Conviction – A Simple Man

By: Marie Thong

A Simple Man opens with the camera panning around a restaurant kitchen to reveal a dark figure clasping a rag with tongs. A series of jump cuts show the rag flaming, then the kitchen engulfed in flames. Through the noise of the flames banging can be heard and the camera settles on a door in the kitchen, a man screaming for help behind it.

We cut to Maxine (Merrin Dungey) at a self-help group session for addiction. She introduces herself saying she’s been clean for nineteen months, but the events of the last episode have left her vulnerable. We find ourselves with Hayes (Hayley Atwell) and Wallace (Eddie Cahill) who is presenting her with their new case – Leo Scarlata (Jason Furlani) who’s 15 years into a life sentence for arson on his family’s restaurant, killing one man and injured another. Hayes is unsure how the case warrants CIU to take a look at it and Wallace explains to Hayes that despite Leo’s significantly lower IQ of 73. The judge on the case wouldn’t allow the defense to argue diminished capacity. This hooks Hayes and she’s ready to take on the case; however, she’s met with a less than appealing asterisk. Leo’s case has been followed by a documentary filmmaker, Paul Slatkin (Christian Campbell), for the past two years. While he’s embraced the opportunity to work with the CIU team, Hayes is unhappy with the prospect. She’s about ready to drop the case, but Wallace plays to her a moral compass as she’d never let down someone like Leo. Conceding defeat, she begrudgingly signs the release forms, but there’s no way she’s letting going to make it easy for Paul.

In the conference room Paul and his cameraman film the murder board while the rest of the team have become overly conscious of their appearance and actions. Sam (Shawn Ashmore) begins explaining the case, prosecution argued that Leo snuck into the restaurant at 3am to throw a rag into a deep fryer and walk away. His motive? Revenge – Leo was demoted to kitchenhand after spilling tea on a customer. Hayes being Hayes is making life difficult for Paul angling her compact to create a blinding glare.

The fire killed one man, Errol Jordan, after he snuck into the basement and fell asleep. Karl Wimer (Scott Gibson) was a passer-by who ran in to try and save Errol, but got burnt. The defense argued that Leo grew up in the restaurant and he and his brothers were inseparable so that didn’t change because of spilled tea. Frankie (Manny Montana) announces he’ll go investigate the fire, which prompts Hayes to distribute the investigation. Maxine joins Frankie while Sam talks to the judge and Tess (Emily Kinney) gets transcripts from Paul’s interviews while Hayes goes to talk to Leo. This leaves the “parasites” a/k/a/ the filmmakers scrambling – unable to be in four places at once.

They continue to pester Hayes as she leaves her office, asking her when she can do a one-on-one interview and she responds with never. Paul begins to push her buttons, bringing up her stay in the White House, traumatized by the cameras, but she retorts that the only thing that bothers her is how her team acts with the cameras on and his exploitation of Leo’s case. While he hasn’t profited from the film, he intends to at the end of it. So, while he does care, his motivation is driven by money. She leaves for the prison with the two men following her, but she stops them as “someone” may have gotten their clearance to film revoked.

In the prison she meets Leo’s brother Vince (Carlo Rota) and his wife Rita (Nola Martin) when Leo walks in. After chatting with him for a little bit, making him more comfortable with the situation, she approaches the subject of the fire which, of course, he denies starting. Vince and Anthony (Jason Cerbone) had strict rules which he always followed. Always.

Meanwhile, Sam approaches Judge Melissa Hinds (Kecia Lewis), but isn’t able to reap much information from her. At the restaurant kitchen, Frankie and Maxine are with Anthony, recreating the events with the help of the arson report. Frankie is able to deduce that the point of origin was somewhere completely different than originally thought. Instead of starting at the deep fryer, the fire actually started at the recycling bins which then prompts the duo to propose that instead of trying to help, Karl the Good Samaritan could’ve been the one to start the fire.

Back at CIU Frankie, Maxine and Hayes go over this new theory. Maxine asks where Sam and Tess are to which Hayes informs the group that they are still going over transcripts from Paul’s interviews. Paul tells Maxine to lower her laptop screen to reduce glare, but before he can get the full sentence out a loud horn sounds from Hayes’ direction. Pulling out an air horn from her bag she paints a guilty look on her face matched with an “oops.” Paul tries to speak again, but she sounds the horn, sarcastically apologizing. She turns to Frankie and prompts him to go on but proceeds to press the horn every couple of seconds. She attempts to apologize, but soon backtracks admitting her joy in this. Paul eventually gives up and leaves. The second they do Hayes is all business again. She questions Karl’s motive to which Maxine presents a hero record – helping to save two people in the months before the fire. So, maybe he’d set the fire in attempt to gain more recognition as a hero.

Tess and Frankie talk to Karl who strongly denies their claims. He’s 100% sure that Leo started the fire informing the colleagues that Leo wrote him letters whilst he was in the hospital, apologizing. Hayes revisits Leo in the prison questioning him on these letters. Leo felt bad for him and wanted Karl to feel better, not realizing the implications of what he did. Hayes asks him whether he swears he didn’t start the fire and after a couple of moments, he raises his arm and pinkie swears.

In the CIU building, Sam sneaks into Paul’s office and attempts hack his laptop and manages to guess the password after seeing a #FREELEO sticker. He deletes the footage of his interview; however, an interview with Vince catches his eye. Bringing it to Hayes, the two watch it together – Vince recounts that when Leo was younger he set fire to his treehouse.

The next day at Wallace’s office Hayes is furious as the two incidents parallel each other and is incredibly damaging, evidence which Paul decided to bury because it made Leo look guilty. The three argue over Paul’s intentions and his techniques as a filmmaker. Hayes is having none of it, getting angrier and angrier with each sentence. She storms out of the room, but not before hitting the camera out of her face, it falls to the floor and breaks.

At CIU Tess, Maxine and Sam are going over Vince’s interview, confused as to why he would damage his brother’s case. Hayes walks in proposing that Vince set the fire and let Leo take the fall to claim the insurance payout. Tess informs them Vince didn’t deposit the claim, but instead signed it over to money launderers.

Hayes meets with Glen Powell (Jeffrey Knight) and they talk money laundering. She plays a con on him, getting incriminating evidence and threatens to rat Powell out to the feds if he doesn’t tell her where Vince hid his money. He informs her that he had the money transferred to high-roller casino, he was severely in debt, the insurance payout saved his life.

Maxine and Sam talk to Vince and Rita, accusing him of burning the restaurant down to pay-off his debt. This has Vince riled up, offended by the accusations. Maxine asks for an alibi, but before Vince can open his mouth Rita explains for him informing the colleagues Vince was home around 11:30, asleep beside her when they got the call. They leave soon after. But the confrontation is not over, Maxine confronts Sam over his allegation. He apologizes but she wasn’t looking for one, nor was she looking for pity and storms out of the room. In the files room Maxine pulls out a bottle of pills, shaking one out on her hand before swallowing it, having reached the tipping point and breaking her sobriety.

Sam is in the elevator with Paul and his cameraman stepping out just as the door closes leaving the duo stuck. He greets Hayes and Frankie and informs them that Vince’s alibi is solid. Paul and his cameraman exit the elevator, scrambling to catch the interaction on camera. Hayes throws her badge to the ground which Paul goes to pick up, she slips past them with Frankie and into the elevator. Hayes wants Frankie to go back to the physical evidence, but in an ironic twist that evidence was destroyed in a fire. In an attempt to learn more about the fire, Frankie reveals that the samples taken from Karl after the fire could give them an insight into the chemicals and methods used at the restaurant.

Frankie is able to find a chemical on Karl’s skin which can be used to start a fire. Combining a series of substances that use that chemical he is able to find that the source of the fire was a combination of the cooking oil and, drum roll please…Kitty litter. It took two hours for the two substances to react so while Vince still couldn’t have been the one to set off fire, passcode log-off at the restaurant puts Anthony at the scene. His motive – franchising the restaurant.

With one day remaining, Sam and Maxine talk to Anthony. They inform him of the new theory but he is defensive. He explains he’d bought the kitty litter for Leo to use with Meatball, his cat. He begins to realize that Leo may have just dumped the kitty litter into the wrong bin which would make it all an accident, a mistake.

Hayes visits Leo at the prison to inform him of the “good news;” however for him to be free he has to make a statement admitting his mistake. This upsets Leo as he insists that he did the right thing, followed the rules. So, he refuses. At CIU she’s met with Paul who continues filming her, thanking her for the work she’s done and for trying to help Leo. She asks him to stop filming which she obliges, but being the little slime-ball he is Paul continues filming her from a distance, capturing her emotional outburst. Still reeling, she turns around and she sees a note taped onto the kitchen rules on the fridge. an idea washes over her. At the prison she meets with Leo, showing him a picture asking him what it is. It’s his chore chart. One of the rules was to always follow the chore chart, which he did. However, on the night of the fire the chart was different. It said to empty the kitty litter into bin B, the oil bin, while normally it said Bin A. Leo was only following the rules, but someone had changed it – sabotaging him. That person was Rita.

Maxine confronts Rita at CIU and she admits to the crime, leaving Vince feeling upset and betrayed. He allows her to be taken by the police. Vince waits outside the prison with Paul as Leo is released. The two reunite with a heartfelt hug and are soon joined by Anthony and the three brothers reconcile.