Episode 1 begins by briefly showing Sasha Price (Amy Mathews) standing by a bonfire. She has several faint memories of Patrick Harrows (Erroll Shand) and is subsequently shown picking him up on the side of the road after his vehicle overheated. Meredith Nelson-Moore SC (Frances O’Connor) schedules a meeting with someone over the phone just as Brett Colby QC (Sam Neill) arrives at the courthouse to brief Patrick and Nina Distazio (Kaila Ferrelli) on the proceeding trial. This discussion reveals that Patrick is one of two defendants being accused of murdering Sasha’s mother. Patrick also learns that he’ll be seated next to Sasha and is advised against even the slightest gesture.
Meredith offers Sasha the same advice in the adjacent cell. Despite the intimate memories that ensue, Sasha claims her hatred of Patrick will make remaining objective hard. In the following days, Colby and Meredith lounge in their hotel room and strategize for selecting a jury. They appear to agree for the most part, except when it comes to older men and women.
The trial begins with prosecutor, Jude Persand (Fayssal Bazzi) laying out the crime that Patrick and Sasha are been accused of. Although rather long-winded, he does a good job of painting them as greedy, jilted lovers who killed Bernice Price (Kris McQuade) so Sasha could inherit the 12,000-hectare property known as Airly Downs. It isn’t much longer after this that Judge Muir (James Lugton) helps things along.
There is a brief moment of awkwardness in the jury room, but this is easily overcome when talks after trial drinking comes up. In addition to this, some of the jurors are old acquaintances. Donna Lee (Suesha Rana) is the ex-wife of Dean Pearcey (Luke Peglar) while Joey Kovac (Josh McKenzie) was just a few years ahead of Claudia D’Angelo (Stefanie Caccamo) in school. Being the owner of the town’s mill, Winston Hang (Anthony Brandon Wong) is practically known by everyone.
When Thelma Connell (Tasma Walton), Felix Tilly (Adriano Cappelletta), and Skye Lehman (Isabelle Basen) are revealed to be the out-of-town jurors, Ian (Greg McNeill) make sure everyone is aware of Bernice’s harsh reputation. This leads to the memory of the day that Sasha asked Bernice to hire Patrick at the farm. As it just happened to turn out, Bernice was injured and Patrick supposedly had experience.
When the defense gets their turn before the jurors, Meredith does a good job of painting Sasha as a dedicated daughter while Colby instructs them on how to apply the ‘pub test’ to the prosecution’s evidence. (If something sounds too good to be true, it likely is). He also claims that the prosecution won’t be able to produce any evidence showing that Patrick was at work the day Bernice died.
When the jury rests for lunch, Columbus (Brad Francis), and jokes about Colby’s statement. At the same time, Ian advocates for Winston as jury foreman. That same day, Meredith learns that Fleur Hepburn (Katherine Pearson) has made a request for Sasha’s cousin, Claire Spears (Coco Jack Gillies) to sit in on the trial. Meredith is completely against the idea and blames it on her infant child.
Court resumes with the prosecution questioning Senior Constable Neal Collins (Myles Pollard) giving his account of arriving at the farm on July 19th, 20022. He was dispatched an hour after the paramedics failed to receive Bernice. Above all, he distinctly remembers the bonfire. When Meredith questions him on the cross, she clearly identifies that the authorities made no efforts on that first night to dispute that the incident was anything other than an accident. Colby also gets Collins to admit that when he took the photos, they weren’t taken with the intention to later be used against Sasha as evidence. It took a full three days before homicide even declared the case was worth looking into. Later that same day, Collins is approached by Claire outside the courthouse but refuses to spare her any time. Merely seconds later, he does address his concerns about Sasha and Patrick being held in adjunct cells with Detective Kora Gardner (Shareena Clanton). Her response is that she wants them to talk.
The trial resumes with Jude questioning coroner, Dr. Han Liu (Shan-Ree Tan) about everything from the time of death to the shape of the wound on the back of Bernice’s head. Since no official murder weapon has been declared, Colby has several objections, but the Judge plays in Jude’s favor. The biggest take here is that Bernice had been dead four hours before Sasha called paramedics. Colby practically rips Liu’s testimony apart when on the cross, he establishes that he never personally inspected the well.
Thelma and Parvinder Sangar (Sharon Johal) bond over their shared Indian history. Thelma becomes so interested that she attempts to pursue her lineage even further, but her aged mother, Marjorie Watson (Lynne Porteous) is clearly unable in no shape to help. The D’Angelo family questions Claudia about the trial but she refuses to say much other than that he believes Patrick to be a ‘gold digger.’ Joey tries to find a replacement driver to cover his routes but refuses his friend, Pete McKirney’s (Will McNeill) offers, claiming that he doesn’t have the experience. They don’t get long to dispute this thanks to the unexpected arrival of Alice Jinx (Lila McGuire) who was expecting Joey at home by now. Once Joey is alone, there is a brief scene of him shooting something up.
While attending dinner with Judge Muir and Alex (Ronnie Bhalvani), Jude makes an offhanded comment after seeing Meredith and Colby pass by on the street outside. This doesn’t sit well at all with Muir, who tells him if he’s such a stickler for rules, he should find another table.
Jude calls Detective Gardner to the stand the following day to discuss Bernice’s movements on the day she died. Around noon that day, Bernice apparently felt the need to pay a visit to her solicitor, Stanley Churchill (Phil Bennett). After only spending 15 minutes with Churchill, she went to Patrick’s room at the Sunrise Motel. She entered with a bag, spent 10 minutes inside, and left without the bag. Later that afternoon, a neighbor reported a gunshot near the Airly Downs property. Although Bernice was not shot, there was Packard gun residue on her vest, suggesting an altercation of sorts. An old shotgun was later recovered on the farm but it contained no traces of Packard ammunition residue. A 22 caliber with Packard ammunition was later discovered in Patrick’s hotel room.
Even more damning is the revelation that Sasha withdrew $100,000 from the farm’s bank account and delivered it to her Bernice. Gardner suspects it was the money that Bernice delivered to Patrick. As of right now, the police have only recovered $50,000. Half is still currently unaccounted for. Both Patrick and Sasha claim to have spent most of the day at a waterfall but this cannot be corroborated. Despite CCTV footage of them together at a restaurant at around 7:30 pm that evening, it doesn’t play in their favor because they were arguing. When Sasha returned to the farm at a little after 8 pm, she immediately started the bonfire. It wasn’t until after the fire was going that she then tried to reach her mother by phone. Along with pallets and household waste, there were also metal remnants of a metal auger.
When Meredith questions Gardner for the defense, she not only shines light on several known disputes that Bernice was involved in with locals, but she gets the detective to admit that all the evidence against Sasha is merely circumstantial.
During a brief recess, Joey convinces his father to hire Pete as a driver and mentions taking him on a test run after trial. At the same time, Claire arranges for Sasha’s friend, Vicki Kowlowski (Sarah Light), to babysit. The trial resumes with Colby questioning Gardner. He immediately attacks Gardner’s claim that Sasha started the bonfire in an attempt to conceal evidence. As it turns out, there were several augers recovered on the farm and the one found in the burn pit cannot be linked to Bernice’s wound with 100% certainty. In addition to all that, the burn pit was scheduled to be lit on that day, as it had been for the previous three years.
After the trial, Claudia returns home to discover that her family has left for communal. Winston reads several pamphlets about prostate cancer and the end of life. Joey’s test run with Pete goes completely awry when a dropped phone leads to him destroying the Tunkwell sign.
The episode ends Sasha’s memory of starting the bonfire and calling Bernice’s phone.
The Twelve Review
I feel like I’ve been through the wringer after watching this. I cannot say that that crime isn’t intriguing. Some of the juror’s life are even more so, especially Joey’s. However, there was so much information coming at once and from so many different areas, that it was nearly impossible to keep up with it all. I’m sure all of them will be practically useless in the end, but for now, it is an effective way to build suspense.
That said, there is such a thing as too much, and I felt the episode toed very close to that line at times. I also can’t help but feel that the series would likely get more attention if it was all released at once. This is just a personal opinion, but I am nonetheless intriguing enough to keep watching. Compared to the first season, I feel that the jurors are far more interesting. I’d give the episode a 5.6 out of 10.
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