the blocky rectangle weapon, it gets way, way sillier. “Take a look at the knife the man is holding,” Phoenix says, tapping the drawing. “If you look closely, you can see its tip is broken!” IT’S A FUCKING RECTANGLE, PHOENIX. I SEE A RECTANGLE. I can’t believe he is letting this entire case come down to a detail in a drawing that is devoid of any detail. What’s next? “Neil Marshall is listed as having a size 11 shoe, but the man in this drawing is clearly a size 12!” So stupid. Ema tries to explain this away, not by saying, “Dude, relax, I’m not very good at drawing,” but by pointing out that the murder weapon had a broken tip, so the drawing is consistent with the evidence. The judge adds that the tip of said knife was sensually buried inside Neil Marshall’s stab wound. “It was the conclusive piece of evidence that proved Joe Darke was the murderer!” Ema says. But Phoenix has realized, thanks to Ema’s scientifically accurate rendition of stick figures with fucking circles for hands, that this is a huge contradiction. “It’s obvious, really,” he tells Edgeworth. “The victim ‘suffered a single stab wound to the back.’ If the victim was only stabbed once, then the murder weapon should not yet be broken!” He also wouldn’t be making a stabbing motion toward his chest! Just…Jesus Christ. I hate this game.
Edgeworth torpedoes my hope that he would be the voice of reason to point out how shitty the drawing is, when he instead speculates, “Perhaps the knife was broken beforehand!” Ugh. Is he softballing his responses just so Phoenix will feel smart and not be pouty when they’re finally alone? I have to hope that’s it. Phoenix showcases his massive intellect by noting that the tip of the knife was inside Marshall and could have only ended up there if he were stabbed with it. Phoenix, Edgeworth, and the judge grapple with what this could mean, and Edgeworth is the first to blame Ema: “The only possible explanation is the witness’s memory is mistaken!” Yeah, her memory, and not her artistic capability, is at fault. Uh huh. Phoenix reminds Edgeworth that Ema repeatedly testified that this drawing represents exactly what she saw, as if Ema realized he meant the exact contours of the fucking murder weapon. “But…there’s no other way to explain this inconsistency!” Edgeworth says, crossing his arms. Yup! I can’t think of any other possibility.
Of course, Phoenix does have an explanation ready to pull out of his ass: “Have you forgotten already?” he asks Edgeworth. “About a little something called…’falsified evidence‘?” Edgeworth has had about enough of Phoenix throwing shade at him over that, but Phoenix is suggesting, obviously, that the broken switchblade and its tip were the forged evidence. Edgeworth has a witness-esque breakdown again. All because Ema couldn’t figure out how to draw a fucking knife.