Von Karma gloats about this, which of course he does — he probably put Yogi up to it — and calls for a verdict. Phoenix blue-fonts for a while about the current dire situation he’s in. It’s like everything that happens in court has to be followed by half a dozen text screens of Phoenix summarizing what just happened. It would be nice — and I realize I’m just dreaming big dreams here — if the game designers would give us a tiny bit of credit. Von Karma asks him multiple times what he’s going to do next, in as assholish a way as possible, finishing with, “Perhaps you’d like to cross-examine the parrot for a little comic relief, hmm?” This seems just a little too clumsy as a setup for what happens next — but it’s still pretty funny when a tiny dim light bulb goes off over Phoenix’s spiky head and Maya realizes he’s actually going to take von Karma up on this offer. Sure, he might be unable to win this rigged trial where the prosecutor is behind the whole thing, but at least Edgeworth can enjoy viewing this bird’s fabulous colored plumage before getting nonconsensually prison married to Bubba. This whole sequence is portrayed with the utmost seriousness, complete with dramatic organ music and close-up on Phoenix’s face. The peanut gallery is also caught up in this turn of events — it must be the best day ever for these faceless drama-loving assholes.

The Judge turns to von Karma for his opinion, like anyone in the world besides Phoenix would think this is a valid idea. “OBJECTION!” Phoenix screams, slamming and pointing like a madman. “Wait a second! You were the one who suggested I cross-examine the parrot, von Karma! I have a right to do as you suggested!” I’m not really sure that logic holds — if von Karma tells Phoenix to go fuck himself, would the Judge allow him the opportunity to do that in front of the court? Well, maybe that’s a bad example, because of course that would be allowed in this courtroom. You know what I mean here. Von Karma just lets out a strangled series of ellipses, like his sarcastic remark has now become binding.

This is an obvious and embarrassing ploy by Phoenix to drag out the trial and everyone in the courtroom knows it. It’s also worth pointing out that Edgeworth is in the courtroom witnessing this pathetic display on his behalf, and it’s likely doing nothing for his libido. Seriously, this is just sad. Well, I’m just going to quit stalling and let Phoenix dig his own sexual grave. After von Karma warns Phoenix of the extremely serious consequences should he end up wasting the court’s time (if that’s even possible), Phoenix gets a choice that is not a choice. Since he’s going to cross-examine that God damn parrot whether I like it or not, I have him own his decision and respond, “Let the parrot take the stand. I will cross-examine her, Your Honor.” The Judge can only utter a single exclamation point, which in Suikoland would indicate unimpressed boredom. “This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!” von Karma sputters, an egregious lie. I mean, he was there for Larry Butz’s mention of his fake girlfriend in yesterday’s trial.

Von Karma deserves the death penalty for this.

Speaking of Larry Butz, Phoenix’s reasoning for calling the parrot is the same as calling Larry yesterday — there’s no possible way von Karma could have tampered with her testimony. Sure, that makes it a great idea. The Judge orders the bailiff to bring the parrot to the stand, which means she must have been hanging out in the courthouse for some reason. It’s hardly the silliest thing about this scenario, but I couldn’t not point it out. Polly’s rainbow-feathered sprite appears on the stand like a legitimate witness. I hope they put some newspapers under her, although the witness stand has already weathered years of shit. Like any other pet when you try to make them perform in public, the parrot just ignores the Judge’s request for her to say her name. I think he might actually be emotionally hurt by this. Testimony time!

I don’t know that I’ve ever recapped an entire testimony verbatim before, but here goes: “Hello! Hello! *squawk* …” Say what you will about the effectiveness of a bird as a witness, but I think this might be the least annoying and most truthful witness we have had in this game. Why can’t they all be like this? The Judge kind of agrees with me: “Certainly the most concise testimony we’ve had so far.” He tells Phoenix to proceed with the cross-examination. I bet this will be the pinnacle of his legal career.

Things get off to a bad start when Phoenix tries to reason with the bird, so he enlists Maya’s help. I am presented with three options for Phoenix to offer to Maya. I choose the first one, “Have we forgotten something?” Shockingly, with the assistance of a flashback reminder, Phoenix recalls (!) the conversation from the other day where Polly responded to this question with, “Don’t forget DL-6!” Phoenix reasons (!) that if he can get her to repeat this in front of the Judge, that will tie the boat shop caretaker to the DL-6 case. It still doesn’t prove he’s Yogi in any way, but it’s a start and let’s face it, it’s good enough for this game. But when Maya asks the question this time, Polly only repeats her unhelpful testimony. Maya is all, “What the fuck?” like she is unfamiliar with the thing I said earlier about pets making their humans look like assholes when asked to perform in front of other people. Phoenix starts to panic, and when von Karma sneers at him some more, Phoenix blue-fonts, “Don’t tell me von Karma expected this! He couldn’t have retrained the parrot…could he!? Did he train her not to respond when we asked if we’d forgotten anything!?”

I hope this is just Phoenix getting caught up in von Karma’s undeserved reputation as a prosecutorial wizard and not something the game designers want us to believe is actual canon. Does weirder shit happen in this series? Of course. But this is still asking a lot of us — even Edgeworth would have trouble swallowing this load. After that shitshow, Phoenix moves onto the next question on the list — the parrot’s name. Before that, he has to press on the first statement again and repeat his entire conversation with Maya verbatim, just to punish me. This time, when Maya asks the bird to say her own name, things go a bit better. “Pol-ly! Pol-ly! *squawk*” says — wait for it — Polly. The Judge is all, “No shit, Sherlock,” but wonders if the parrot’s stereotypical parrot name actually has anything to do with DL-6.

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It just so happens, yes. As you’ll recall, Phoenix gently inserted the cliff notes version of the DL-6 file into the court record the other day, and in the three-sentence summary of Yanni Yogi, there is a mention of his fiancee who committed suicide, presumably because Yogi became a social pariah. Her name? Polly Jenkins. It’s kind of odd that this info even made it into a ten-sentence description of the entire DL-6 case when way more relevant shit was left out, but luckily Phoenix managed to include it in his notes so he can show it to the Judge now. You might be feeling a little cheated that Phoenix has had this information in his court record since two days ago and neither Sam nor I have bothered to mention it, but the same is true of everyone else in this game. I mean, if Yanni Yogi was into this Polly Jenkins lady, like really in love with her in an intense, romantic, heterosexual way, that would be even more of a murder motive than all this “oh yeah, he was socially ruined” vague shit that everyone’s been talking about. That can only mean that Yogi wasn’t all that broken up over her death because she was just a disposable beard. Color me surprised.

The Judge’s senility extends to his font coloring as well.

It wouldn’t be an Anal Attorney trial without lots of dramatic back-and-forthing before Phoenix presents this information to the Judge. This means he has to deal with von Karma demanding some fucking proof again, and then give an actual white-font out-loud monologue about the situation. Oh, and then when he presents the correct evidence, which is the tiny DL-6 “case file” — von Karma objects: “That’s quite a large file you have there! [hee!] Which page is this ‘proof’ on then? Show us, or stop wasting our time!” Fuck all of this, seriously. My only takeaway from this is that everyone in this game is as dumb and illiterate as Phoenix and reading through ten sentences stretched across three pages is too onerous a task for any of them. Phoenix has to show the court which exact page, out of three, the relevant information is on. Phoenix finds the three-sentence page in question, the one that contains the Suspect Data for Yogi, where it mentions his fiancee’s parroty name. “Right after [Yogi] was arrested, his fiancee committed suicide, see?” Phoenix points out, which is a lie because the actual data says nothing about when she did this — just in case this whole sequence wasn’t ridiculous enough. “He remembered the name of his fiancee who committed suicide. That’s why he named his parrot after her!” This might hold water if the bird was named literally anything other than Polly. Come on, Phoenix! Edgeworth is fantasizing about Larry’s penis at this very moment!

I feel like I’ve already spent way too long pointing out the weak points of this scenario, but I would be remiss if I didn’t transcribe the following reaction from von Karma: “Bah! A mere coincidence, that’s all! My granddaughter has a dog she calls ‘Phoenix.’ Well, Mr. Phoenix Wright? Does this make you my granddaughter’s fiancee!? She’s only seven years old!!!” While it’s absolutely rich that von Karma is accusing Phoenix of being a pedophile — as if Phoenix would touch a girl of any age — what I really want to focus on here is that von Karma has produced at least one child, which brings to mind all sorts of terrifying and most likely nonconsensual possibilities. It seems like contemplating reproduction scenarios is going to be my recapping curse, much like Sam’s elevator dungeon curse. This is very much not okay.

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I’m too fragile to deal with this right now, so I’ll let you decide what happened here. Meanwhile, the Judge agrees with von Karma (and me) that the fiancee named Polly isn’t enough proof of Phoenix’s claim. “Alone, it is a little weak for evidence in a murder trial,” he drastically understates. The Judge allows him another chance, and Phoenix thinks if he can find another connection that is equally or less shitty than the name thing, then he’s set. This brings us to the third and final question Maya can ask the parrot, which is “What’s the safe number?” This requires sitting through all the dialogue a third time, which is just terrible. At least Polly complies this time as well, squawking “1228… 1228…” to Maya’s question. “My, what a reckless parrot,” the Judge comments, which I find amusing in spite of my determination to hate everything right now. Like before, the Judge wants to know if this number means anything. Now, the Polly Jenkins thing was kind of out of left field, but the fact that no one makes the connection between 1228 and December 28th, which was the date of the DL-6 incident — not to mention the current date! — is a little sad.

Seriously, why can no one font color this consistently?

But of course Phoenix can’t just point this out in a single, efficient sentence. No, he has to use a physical object with writing on it in order for this to count. When he presents the DL-6 “case file” again, von Karma gets all indignant. “What is the obsession you have with that case?” he snorts, like it’s just fucking unreasonable for Phoenix to present the fucking DL-6 file when they are trying to prove the fucking boat shop caretaker is the fucking suspect from that fucking case. I’m about two seconds from just incoherently screaming “FUCK!” over this.

Okay, I just walked away for a few minutes so I could calm down. Phoenix, much more relaxed than I am, despite more being at stake for him, announces that the information in question is on the Case Summary page. “The Case… Summary?” the Judge Shions, and now I need another break.

Whew, all right, I knew this recap was going to be a tough one when I agreed to it, so let’s just continue. Phoenix points out the thing I said a few paragraphs ago about the date, which allows the Judge to finally understand how it kind of ties the mysterious boat shop caretaker to DL-6. Von Karma objects again, due to this also being less than solid proof. Still, now that two separate connections have been made, such as they are, the Judge agrees to…summon the old man back to the stand so he can talk some more. Well done, everyone.

I just want to point out that everything after Phoenix’s claim of the witness’s identity could have been avoided if he or Maya had just testified about the bird mentioning DL-6 the other day, but I guess that’s against one of this court’s arbitrary rules. Or maybe he just didn’t think of doing that, just like he didn’t think of reporting yesterday’s taser attack by von Karma. These people create so much extra work for me.

But he’s full of number two.

Anyway, I could sit here and type up angry complaints all day, but I’d rather just move ahead to the next stuff with Yogi. Well, actually, no I wouldn’t, but I will anyway. Once the man everyone knows is Yanni Yogi appears on the stand, I nearly have a panic attack as the Judge asks him for his name and von Karma objects again. But Yogi is getting tired of all this bullshit too, and it greatly relieves me when he drops the senile act and admits who he really is. I’m not letting him off the hook here — after all, he is responsible for a large portion of said bullshit, and some of that bullshit included the snot bubble animation that was not at all required for this ruse. Phoenix mansplains to Maya that everything we’ve seen from this man so far has been an act to conceal his identity. You don’t say.