Recap of Episode 5 of ‘The Better Sister’: The Showdown

Ethan Macintosh is represented by arguably the most incompetent lawyer imaginable. Despite all the hype surrounding Michelle Sanders’ supposed outstanding legal skills, it feels as though Chloe’s boyfriend, Jake, intentionally suggested her just to ruin the case.

During Ethan’s murder trial for the alleged stabbing of his father, Michelle makes questionable decisions. She allows the prosecutor, Austin Smith, to introduce surprise evidence without objection and fails to challenge the judge’s unreasonable rulings. She barely interrupts the prosecutor’s lengthy speculative monologues about Ethan’s intentions, ultimately watching as the DA skillfully coerces the child into admitting he wished his father dead. Such legal representation could easily be deemed a basis for declaring a mistrial.

However, the blame shouldn’t fall solely on Michelle or Gloria Reuben, the talented actress portraying a character who appears inexplicably incompetent at a critical career juncture. The responsibility lies with the writing, which has crafted one of the most absurd courtroom sequences in recent memory. From presenting evidence post-discovery to the farcical non-interrogative interrogations, and the defense’s passive stance as the client gets decimated – everything seems off. Even the order of witness testimonies defies logic. Comparatively, the courtroom scenes in Daredevil: Born Again appear more believable, despite featuring a blind ninja lawyer defending a mystical crime-fighter.

Though Ethan’s trial is the episode’s closing act and climax, The Better Sister’s usual assortment of secrets, lies, revelations, and traumatic backstories pave our way there.The biggest surprise, mostly because it wasn’t really set up or alluded to in any way before now, is that Ethan and his biological mother Nicky have been communicating with that secret burner flip phone Chloe found and Nicky erased a couple episodes back. We still have to wait to find out what he said to her, though, which is frustrating since it likely clarifies his relationship with Adam. But Chloe turns on Nicky in an extremely cutting way, preventing us from learning what he told his aunt-mom. The deliberate withholding of information is obviously an important part of mystery writing, but when it feels like simply having a proper conversation would clear things up, that withholding starts to feel more like cheating.

Chloe has an awkward encounter with Jake. The handsome lawyer arrives at her house shirtless and tries to seduce her, even while she rages at him for disclosing their relationship to his and Adam’s sleazy boss Bill, as well as receiving Bill’s orders to search her house for documents. 

She has a similarly off meeting with FBI Agent Olivero (Frank Pando), whose vagueness is exceeded only by his weird idea of law-enforcement bargaining. In exchange for her help in finding incriminating evidence in Adam’s office at work, he’ll prevent her son from being railroaded for a murder he knows the kid didn’t commit by publicly pointing out that Adam’s shady business associates had the means and motive too. Thanks for not framing a child, I guess? He also hubba-hubbas in Chloe’s general direction as she walks away, resplendent as usual in a tank top, which is how you know he’s no good.

On a more positive note, I guess, she successfully shames Ethan’s drug-dealing friend Kevin into sticking up for him on the stand, in exchange for all the times Ethan saved Kevin’s ass. So that’s something.

Nicky, meanwhile, wakes up after a night spent fucking a cater waiter six ways to Sunday as if she’d just committed a murder. Having vigorous sex with a stranger is about the only fun, positive thing she’s done since she got to New York! Keep in mind it’s not the drinking she flashes back to, it’s the fucking. But it’s the drinking that’s the problem!

On this much, at least, Chloe’s advisor Catherine agrees. When Nicky shows back up at her house to collect her Tupperware (lol), Catherine commends her for having sex with the waiter at the wake, a move she claims she invented. Then she launches into a bizarre monologue about how white women have the luxury of tearing each other apart over men, but Black women are socialized better than that and stick together — weird girlboss racial essentialism. Taken in tandem with the prosecutor’s speech about “the ghetto” and underserved communities, “usually Black or brown,” it feels an AI summary from a broken Google search got stuck it in the script. This material demands more consideration than this show is able to give it.

There are some positive notes, though. Maxwell Acee Donovan impresses as Ethan; as an actor he’s in a tough spot, playing this kind of part right after Owen Cooper’s breakout performance in a similar role in Adolescence, but he does a fine job painting Ethan as a good, considerate kid pushed into depression and anger by his emotionally abusive father. I want things to turn out alright for him, which is more than one can say for pretty much anyone else on this show.

Elsewhere, Paul Sparks is characteristically excellent as Ken, the soft-spoken writer with vaguely Jimmy Buffett styling who runs the AA meeting Nicky rushes to after enjoying some hair of the dog with a man who pretends to be her father in one of the show’s oddest scenes so far, which is saying something. Anyway! I’ve enjoyed Sparks in everything I’ve seen him in since Boardwalk Empire, where he played a memorably chickenshit gangster; watch him carefully here and you’ll see that while what he’s doing isn’t showy, particularly next to Elizabeth Banks’s broad performance as Nicky, he simply never makes an uninteresting choice as a performer. The inflection of a sentence, a glance from the corner of his eye, the way he wears a shirt or holds a cigarette — he feels less like an Interesting Character and more like a character who is interesting, if that makes sense. With this show — with any show, good bad or indifferent — you’ll be a happier viewer if you learn to enjoy the good stuff when you get it, however fleetingly.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.