Phoenix and Maya guilt Penny into giving them more information by showing them Cody’s “Path to the Glory Hole,” to prove that kids just love the Steel Samurai and it would be wrong to let his show get cancelled because of some skeletons in the studio’s closet. Penny, who, remember, didn’t think she should be the one to tell this story, relents. “Apparently, five years ago, someone died…” she tells them. “And it was Hammer’s fault.” (Please Hammer, don’t hurt ’em!) Penny assures them it was an accident, but even so, Vasquez owned Hammer’s ass after she covered it up. Apparently she didn’t do a great job of that, if the intern painting backdrops knows about it. As to why they covered it up, Hammer was a huge star. “They were afraid about what would happen to his career if word got out,” Penny says. But it sounds like Vasquez basically wrecked his career after that with bad roles on shitty shows, so what was the difference? Penny can’t answer that, but says Oldbag knows more about it.
Of course, Oldbag is not so pleased to see Phoenix’s smug, Hammer-hating face again. Fortunately, she starts complaining about how nobody respected Hammer and how he is the reason the studio was so great, so they’re right on topic already. But she isn’t keen to talk about Hammer’s prior homicide with the guy who just accused him of drugging and impersonating someone else, and thus demands proof of Phoenix’s claims. He shows her the steak plate and the sleeping pill bottle in conjunction. Faced with this, Oldbag actually calms down and accepts that her hero did some bad things, and she’s now willing to talk about them. Oldbag claims that Vasquez, using her ties to the mafia, “silenced” a paparazzi photographer who managed to get a photo of Hammer’s victim. For some goddamn reason, not only does Oldbag still have that photograph, but she gives it to Phoenix. In the photo, a man dressed as a ninja is impaled on the spiked decorative fence next to the Studio Two trailer, as Hammer, dressed as a tennis player (don’t look at me), looks on in shock with a woman who is probably Vasquez. Phoenix asks Oldbag why she has this photo, but Oldbag replies, “It was a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it.” Whoa, maybe she was the photographer! Where’s my tinfoil hat?
Loading ...Maya thinks that Hammer may have put on the costume because he was asked to by Vasquez, so they head to Studio Two to confront her. Vasquez is as interested to chat with them as ever–that is, not at all–and the only thing that gets her to pay attention is the photo they just received from Oldbag. “Where. Where did you get that?” she demands. That was apparently rhetorical, as she knows without being told that it was Oldbag, and invites them into the trailer to talk about it some more. Inside, Phoenix basically lays out his theory, that she’s been blackmailing Hammer for five years to cover up this accident. I mean, at least he has another person with him this time, so it’s slightly less stupid. Vasquez scoffs at the word “accident.” “Would he have let me run his life for five years…over a mere accident?” she asks, smoking her ugly pipe. “And I ran him hard, believe you me!” So not only did he have to take bad roles, but he was her cabana boy too. She looks like she would have a cabana boy.
Jack Hammer in: Naruto, Samurai Prince of Tennis
Maya points out that Oldbag thinks it was an accident, but Vasquez counters that Oldbag is his craziest, most devoted fan and would never believe anything else. She also says that Oldbag beat the crap out of the photographer and “wrenched the photo” out of this person’s hands. I still like my theory of Oldbag’s secret paparazzi past, and it seems pretty stupid that Vasquez would just let Oldbag keep this photo, but whatever. As if it only occurred to her just now that this lone copy of the photo should be in her possession, she demands that Phoenix hand it over. And she calls in her mafia henchmen to take care of it. They’re pretty menacing, too, despite the fact that their suits are charcoal gray, not pink.
Oh, Phoenix. He really needs to stop walking into isolated rooms with powerful people he’s accusing of murder. But just as he’s about to get violated by four burly men–wait, now I see why he keeps doing this. But at the last second, Gumshoe busts into the trailer. “I heard everything, pal!” he yells, and places Vasquez under arrest. “It appears this contest will be decided tomorrow then,” she says. “In court.” After she’s taken away, Maya falls all over herself thanking him for saving them from gang rape and/or murder, but Gumshoe is mostly emotional because he’s dreamed for years of getting to bust a door down and catching a criminal in the act of explaining their plans. Why there even needs to be a trial for Will Powers at this point is beyond me, but it wouldn’t be as interesting to watch the truth come out at Dee Vasquez’s trial while Phoenix sits up in the peanut gallery, ogling Edgeworth. Well, I think that would be fun, but it’s not meant to be.
The next day in court, Edgeworth declares his intention to bring out witnesses who were at Studio Two, so “the truth will be made clear.” Edgeworth has clearly given up on winning this case, and just wants to see the killer melt down on the stand like the rest of us. It really adds some spice to their post-trial sexytimes behind the prosecutor’s bench. And so he summons Dee Vasquez to the stand, where she smokes–in a government building!–and gets snotty with Edgeworth over simple questions. The Judge spares Edgeworth the embarrassment of getting schooled by a middle-aged hooker and skips right to her testimony.
Vasquez’s testimony more or less echoes Sal’s–meeting, 15-minute break, T-bones, et cetera–with one extra detail: Vasquez was “fatigued” after the meeting, so she had Sal drive her to the Studio One rehearsal in the van parked by Studio Two. A four-hour meeting does sound exhausting, admittedly. During the cross, Vasquez is as rude to Edgeworth as she is to Phoenix, because she’s a bitch, if you haven’t gotten that yet. When she says “I was fatigued, so I had Sal take me,” Phoenix demands to know what that means. It means I just lost my appetite, Phoenix.
EWWWWWWWWWWWW
Maya basically says Phoenix must present something that proves that Vasquez didn’t eat anything that day, but there’s nothing in the Court Record about those empty plates at Studio Two. That just means you have to present the steak plate from the Employee Area instead. Hey, they’re both plates! Totally good enough. Phoenix comments on the “large bone” left on this plate, hee hee, only to point out that there was no such large bone on Vasquez’s plate at Studio Two. Phoenix has to explain how this could be, and while “You ate the bone, too” is tempting and hilarious, I have him choose the correct option, “You didn’t eat the steak.” Pointing his finger of Eating Disorder Shame at her, he says, “You took your steak and threw it somewhere…like that incinerator!” He goes on to say she met the “Steel Samurai” during the break instead of eating. It’s a little silly if you think about it at all–she was going to skip eating to deal with this person in the costume who came to confront her, but she took the time to pick up her whole steak and throw it in an incinerator? Why not give it to someone else? Why not just not eat it? “I’m about to do some murdering, but I know somehow that an uneaten steak could be used as evidence against me, so I’d better just burn it now.” I mean, really? But that’s apparently exactly what happened. Maybe Vasquez is a psychic. Or maybe this game is silly and sloppily plotted.
Really, you two, right in front of everyone?
Vasquez is pretending to not care that she’s been accused of murder and of wasting perfectly good food, and proposes to have a “battle of wits” with Phoenix. I can’t blame her–that sounds like it’d be a short battle. First, she points out that the heavy Samurai Spear is too big for her delicate female arms to lift and use. Phoenix acknowledges that, but announces with his smug hands-on-hips stance that it doesn’t matter because that wasn’t really the murder weapon. He presents the spear, and points out that it was broken and therefore, even mended with tape, useless as a real weapon. And then he presents the actual weapon, or at least a photo of it: the Chekhov’s gun spiky fence from Studio Two that killed that other guy five years ago. “This photograph is from five years ago,” he says, slapping it like it’s Edgeworth’s ass. “There was an unfortunate accident at Global Studios. This is a photo of that very accident.” Phoenix then laboriously explains to Edgeworth how, if the man in this photo could be killed by that fence, then other people could be killed similarly. Poetic justice, irony, obviousness, and so on. Edgeworth is shocked by the concept that the same phallic object could be used in two different murders. Oh, wait.
It’s a bad sign for her innocence when the witness starts her counterargument with “Let’s say Hammer died in the way that you say.” But Vasquez says that even if Phoenix is correct, the body was still found at Studio One and the stupid monkey head still meant no possible movement could have taken place between the two studios. I have Phoenix say “She had another way” to move Hammer’s body, hoping against hope that someone will regain their sanity enough to point out that the sidewalks at Global Studios are not surrounded by molten lava and someone could walk off them. But the actual answer is the van. “Ms. Vasquez,” Phoenix starts, so shit is about to get real, “You carried the body to Studio One. And you used the studio van to do it!” After the peanut gallery is done exclaiming, “Oh my stars! She used a car to carry something! The clever fiend!” Phoenix continues that Sal Manella was her accomplice in stripping Hammer naked, incinerating the bloody Steel Samurai costume, moving the body, and dressing it up in the Evil Magistrate costume. I don’t know if Oldbag is in the gallery, but she’s probably totally jealous that someone else got to see Hammer naked.
Vasquez nonchalantly says Phoenix has totally got her number, and Phoenix, Edgeworth and the Judge exchange like five minutes’ worth of ellipses before Phoenix asks if she did in fact kill Jack Hammer. After some more awkward pauses, she goes, “Who can say?” Jesus, this is getting irritating. She says Phoenix only uncovered the possibility that she killed Hammer, but no actual proof. While this is true, a flimsier possibility was apparently enough to almost send Powers to the chair, so I’m not sure why Phoenix needs incontrovertible proof now. Even Edgeworth is like “Oh, uh, yeah. Proof. He needs that. I guess.”
The Judge is about to let Vasquez leave when Edgeworth stands up for his man and objects, demanding the witness testify again. We don’t see Phoenix at this moment, but I bet he’s got hearts in his eyes and he’s sweating again. Edgeworth bullshits–using words like “verily” and “ergo,” which is totally hot–that he wants to hear about what happened after they found Hammer’s body. Maya and Phoenix mutter about why Edgeworth is doing this, but all Phoenix can think to himself is “Edgeworth…” Oh baby, he could never stay mad at you.
Vasquez says she was with Sal and Oldbag when they discovered the body at Studio One. Over a still of Hammer’s corpse, she says Penny was there as well, so WP was the only one absent. Vasquez asked to be left out of it after police arrived, and went home. So the police just said, “Yeah, witness to a murder, you just go home now”? Of course they did. Phoenix presses everything, and though none of Vasquez’s further statements really hold water–seriously, she says she and Sal were alone at Studio One for ten minutes but adds she wasn’t “stuffing any bodies into costumes” and Phoenix just takes her at face value like an idiot–he doesn’t really get anywhere until Vasquez falls into a lie about the notes and script she didn’t bring with her to Studio One. She says she didn’t bring them along because there was a murder and she assumed nobody would be rehearsing, which again, Phoenix just accepts without thinking. It takes Edgeworth objecting for everybody to realize how incriminating that statement is. Is it possible for Edgeworth to receive fees for both prosecution and defense for this case?
Vasquez changes her testimony and says, “I knew that Hammer was injured and couldn’t do any action scenes, so I left [my script and notes] behind.” Phoenix figures he should start doing his job instead of letting his boyfriend handle it for him and presents THE PHOTO to show that it was WP that was injured, not Hammer. Of course, Vasquez thought it was Hammer that was injured since he was dragging his leg in an attempt to look like WP. I’m not sure why Hammer would have been limping when he was past the security camera, since that seemed like an attempt to specifically use the camera to frame WP. But it doesn’t matter since Vasquez is now tumbling down a waterfall of lies.
Unable to refute the claim that she totally did that shit, Vasquez falls back on her last defense: motive. Yes, that there is no obvious motive must mean that the giant pile of evidence that she actually did it is all fake or wrong. Phoenix attempts to show her motive using THE PAST PHOTO: she’d been blackmailing Hammer because of that event, he decided he’d had enough of it, and went to kill her. Edgeworth helps him along in this narrative, and it’s adorable that they can finish each other’s sentences. Of course, this is all about Hammer’s motivation to kill Vasquez, not the reverse, but as Phoenix is asked to point out, she had no motive herself, and killed Hammer in self-defense. Couldn’t he have just said that from the beginning, without the truckload of exposition about Hammer? Vasquez gets so mad at this revelation that might keep her from spending the rest of her life in prison that she breaks her pipe.
Vasquez calmly admits her guilt, and over a black screen and then THE PAST PHOTO we flash back to the death of the guy dressed as a ninja, named Manuel, and Vasquez freaking out about it. It almost seems like they’re trying to imply that there was something between the two of them, but it’s too little too late and I also wouldn’t care anyway. Powers is found not guilty, confetti falls, and Edgeworth mouths “Broom closet, five minutes” across the courtroom.
He’s also saddled with a saddle, some nights.
In the lobby, WP is happy that he got off but crying like a girl because Hammer was so mean and tried to frame him for murder. Phoenix shows him “Path to the Glory Hole,” to explain why Hammer would do such a thing. “It’s because you were the Steel Samurai,” he says. “Mr. Hammer was a big star, once. But he was reduced to acting in a kids’ show…and as the villain, to boot! The kids love the Steel Samurai. And so, he hated you.” Man, that’s harsh. I mean, creepy older people like Maya and Oldbag love those shows too.
Speaking of Maya, she turns up to congratulate WP. He tells her he’s just happy because he can go back to being the Steel Samurai. Awkward! Before Maya has to deliver that news, though, Edgeworth shows up because he’s been waiting ten goddamn minutes in that closet. Over some sappy music that I choose to call the Lawyers’ Love Theme, Phoenix ignores the obvious reason Edgeworth is there and thanks him for his help in the courtroom. Edgeworth responds, “I must say, Wright, I hadn’t expected to meet you in court after all these years.” Maya’s got her “Oh snap, gossip!” face on. “However,” Edgeworth goes on, “In retrospect, it would have been better had we not met. Thanks to you, I am saddled with unnecessary…feelings.” Tingly feelings. Edgeworth insists that these feelings are dragging him down, and says, “Don’t ever show your face in front of me again.” I’m sure Phoenix facing away from him can be arranged. Maya insists to WP that Phoenix and Edgeworth are rivals, not friends with benefits, but Phoenix says, “For now we are…I guess.”
Maya is on the edge of her seat to learn more about Phoenix and Edgeworth’s secret sexy past, but she’ll have to wait for the next case like the rest of us. Next time: evil prosecutors, even gayer fuchsia suits, and the Butz!