All Rise Season 3 Episode 20 Review: Sometimes Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

On All Rise Season 3 Episode 20 “Sometimes Truth is Stranger Than Fiction,” we say goodbye to a show that was miraculously granted an extra season but still hasn’t gotten all the respect it deserves. At the end, we remember what makes it great.

To answer the most pressing question: yes, everyone makes it to the end alive. Even so, characters are put through the emotional wringer, whether through the drama that has carried all season or the cases that are as complex as ever.

We have one final trial to witness within courtroom 802, and it’s a doozy. Emily is defending a woman accused of killing her husband while blackout drunk. One small problem with said accusation: there was no body at the scene of the alleged crime.

Though a couple of plot twists that pop up along the way might take us by surprise, the final and most relevant one is as predictable as it is sensational: Nori’s husband is very much alive, having set her up for his own “murder”.

Many shows would fade to black on this for the shock value alone. To its credit, this plot makes us sit with the effect it has on Nori, who both has her life saved and must face the fact that her own husband tried to destroy it in the same moment.

It’s a point that will come back to haunt us in the final minutes of the series– as will a bit set in motion when Andre (who can’t be free of even in this late hour) demands $100,000 of Ness, Amy, And Rachel for leaving him to start their own firm.

Despite all this, it’s hard to turn our attention (or dread) from the Russian mob trial. Mark is increasingly short with everyone over the threats that loom for them all.  Finding out he’s being removed as the attorney hardly helps.

Then Vic announces he’s going to testify, whereupon he’ll immediately be sent into federal witness protection. Mark can’t know where he’s going and will never see him again. They have only hours to process this.

For how messy, even toxic, they’ve been as father and son, it’s as much of a gut punch as we can get without a death. I can’t quite bring myself to pity Vic, but this is probably the most decent thing he’s ever done. It also leaves so much unsaid.

The speed with which we then transition into Mark and Amy’s wedding is jarring under these circumstances, but I’m so relieved to end on a joyous note that I’ll let it pass. It’s a beautiful ceremony that celebrates many of show’s best relationships.

As things wind down, it also becomes very clear that through this episode ticks all the boxes of a series finale, the writers were fully intending to continue the stories started here. The reception has barely started when the ladies learn Andre is suing them.

It’s bad, but not a catastrophe. I’m confident they’ll get this thrown out. The same can’t be said for the news Emily gets. Distraught and incensed, Nori tracks down her husband and kills him for real. Emily asks about double jeopardy, but I’m not sure it applies.

These cliffhangers, along with everything that awaits our characters, are stories we’ll have to fill in for ourselves. At least there’s some comfort in knowing everyone is relatively happy, despite a few shocks in our last minutes with them.

The series ends with everyone piling in for group photos. As important as all the timely and relevant stories All Rise has brought to the surface have been, this is the one thing we remember most– family, literal and found, from all walks of life.

 

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All Rise aired Saturdays at 9/8c on OWN.

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