Your Honor: The Worst Thing Each Character Did

Bryan Cranston hadn’t been in a compelling TV show since Breaking Bad ended. That’s until Your Honor premiered in December 2020. The Showtime miniseries feels like the perfect vehicle for the actor.  Just like Walter White, his character Michael Desatio is always in a race against time to get things down… illegal things. Never mind that he is a judge.

Michael outdoes New Orleans mob boss Jimmy Baxter when it comes to the number of morally questionable decisions committed per episode. But the best thing about the show is that Michael isn’t the only one making choices that are downright shocking or have negative ripple effects. In Your Honor, bad people outnumber the good ones by far.

10 Adam Desiato: Hit And Run

Adam’s actions are the genesis of all the problems that arise in the show. He accidentally hits Jimmy Baxter’s son Rocco while trying to speed away from men who want to attack him. Adam’s first reaction is commendable as he tries to resuscitate the unfortunate Rocco, who was test-riding his new bike.

As Adam panics, he gets an asthma attack so he heads back to his car to look for an inhaler. Not wanting to take responsibility for his actions, he drives away. As soon as he gets home, he tries to get rid of his clothes and hopes that everything will be alright. Sadly, Rocco dies, leading the mob boss to begin a hunt for whoever was responsible.

9 Gina Baxter: Ordering A Hit On Kofi

Gina Baxter gets points for being a loving mom who cares deeply about her children. However, her thirst for revenge gets the better of her early in the series.

After Rocco dies, Gina is devastated. As soon as gang member Kofi is arrested while driving the Volvo that was involved in the accident, she concludes that he is the culprit. Her husband Jimmy calls for patience but she goes against his advice and orders a hit. She tasks none other than her son Carlo to do it. It’s a poor decision because it soon becomes obvious that Kofi was innocent.

8 Frannie: Sleeping With Adam

High school teacher Frannie comfortably has an affair with Adam, who happens to be her student. It’s a big risk for her because she could lose her job if the information comes out. Adam is not yet an adult too, so therein lies a bigger problem. Frannie might just be registered as a sex offender.

Since Adam loves her, he lets her know what he did. Despite being slightly older than him, she gives him bad advice by telling him to continue keeping his secret. Interestingly, she doesn’t keep the same secret for long.

7 Nancy Costello: Threatening Carlo With The Lethal Injection

Detective Nancy Costello is generally a by-the-book cop who likes Michael too much to see that something is not right with him. Since there are various characters scheming behind the scenes, it becomes impossible for her to do her job properly.

In a desperate move, she threatens Carlo with the possibility of a lethal injection. Like a villain, she goes on to describe in horrific and lurid detail how the poisonous fluids in the lethal injection shut down the nerves. The death penalty doesn’t have many fans nowadays and Nancy using it to threaten a suspect is an action that doesn’t come off as admirable.

6 Charlie: Tying Loose Ends

Charlie is your typical smiling-but-evil politician. The people believe he is a nice person but he is in bed with a couple of shady people. He is able to talk to a local gang to help in disposing of the Volvo involved in the hit-and-run. Kofi, the boy tasked with getting rid of the car isn’t so lucky.

He gets arrested and Baxter’s men eventually get their hands on him. Instead of trying to help Kofi, he goes to great lengths to tie up all loose ends and make sure nothing ties him to Kofi.

5 Fia: Being Naive

Things get a bit complicated when Jimmy Baxter’s daughter Fia falls for Adam. Michael’s teenage son is a mess but apparently, he’s good with the ladies. Fia’s mother Gina does everything in her power to end the relationship. Despite being the most innocent character in the show, Fia is naive and unaware of all the madness around her.

Fia’s decision to date Adam is problematic because he is the person who killed her brother and she doesn’t know about it. Being with Adam also prevents the Baxter family from exerting revenge.

4 Jimmy Baxter: Killing Trevor

A stranger who is aware that Adam is the culprit decides to blackmail Michael. The judge then goes to great lengths to find out who he is. He uses Detective Costello to get the license plates of the vehicles that were spotted at the gas station.

He eventually discovers that the blackmailer is Ed’s sea-loving son Trevor. Michael offers to buy him a boat in order to keep him quiet. He also agrees to partially meet his demand of $200,000. Unfortunately for Trevor, Jimmy Baxter and his henchman Frankie catch him and Michael. The judge talks his way out of getting killed but Trevor isn’t so lucky. Jimmy shoots him.

3 Kofi Jones: Not Being Careful Enough

Kofi is given the task of getting rid of the Volvo but he doesn’t take enough precautions. He does something that eventually leads to his demise. He drives the car through the town’s streets that are infested with cops. As expected, he ends up getting arrested.

As a young gang member, he should have known that being asked to get rid of a car means it was likely used for a crime. He ought to have disposed it at night or used routes that aren’t likely to be filled with cops. Sadly, he doesn’t do that so he ends up getting arrested, tortured, and killed for something he didn’t do.

2 Carlo: Revenge Killing Kofi

Carlo kills Kofi in a brutal manner by bashing the young man’s head on a wall 7 times. He does this when he has only a few days left on his sentence. By doing this, he risks serving another lengthy jail term. That was Jimmy Baxter’s concern in the first place and that’s why he didn’t want Carlo to pull off the hit.

Thanks to his reckless actions, Carlo gets arrested again a couple of days after leaving prison. His father is thus forced to do the same thing Michael is doing—saving a guilty child from the claws of justice.

1 Michael Desiato: Orchestrating The Arrest Of A Black Judge

A problem arises when judge Sarah LeBlanc gets assigned to the Carlo Baxter case. Michael knows that he won’t be able to influence the case with a new judge at the helm, therefore breaking his promise to Jimmy Baxter to influence the outcome of the case.

Michael puts on his quick-thinking hat and meets LeBlanc for drinks after work, knowing that she’ll drink enough to not quite be drunk, but be well above the legal limit. He tips off some cops to pull her over; her arrest leads to her agreeing to temporarily step down as a judge, giving up the Baxter case.

She later tells Michael that she feels someone influenced the case, not knowing that he is in fact the culprit.

About The Author

Philip Etemesi
(1212 Articles Published)

Philip Etemesi is an author, journalist, screenwriter and film critic based in Nairobi. Kenya. As a child, he preferred watching movies like The Goodfellas instead of Home Alone. His girlfriend constantly has to pull him from the front of the TV but he just keeps returning. Stubborn dude! An animal lover, Philip also has a pet giraffe called Refu.

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