For The People – One Big Happy Family

By: Dustin Bradley

We open with Sandra (Britt Robertson) taking a few ideas from Kate and begins the process of FINALLY cleaning her her office. Allison (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Jay (Wesam Keesh)  jokingly suggest that Kate must have been body swapped with Sandra because this is such unusual behavior. It ends with Jill (Hope Davis) calling the morning meeting and handing out cases.

Before Sandra gets her case she reads a letter from a young girl in juvie that is requesting a lawyer for an appeal since she feels she’s being wrongly imprisoned. It turns out everyone in the office has received a letter from her, but because there are other cases everyone ignored it. Not Sandra Bell. Sandra goes to see her and immediately has questions because she was sentenced to three years in juvenile hall for “stealing a scooter.” We find out that the judge on the case practically makes the children speak in their own behalf and then sentences them to a private for-profit prison with outrageous sentences for their little crimes.

With the help of Ted (Charles Michael Davis) we learn that this is actually all a money laundering scheme where the judge in the children’s court is getting paid by the owner of the prison to sentence kids there and funneling the payment through an apartment that his sister is “renting” from the judge for a whopping $24,000 a month.

Sandra isn’t a Prosecutor so she has to turn to her new friend Kate (Susannah Flood) in order to get justice. Kate is apprehensive at first due to the fact that if she loses this case it could ruin her career for trying to put away a federal judge. Eventually, she agrees when she is given enough evidence to convince herself that it’s the right thing to do. They go to court and Kate crushes the judge with the help of a final testimony from Judge Byrne (Vondie Curtis Hall) who was the final nail in the coffin to prove that everyone in this case was connected. He is found guilty.

Our other case this week was with Allison who has to deal with a stubborn old man who stole some very old valuable stamps long ago and is trying to sell them now. The government wants him to return them to the museum he stole them from, but he is refusing because in reality he stole them back since they were originally his father’s and after he passed away his brother sold them to the museum without talking to him. He needs the money to help out his great grand-niece who has leukemia to pay for a new treatment that won’t be covered by the family’s insurance.

After a series of stubborn actions from our old man, Allison finally comes up with a solution. When the stamps were first stolen the museum was offering a reward and that reward needs to be adjusted for inflation after all these years. To which the government and museum agrees and drops the charges. We end this case with oye defendant walking away with a check and hugging his family with the newfound prosperity that his great grand-niece will get treatment.

Elsewhere in the episode, Seth’s (Ben Rappaport) apartment floods and Jay offers to let him stay with him and his family. Jay thought it would be a good idea until his parents warm up to Seth way to quickly and start to annoy him. Eventually, it makes him realize that he is too old to be living with his parents and as soon as Seth’s apartment gets fixed they decide to become roommates. We end the episode with a wonderful party where all the prosecutors and defenders drink, play games and truly start to bond.

“For the People” is all new tonight on ABC at 10/9c!