As the first episode of You Don’t Know Me begins, we hear the prosecutor telling the jury they aren’t sure of the motive of the murder, but the evidence puts the defendant’s phone in the area around the time of the murder. There is CCTV footage of HERO (Samuel Adewunmi) driving toward the scene of the crime before Jamil (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva) was shot and killed. The defendant knew the victim and had traces of blood under his fingernails which he never explained. The two had been spotted arguing before and the gun was found in Hero’s apartment. Hero had gunpower on his clothing. Plus, forensics show he had the gun that was used in the murder of Jamil. She goes on to say that the defendant left a trail of evidence so there should be no doubt of his guilt. Once she finishes, the defense prepares for its closing speech.
The judge explains Hero has decided to represent himself at this stage of the trial. Before Hero begins, the judge instructs the jury that anything he says should not be mistaken for new evidence. Hero starts by saying he didn’t fire his barrister because he did a bad job. Instead, he knew this was the last thing the jury would get to hear. He realizes he is on the verge of going to prison and didn’t testify earlier because his lawyer told him it wasn’t a good idea. Hero promises he didn’t kill Jamil although he is sorry the boy is dead. A woman in the audience screams out when Hero says drug dealers get shot all the time, but he is adamant Jamil was indeed a drug dealer. Although the prosecution wants the jurors to focus on the evidence, Hero thinks it is important for them to know why these things happened. He goes on to say this isn’t about blood under a fingernail. It is a murder and someone else did it.
We see Hero working at a car dealership while he tells the jurors he isn’t a drug dealer and has never been in a gang. Hero and Jamil had rarely talked until Jamil showed up at the dealership one day saying he was looking for a car. Jamil says he is looking for a fast car before asking if he can pay in cash. Hero says he’ll have to talk to the manager about that. Hero warns him he could get pulled over multiple times a day in a car like that. Jamil asks him if thinks he is dumb. Jamil says something that rubs Hero the wrong way so he tells him to leave. Jamil quickly says it was a joke, but Hero tells him to take his crack money somewhere else. The manager interrupts and learns about Jamil wanting to pay for one of the vehicles with fivers. He quickly says no. Jamil gets upset, ridicules their customer service, and calls the cars trash. When he begins touching one of them, Hero tells him not to do that.
One of Jamil’s boys gets into Hero’s face and offers to box him up. Hero tells him about the four cameras recording his actions right now. Jamil laughs and tells him he needs to learn how to take a joke before leaving with his friends. As he walks away from the store, Hero yells and tells him he is a joke. Hero tells the jury that Jamil was bumming cigarettes six months before and could pay for a car in cash so he was likely selling drugs. He confesses to calling Jamil a waste because he was talking trash to his girl, but he never threatened to kill him. Since Jamil got under his skin, he lashed out at him. He goes on to say he has to talk about Kyra (Sophie Wilde) to talk about Jamil because everything goes back to her. He explains he met her two years ago before any of this ever happened. We see a flashback of Hero riding the bus next to Kyra who is reading a good. He gets her attention before saying he believes he knows her.
She rolls her eyes and he quickly admits he doesn’t know her. She got off after two stops. Since he liked her, he started taking the same bus at the same time and eventually ran into her again a week later. Although it sounds like he was stalking her, he had to take the bus sometimes anyway. When she sits down, Hero says he knows where he knows her from now. He jokes that he remembers her from the bus last week although she doesn’t find it funny. He asks her about the book and she begins telling him about it. Later, Kyra gets off at her stop and finds Hero waiting on her with two coffees and two muffins. Then, he goes to an Italian restaurant in hopes of getting a recipe for his upcoming date with Kyra. They offer to cook for Hero, but he is adamant he wants to cook carbonara for himself.
He tells them the girl is special before heading to the grocery store to pick up supplies. When he returns home and begins cooking, he has to spit out the first dish because it is so nasty. He keeps trying and perfecting it. Eventually, he returns to the Italian restaurant so they can try the dish. They love it. One night, he sits down with Kyra and serves her the spaghetti carbonara he prepared. They laugh about the number of eggs he went through trying to prepare it. Once dinner ends, Hero walks Kyra to her apartment and asks if he can kiss her. Although she says no, she agrees to prepare dinner for him the following day. As Hero prepares to leave, he stops and celebrates the successful date. Back in the courtroom, Hero asks for a minute. He is reminded he cannot introduce new evidence at this stage. Hero says much of this is about Kyra and he was happy hanging out with her.
We jump back and see Hero being confronted by Jamil as he walks to Kyra’s place with flowers in his hand. He gives her the flowers before entering the apartment. Hero looks around and finds a room filled with books so he asks Kyra about them. She tells him to pick up one of the books. He grabs one and hands it to her. She begins telling him about the book and when she read it. They talk about Hero’s sister before Kyra begins telling him about the book’s story. Soon, he gets up and tries to look at the food she made, but she slaps his hand and stops him. She doesn’t want him to judge her based on the dish he made. Hero tells jurors Kyra could’ve fed him cat food because he had no issues with her whatsoever. When dinner ends that night, Hero gets to kiss her for the first time. Then, he explains that Kyra moved in with him a few months later although she kept her flat too.
She brought some of her books with her. He plays video games while talking to her about traveling and other things. Hero says Bless (Bukky Bakray) loves Kyra as well. Bless kept telling Hero to look at Kyra because she liked her so much. The jury listens as Hero says he believed Kyra was the one for him. In the present, he says everything changes when you begin thinking about doing everything together. In the past, he finds Kyra in the bathtub reading and tells her he has been thinking about getting a bigger place. He claims she can save the money she is paying on rent and go to a university because she could be a professor. Next, Hero begins creating a bookshelf for all of her books near the foot of their bed. As he works, he hears someone at the door and looks over. The guy whispers to Kyra so Hero can’t hear what they’re saying. When he leaves, Kyra tells him he was looking for someone who used to live here.
She insists it is nothing. Hero says he doesn’t want to live too far from his mom or Bless. They discuss their options before sitting down for dinner and television. After that, Hero tells the jury he remembers the exact order of everything that happened that day. He recalls showering, brushing his teeth, and kissing Kyra before leaving. He went over the events a million times in his head and calls it his last ordinary day. Around midnight, he calls Kyra and encourages her to call him because it is getting late and he is worried. He continues checking his phone and calling her, but never gets an answer. He goes around to her apartment to check on her. She isn’t home. He gets distracted at work as Kyra remains gone for several days. Later, Hero sits with his mother and Bless. They haven’t been able to get in touch with Kyra either. His mother theorizes she might’ve got into a vehicle accident although Hero doesn’t like hearing that.
He says he’ll call the hospitals while Bless encourages him to call the police too. Bless tells him to go see her friends, call the hospital, and notify the police. If he can’t be bothered, she’ll do it herself. Hero says he keeps wondering whether he said something wrong although he doesn’t think so. His mother forces them to hold hands and pray. In the courtroom, Hero says he went to all the nearby hospitals before going to the police station. The police officer agrees to take his details to see if they match anything in their database. When he is asked about her parents’ information, he admits he doesn’t have anything on them. He also doesn’t know where Kyra grew up or went to school.
He tells the police officer about the books and everything else he knows. When talking to the jury, Hero says he figured the cop thought Kyra had left him so she should hang out with another man. He thought he had asked Kyra the questions that the cops wanted to know. However, he only had questions in his head after a while. Next, Hero goes to the workplace of one of Kyra’s friends to see if she knows anything about her whereabouts. He asks whether she might’ve talked about another guy. She doesn’t understand why he would immediately suspect she is grinding another man. Hero promises he doesn’t care about any of that. She reveals they used to talk about Ryan who is a genuine loser, but she doesn’t know where Kyra could be. As he tells the jury how it felt, he goes around the city, talks to locals about Kyra, and hangs up missing posters for her.
He went on social media and questioned as many people as he possibly could. Later, Jamil and his friends laugh at Hero as he puts up pictures of Kyra. Jamil says he heard Kyra left and he feels bad for him. When Hero approaches and asks if he knows anything, Jamil says he has reach and has been doing more than 100 rocks a day. Jamil offers to use his street connections to find her, but he wants Hero to do something for him first. He wants Hero to hold something for him before their attention turns to Jamil’s new car. When Hero returns home, he ransacks the apartment hoping to find information about Krya. Then, he remembers the man who visited Kyra when he was working on the bookshelf for her. He gets a call from a man who saw the missing person’s poster he put up. He tells Hero where he saw a girl who looked just like Kyra the night before.
As Hero drives around, he says the man supposedly saw Kyra in Camden in North London. With Kyra missing for two weeks now, he rushes up there to see if he can find her. He explains it is different up there for a black kid because you don’t know the streets and they don’t know you either. Once he stopped, he looked at the women on the street and spotted one who looked just like Kyra. He watches from his vehicle as she walks over and gets into the backseat of a car. He immediately opens his door and begins throwing up. Back in court, Hero says he had gotten his answer since he knew where she had gone although he didn’t know why. When Hero returns home, he lays in bed and drinks. He gets a call from Bless and ignores it while playing video games and thinking about Kyra. He begins losing it and screaming yet tries to continue as normal as work. He explains you can be a mess on the inside although the world doesn’t need to know it.
He wonders if Kyra was going through something similar and if he was only looking at her on the outside. Hero admits it was difficult to forget everything. He started doing more things so he’d have less time to think. The jury learns he has done some bad things in his life and they’ll learn about them before they’re through. He swears that giving up on her was the worst thing he has ever done. While drinking and playing video games, he gets a visit from Bless. She insists she would take care of her boyfriend if she had one. She accuses him of letting Kyra walk off. He tries to defend his actions while she says he decided what it was and left her there. According to Bless, Hero should’ve followed her and brought her back home. She wants to know if Hero even loves her. Before long, Hero begins talking to people on the street and learns the prostitutes with pimps are operated by a gang called the Glocks.
There were five murders linked to the gang in two years so he was afraid of them. Since he was scared, he decided to go to Jamil and get a gun. Jamil agrees to help him if Hero will do his college essay for him. He tells Hero he’ll send him the notes and Binks (Duayne Boachie) will send the rest. Then, Hero talks to a woman, Marlo (Juliet Okotie), about his job and other things. The conversation turns to the pistol which is meant to fire gas canisters. Hero is instructed to wipe it down and throw it away if he happens to shoot someone with it. He is warned the weapon is what will send him down. Moments later, Hero goes to a house and knocks on the door before a little boy comes out. He asks if Jamie is there and confirms he is there for Marlo. The little boy goes inside. He comes back out with a shoebox with a handgun inside.
Hero looks inside. Back in court, Hero reminds the jury that the gun in his flat did not have any prints on it so anyone could’ve put it there. He explains that he didn’t buy the gun to kill Jamil who actually helped him buy it. He believes some of them are thinking he deserves going down for it. Hero asks what they would do since you can’t just walk up to these men and ask for your girl back. He doesn’t think he had any other choice since the gangsters don’t follow normal laws. He denies being a gang member, selling drugs, and being a criminal. Hero claims there is only one question left to say no to and it is the one they can’t look at. The question is whether he loves her. In a flashback, we see Hero driving to the street where Kyra was spotted and watching her walk up and down the street.
He looks at the gun in his glovebox while arguing it’d be difficult to forgive yourself if you said no. Hero gets out of the car with the gun and keeps questioning his love for her.
You Don’t Know Me Review
You Don’t Know Me is an interesting new show about a man who is on trial for murder. Before closing arguments, the man elects to represent himself and tell his story in hopes of avoiding prison. As he speaks to the jurors, his story is told in the form of present dialogue and flashbacks. After finishing the first episode, I can say there are things to like and dislike about You Don’t Know Me.
The most noticeable issue is the show’s lack of realism in the courtroom. It is difficult to believe Hero would be able to freely say these things without any objections whatsoever. Second, I could easily see viewers being displeased with the constant scenes jumping from the present to the past because they could get confusing. It feels unnecessary at times.
The pacing needs to be sped up a bit since I am not positive a defendant speaking to a jury for four hours is going to hold my attention. On the other side, the cast did well with their respective roles although I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more of Roger Jean Nsengiyumva. The story has the potential to get very good as it slowly unfolds.
While not perfect, the first episode was interesting enough to convince me to watch a second episode. I’ll be generous and give the episode a 7 out of 10. All recaps of You Don’t Know Me will be available on Reel Mockery here.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.
