Apparently, the Judge has never heard of ‘roleplay.’ I need to bleach myself now.

But Phoenix isn’t done yet — as Edgeworth well knows. Oldbag was at the guard station alone, and therefore has no alibi. It would have been possible for her to sneak away, steal the costume, pose for THE PHOTO in order to frame Will Powers, and then return to her post. Although I should know all about the innermost workings of that infernal camera by now, I don’t think anyone has ever explained whether or not it works from the opposite direction. It’s kind of a moot point under Phoenix’s current reasoning — Oldbag could have erased the return image, for whatever purpose that would serve.

“Excellent deductive reasoning, Mr. Wright,” the Judge compliments. Given that the Judge could compliment Tidus on his mental abilities and mean it, Phoenix should not pay any heed to this. But he does anyway, smugly posing with his hands on his hips and blue-fonting, “(Ohhh yeah, right here! Sherlock Holmes II, baby!)” This disturbing internal outburst sounds like something he would say in bed with Edgeworth and not in front of the freaking Judge. That’s just nasty. But then things take a turn for the better, pairing-wise, as Phoenix wonders why Edgeworth is staying silent. “(Isn’t this the part where Edgeworth pounces…?)” he thinks impatiently, so certain that this display of his mad lawyering skillz will cause Edgeworth to lose all self control and throw himself across the courtroom.

Even the Judge is wondering why Edgeworth hasn’t reacted yet. “Does the prosecution have an opinion on this matter?” Perfectly cool, Edgeworth responds, “The prosecution has no meaningful objections at this time.” Hee! Oh, that wily Mr. Edgeworth, taking revenge on those icky females for hitting on him. Oldbag pitches a screechy fit over the accusation, and makes one last eyelash-batting attempt to woo “Edgey-boy” back to her side, a clearly unsuccessful endeavor.

But Phoenix has more important things on his mind than this stupid courtroom crap. Giddily, he wonders, “(What’s my move? Maybe now’s my chance to take this the whole way?)” While this would make me a very, very happy young British homosexual, I wish they would at least wait until the Judge and Oldbag aren’t watching them.

In terms of the trial, I can make Phoenix continue his attack on the annoying old bat or back off and play nice. But Phoenix will never play nice with someone who tried, however futilely, to lure his hot piece of manmeat away from him. “The very same reasoning that makes Mr. Powers a suspect in this case…can be used to cast doubt on Ms. Oldbag’s actions on that day!” he cries, thrusting his finger forward. This is true, but rather than being an impressive show of courtroom wizardry on Phoenix’s part, it just shows once again how lame and flimsy the prosecution’s case is. Oldbag insists that she had no reason to murder Hammer — obsessed fans never kill the object of their obsession, after all. Phoenix responds that his client has no motive, either.

The Judge has bought Phoenix’s line of bullshit, which is only fair since he buys the prosecution’s bullshit 99% of the time. Phoenix hopes that Oldbag has no “hard feelings” over the murder accusation. I don’t think the term “hard” is a word that should be associated with any feelings where Oldbag is involved. Now that she’s under the gun, Oldbag isn’t about to go down (sorry) without a fight. Although not fifteen minutes ago, she was of the opinion that the grade school fanboy had nothing to do with the murder, she now tries to bring him up as a possible suspect. A person who thinks that children are perfect angels who can do no wrong might be clutching her pearls at this moment and planning out an angry letter to Capcom. I am not this person. Even though I think it would be hilarious on a number of levels if some kid were the murderer, that’s not the case here, and Phoenix insists he has proof. “Indeed? Then let’s see this proof, Mr. Wright,” the Judge commands. All the recapping of gay innuendo has definitely affected my brain, because I can’t help but imagine the Judge saying this in a sleazy way, while leering at Phoenix’s pink tie.

Let’s move on before you all show up at my house with torches and pitchforks (or worse, decide to write a fanfic about it). Phoenix has to select, from his five pieces of evidence, which one demonstrates that the boy is not the killer. Surely it must be the keycard or Phoenix’s attorney badge! Kidding aside, it’s obviously the Samurai Spear. I believe it was Edgeworth who first pointed out the lack of spear-wielding power of the average 8-year-old approximately ten minutes ago. Therefore, it’s unnecessary for Phoenix to explain this once again, and it’s rather presumptuous of him to say that he’s the one with the proof. To add insult to injury, as he explains this, THE PHOTO once again displays on the screen. This means that Phoenix is still assuming that the person in the photo is the murderer. Wouldn’t it make more sense, then, to point out that the kid wouldn’t be able to wear the adult-sized costume? Of course it would, which is why no one does this.

Hey, I know my recaps are long, but that’s no need to be insulting.

The Judge, earning my eternal gratitude, calls an end to the trial for the day. It’s still not as satisfying as a complete dismissal of all the retarded charges, but it means that my recap is almost over and that’s good enough for me. “Mr. Edgeworth, please find out more about your witness, Ms. Windy… what was her name?” the Judge orders. Not only is this a completely ludicrous request, but it also marks the eighty billionth time someone has made a remark about Wendy Oldbag being a windy old bag, being old, being a bag, accidentally referring to her directly as “Old Bag,” and so forth. I realize her name is a pun on her personality, and it is humorous on a certain level, I’ll admit, because it’s true. I also realize that I am no stranger to constantly pointing out a particular character trait (such as Phoenix and Edgeworth being gay, for example) and I never get tired of that. I still want everyone in this courtroom to shut up. Using pun names is bad enough, but constantly drawing attention to them crosses the humor line. Now pardon me while I e-mail Capcom about how they should tailor their game humor to my exact tastes.

The Judge bangs his gavel (that is not a euphemism), declaring court adjourned. That should, by all that is good and holy, be the end of the fucking trial for the day and the end of this godforsaken, twice-written recap. I think you see where this is going. After playing this game multiple times and recapping this part once already, I know what’s going to fucking happen, and it still pisses me off beyond belief. See, Oldbag has decided that the rules of the gavel do not apply to her, and she’s going to clear herself of suspicion before any more time passes. Now, I can’t blame her, really. The game has made no secret of the fact that she’s not the real culprit, just Phoenix’s convenient scapegoat. I wouldn’t want to be treated like a suspect, either. I also don’t think poor Edgeworth deserves to spend the next 24 hours investigating her — he should be concentrating on having steamy buttsex with Phoenix. Even so, the gavel has spoken and I don’t want to do any more recapping.

If that ‘something’ is your latest Tidus/Edgeworth crossover fanfic, then I hope you will continue to not talk about it.

Well, I may as well get it over with. God, how I hate this part. You know how we had all that testimony about how the murderer had to be Will Powers because there were only five people there that day and one of them was the victim, one of them didn’t know about the bum leg, one of them couldn’t have wielded the spear, and one of them was the witness giving the testimony so she obviously wasn’t going to implicate herself? It turns out that Oldbag was holding back a tiny little unimportant piece of information — there were other people there that day. The reason she didn’t bother to bring this up is that she was ordered by these very people not to reveal their presence. I am not fucking kidding. Remember how I said earlier that much of the testimony became pointless as soon as Oldbag admitted that there was a fanboy on the premises? This is way worse than that. Like, Tidus compared to Auron worse. Every single fucking thing that happened during this day of the trial was…you know, “waste of time” doesn’t really cover it. More like a waste of my life. Even if those hours I spent recapping this would have otherwise been spent sitting on the couch drinking alcohol with my thumb up my ass, it would have been an improvement. God damn.

I would like to point out once again that I put myself through this twice. On purpose. The things I do for my craft.

Both Phoenix and Edgeworth are just as pissed as I am, not only because Oldbag has lied to them too, but this whole trainwreck of a trial has seriously cut into their buttsex time. To make matters worse for everyone, especially me, the Judge orders Oldbag to give yet another testimony. God damn it. GOD DAMN IT. The testimony doesn’t give us much new information, of course, just that Oldbag was told to keep quiet because those other people had nothing to do with the murder. Oh, that makes it true then. And that makes it the only time that Oldbag has ever shut her trap about anything. Fuck this.

Once again — and how many times have I typed those two words during this recap — Phoenix must cross-examine Oldbag in order to learn the actual, pertinent information, such as the identity of the other people at the studio. Although Oldbag doesn’t name any names, she mentions the director and producer and implies that there were plenty of others there as well. “We should have known something was fishy!” Edgeworth beats himself up, making Phoenix want to comfort him sexually. “How could they have done a run-through of their action scene without a director?” That question is just the tip of the Why This Is Fucking Stupid iceberg, which I’ll get to in a bit. Oldbag admits that she wondered why no one bothered to ask about the lack of a director, as if pointing out how dumb they were excuses it from a story standpoint.

Heh, she said ‘hard on.’ Wait, ew.

As for the location of these new folks, the director was in the Employee Area during the run-through, and he and the producer had a meeting during lunch in the Studio Two trailer. You’ll recall that the giant Mr. Mime head was blocking this area when Phoenix investigated, so you can expect the timing of that decapitation to come into play. Luckily, it won’t be during my recap.

The game pretty much tells me that I’ve found all the pertinent information and I can stop the cross-examination if I want. And although I do want to, I press on the last couple of text screens, just for the sake of completeness. The only relevant information is that Oldbag was monetarily compensated for her silence, for all the good it did in the end. With the cross-examination over, Phoenix insists, very correctly, that there’s no point in continuing the trial until all the other possible witnesses have been interviewed. I should have been able to end that last sentence after the word “trial” but this is the game where defendants can change in the middle of the trial and there’s no such thing as illegally collected evidence. Thus the trial will continue the next day. Only Edgeworth displays the proper outrage over this turn of events, probably because it only hurts his case, but it would be nice if Phoenix could share some of my displeasure over having to deal with Oldbag for no reason whatsoever. At last, court is finally adjourned, for real this time.

Now that all this crap is out in the open, I’m going to discuss why this whole series of events is fucking stupid. We’re going to be here for a while. First of all, we are asked to believe that no one — not the police, the prosecution, the crime scene investigators, Phoenix, Maya, and so on — managed to suspect the presence of other people at the studio on the day of the murder. This in itself is a huge stretch — did every single person, save for Oldbag, Penny, and Will just speed away the second the crime was discovered? And if so, was there no record anywhere — no sign in sheet, no electronic card reader, no FUCKING SECURITY CAMERA PHOTOS? With all those people at the studios, why was the Steel Samurai only the second person to trigger the camera? Even assuming that this entire group of people could manage to conceal their presence at the studios via a bribe — and shouldn’t that alone get this whole fucking case thrown out?! — why in God’s name would Will Fucking Powers not say anything? He has no reason to protect them, and even if he didn’t know before the trial that some of the employees were being paid off to lie about who was there that day, he would have figured it out when Oldbag testified that only a few people were there and then told Phoenix the truth during the recess.

Also, to reiterate an earlier point, we’re supposed to believe that the studio would throw their biggest star under the bus instead of hiring the most expensive, aggressive defense lawyers in the universe. That will help the studio for sure!

And putting aside for a moment all that nonsensical shit, it’s clear that the entire reason for this whole “twist” was to surprise the player. So even if you’re completely gullible and you buy into this as a valid storytelling moment and can fanwank all that stuff from the last two paragraphs into making sense, you have to admit that the game designers still shot themselves in the foot by showing us a still shot containing that ponytailed person who wasn’t in Oldbag’s original testimony, as well as having characters making comments like “the production staff” and “everyone else.” Yes, the plot “twist” was ruined from the very beginning, and it was a shitty twist at that. It’s like getting a delicious chocolate cake covered in shit frosting. You bite into it anyway, convincing yourself that you can overlook the shit frosting as long as you at least have the chocolate to look forward to, but surprise! — the cake is made out of shit as well. Fuck this game. Fuck it with an unlubed sandpaper butt dildo.

I don’t even have the energy to do a detailed recap of the remaining scene out in the defendant lobby. Basically, Will Powers is all “Yay, I’m not getting anally raped in prison yet!” And Phoenix is all, “I’m not even going to mention the fact that you didn’t tell me about the other people at the studio!” They all agree that it probably wasn’t Oldbag in the Steel Samurai costume, and Phoenix reiterates for the last remaining person out there who doesn’t understand his complicated courtroom tactics that he was “just buying time” when he accused her of murder. But they don’t feel too bad about it, because she’s such an irritating bitch.

 Loading ...

I’m sure someone will get all butthurt and whiny over reading a portion of a recap that is rushed, but you should really thank your lucky fucking stars that you even got a recap of this rimjobbery. I probably should have just accepted the loss of my first one and moved on to another recap. I repeat: what the hell was I thinking? I know that right now I’m thinking about whether to shoot myself in the head or drink myself to death.

The good news is that this recap is finally over, and you can bet that it’s going to be backed up on as many computers as possible. Sam will be covering the next day of trial, and although I feel very, very sorry for her as a friend, as a recapper, I’m so glad it’s her and not me. See you in Part 5!