Judgment Day – The finale begins with several short scenes of the main cast as they prepare for what is expected to be their Judgment Day. After a menancing dream about Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels), Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) startles awake and vows to bring Charlie down. Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper) prepares for to most crucial part of his campaign by sparing no expense on a customer suit designed and crafted by Jim the Tailor (Austin Turner). Roger White (Aml Ameen) is dressing for his day in court with Judge Taylor (Anthony Heald) when he’s joined by Henrietta White (Jerrika Hinton), who offers a few words of encouragement.

At Croker Industries, Charlie is rehabbing his knee while rehearsing his commencement speech. It’s not long before he’s joined by Jill Hensley (Chante Adams) who is not only all decked out for Conrad Hensley’s (Jon Michael Hill) big day in court, but has additions to Charlie’s speech. Charlie provides Jill with some encouraging words for Conrad and vows that he would have been there if it wasn’t for prior arrangements. After learning that Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu) is still AWOL, Roger arrives to pick up Jill. Roger promises Charlie to attend his speech if he gets out of court in time.

There appears to be some unspoken building tension during breakfast at Fulton before Conrad is called away to prepare for his day in court. Five-O (Atkins Estimond) wishes him luck and sends him off with an unspoken nod of confirmation.

Raymond shares his Charlie dream with Martha Croker (Diane Lane) over breakfast while also subtly suggesting that the lull in the collection would be the perfect time for her to safeguard her assets. Much to her surprise, Raymond admits that his obsession with Charlie is unhealthy and he now feels the need more than ever to leave his mark.

Charlie visits Joyce and fails to convince her to come forward against Norman Bagovitch (John Lacy). She continues to maintain the claim that whatever happened that night was something he chose and wanted. Charlie merely ominously tells her that everyone has to do what they have to do before leaving.

Roger takes the entire courtroom by surprise when he requests that Judge Taylor also let him add a motion to dismiss Conrad’s case to today’s agenda. After DA Jennings (Neal Reddy) says he’s ready to dispute the claim but opposed to the filing, Taylor surprisingly grants it but puts a rush on it. Roger begins by calling Officer Smith (Scott Daniel Johnson) to the stand.

Feeling the need to burn off some nervous energy, Charlie has Gerald (L Warren Young) take him home, where he discovers Serena Croker (Sarah Jones) in the middle of a home repair. Much to her surprise, he apologizes for getting her involved in his current fiasco. They are soon interrupted by a very upset Martha who wastes little time tearing into Charlie again for what he is about to do to Joyce.

While sharing Officer Smith’s body cam footage with the court, Roger cleverly gets Smith to admit that he acted so aggressively because of fear from past experiences. Roger then uses that as a defense for why Conrad responded the way he did. Although Smith maintains the belief that Conrad didn’t have the right to defend himself against a police officer, Roger argues against this. After some objections and a few more minutes of back-and-forth dispute, Judge Taylor agrees with Roger’s stance and drops the case. After celebrating outside the courthouse, Roger tells Conrad that it was him who inspired him to do what he did in court.

Even after a quick discussion with Harry Zale (Bill Camp), it becomes clear that Raymond can’t or isn’t willing to drop his pursuit of Raymond. Later that day, Raymond seemingly meets with Martha at her house to give his stamp of approval on her plan to safeguard her assets. Once he approves and Martha turns her attention to dinner in the oven, Raymond receives a call from Sirja (Eline Powell). Although their discussion is brief and rushed, it appears that she once again provides the encouragement he needs.

Charlie receives similar encouragement from Serena as he and Wally Croker (Evan Roe) arrive early for the press conference at the Georgia stadium. It’s not long after this that Wes is at the podium introducing Charlie. Elsewhere, Joyce, Raymond, and Martha watch Charlie’s speech with anticipation. The speech starts off as planned but something about seeing Wally out there in the crowd leads to Charlie changing his mind. Although he clearly backs Wes as the more caring, much better candidate, he does not reveal Norma’s alleged sexual assault. Despite his jump in the polls, Wes is not at all happy with the outcome and vilifies Roger for this later.

Charlie and Wally are at home learning of the news of Wes’s poll increase from newscaster (Milli M) when Stroock (Christian Clemenson) interrupts with the urgent announcement that a new entity, Red Dog LLC, is making moves to become the majority stockholder of the Concourse. Charlie takes the news about as well as could be expected and races over to Martha’s house where she and Raymond are in the throes of passion. After a failed phone call, Charlie uses the spare key to let himself in through the kitchen.

Charlie soon walks in on Raymond and Martha and proceeds to choke Raymond once Martha rushes from the room to call the cops. Raymond doesn’t attempt to defend himself and Charlie appears to be enjoying watching the life drain from his wife when his hand begins to seize. It’s unclear whether he’s having a stroke or a heart attack, but he soon finds himself splayed out on the floor.

The series concludes with Roger arriving, consoling Martha, and closing Charlie’s eyelids.

 

A Man In Full Review

I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the series. At times, I really wanted to dislike it because of all the ulterior propaganda. Despite that and what I’ve said about past episodes, I found it somewhat gratifying not only seeing Charlie do the right thing but also seeing Conrad get justice. In addition, I’ve been a big advocate for the cliff-hanging ending ever since The Sopranos, but I cannot help admitting that I would have loved a more complete ending.

I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know if there is a complete ending or if the cliffhanger was an attempt at a second season. Either way, this was an incredible miniseries compared to the other tripe being released these days. If you can get past the political correctness and some of the juvenile locker room humor, you’ll have yourself a decent little 6-episode miniseries. I’d give the finale a hard 6 out of 10, although it was honestly lackluster.

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