Reviewer Rating: 4.1/5.0
4.1
It looks like the defendant has just delivered a victory for domestic violence survivors, although that’s more fantasy than reality.
Compared to its predecessor, The Accuser Season 2 Episode 5, The Accuser Season 2 Episode 6 follows the themes of the previous and previous installments and is a pretty solid installment.
The focus is on the mutual trauma and shared sisterhood between two unlikely people.
Cobie Smulders can never go wrong, and her portrayal of Val feels tailor-made for an actress who excels at portraying incredibly complex, flawed, and occasionally chaotic characters.
Val is not a “mess” in this case, as she is a domestic violence survivor and single mother trying to get by while caring for her son and making sure he never ends up like his father.
She really struggles most of the time because it seems like the system is stacked against her simply because her ex-husband is an emotional terrorist who not only manages to charm her, but often confuses others so that they don’t see that he is who.
Trey is a classic narcissist who cannot control himself and tries to find ways to hurt Val.
He took no responsibility for his actions and abused her physically and emotionally, leaving her an emotionally damaged woman who turned to alcohol to cope and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks.
He then used them against her at will, including when he repeatedly threatened to take full custody of their children with his current wife, Jordan.
What an evil man he is before him, the audience doesn’t have to do much to understand exactly who and what Trey is and why Val suffers so much.
Unsurprisingly, around this time she was on trial for murder, with the state of Oregon trying to build a case against the ex-wife who was mentally, financially and emotionally “unstable” and had a motive for murder.
Trey’s death was unexpected and embarrassing. One minute we’re gnashing our teeth at Val sneaking back to his house to steal back a statue that was hers, and the next she hears him hit the floor.
At first, it certainly looked like an accident, as if an electrical issue from his welding tool shocked him and stopped his heart.
Val didn’t kill him, he killed him. She even performed chest compressions on him and performed CPR for a few seconds before she had a panic attack. Her mind flashed through all the ways he had hurt her, and soon she was too busy getting out of there and covering her tracks instead of calling 911.
Given Val’s experience and her mental health, her reaction was reasonable, although most of us would wish we would have called an emergency number and reported the death.
In fact, the hour does a subtle but decent enough job at capturing some of the reactions to trauma. When we first see Val preparing to talk to Trey and ask him about the sculpture, she’s so cautious and meek.
He was grumpy, cruel, and mean to her, and Val had a typical “freeze” reaction to his anger. She practically trembled under his gaze, and soon after Jordan appeared, she ran away.
When he died, Val ran away again, rushing to find Oliver and bring him home because she knew she didn’t want her son around the house when Trey’s body was discovered.
Jordan is a stark contrast to Val, and is also a concrete manifestation of the trauma response of the trauma survivor “Little Deer”. To many, she may even be truly clueless about her husband’s violent temper and abusive ways.
But Jordan’s approach to Tray consisted of giving in, appeasing and being as nice as possible, except, ironically, when he made demands on Val.
Jordan may not seem like an ally to Val on the surface, but she quietly becomes one behind the scenes. She defends her because it’s the right thing to do and she genuinely loves Oliver and respects Val.
She also understands Val better than she lets on, which must have shocked Val (pardon the pun) since she was mostly intimidated by Jordan and Oliver’s relationship, resenting Jordan for “having it all together,” and is usually put off by the presence of this woman.
To Val, it seemed like Jordan made her feel inadequate and that there was something specific about her that caused Trey to act like he did.
She doesn’t feel like Jordan approves or supports her, nor does she have half the experience of accepting the picturesque lifestyle Jordan and Trey seem to have.
That the same façade Val showed when he was with Trey doesn’t go away speaks to how we tend to view abuse and how easily it can be hidden behind closed doors, even to those who know better. Say, it’s also ironic.
That’s part of the reason why the true cause of Trey’s death became so convoluted. We see flashbacks of how things unfolded, so we know Val didn’t do it, but we can also understand how she was put on trial.
When they found her sneaking into his house and leaving shortly after, it didn’t look like an accident, and she didn’t do herself any favors by not calling 911.
We were so obsessed with knowing that this wasn’t murder, we were shocked when we learned that it was indeed murder and that Jordan was the mastermind behind the whole thing.
Time seemed to fly by so quickly, but even with that in mind, it was shocking that Jordan stood on the witness stand without a lawyer and admitted everything, making it clear that Val was not involved in anything.
It’s a way to bog down the prosecution’s case and embarrass the other side when they could have spelled it all out before they even got into court.
While in many ways this would have been a better outcome, if Jordan had told the truth before the trial, they might still have pinned something on Val and both women would have gone to jail.
Initially, Jordan seemed to be the final nail in Val’s coffin.
Still, once we start following the rest of the timeline, you can tell she really feels bad for Val, and she’ll never be able to live with herself if Val goes to jail for what she did.
Jordan was a murderer, yes, but he was a genuinely good guy. By the time I got into his moment, I was ready for Cobie Smulders to mesmerize me, but instead Dina Shehabi emerged as the most compelling and compelling character at the time.
We see Jordan as a woman on the edge, and your heart goes with her as she outlines everything Trey did to her and how she executed him after yet another beating.
She was compassionate, even though we knew her admissions on the witness stand outlined something beyond self-defense.
Just like Val, Jordan had the same habit of covering Trae, so there’s no physical evidence that he was abused. The police left no records, photos of bruises or anything else.
Sadly, this is not uncommon, which means the onus is on the domestic violence survivor to try to prove to everyone around them that this person poses a serious threat and is harmful.
But when you have someone with Trey’s charisma, power and money, the outside world is just another tool he can control and exploit to his advantage.
Both women love Oliver dearly and genuinely care about his well-being. Val worries that her son shares his father’s violent tendencies, and Jordan worries that Trey will hurt Oliver.
They are both protective mothers trying to do what’s best for Oliver, but they do it differently. Jordan’s method is permanent and more effective. She might have succeeded if Val hadn’t shown up at the house.
Val must work to forgive Jordan for not only killing her child’s father, but for being on trial for it. It was devastating because Val couldn’t understand how Jordan could let things continue the way she did.
But she got through it in the end, and they were more similar than different. As she tells Oliver, Jordan is family.
Understandably, Val wants to do whatever it takes to make sure Jordan doesn’t go to jail. However, that’s where time turns, and while it’s emotionally satisfying because we sympathize with these women, the work feels so unrealistic.
Wahl’s threat to lie on the witness stand and plead guilty to dismiss the case against Jordan, thereby creating a double jeopardy situation, is ridiculous. The fact that it actually works is absolutely ridiculous.
Sadly, the law rarely works in favor of survivors of domestic violence, and Val wanted to point that out. Having her play Double Jeopardy like some kind of Uno Reverse card feels like it undermines the focus and poignancy this episode explores.
I’m not saying these women and this family don’t deserve happy endings, it’s just that that’s often not the reality.
Accused often does such a good job of figuring out the complexities and pitfalls of the system that it ties things up with this incredible, neat bow that feels unreal to what we’ve come to know and expect from this series.
Still, I should be satisfied that these two women found peace and freedom in this fictional realm, which is a hopeful sentiment for those who might be in a similar situation.
Over to you, accused fanatic.
How do you feel about the murder twist?
Do you think the ending is unrealistic?
Let’s hear all your thoughts in the comments below!
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