‘Murder in the First’ season 3, episode 7 review: Trial and errors

We waited several weeks now for the trial of Siletti to begin on “Murder in the First,” and with that in mind seeing it begin on Sunday night was more or less a relief — even if the pacing of it remains just about as slow as it was to getting to this point.

By the end of this episode (entitled “Let’s Make a Deal”) it certainly doesn’t feel like Siletti’s in a particularly great spot, though we will admit that the back-and-forth in the courtroom was among the finest stuff that we’ve seen over the course of the season. We’re seeing a guy who got in too deep trying to get to shore, but he repeatedly has some waves crashing into his face.

The Normandy Parker case occupied a good bit of courtroom time in the episode as well, mostly in the sense of the Andy Lippman vs. Paul Barnes debate. There are reasons to suspect Barnes and his temper, but at the same time we’ve got a little bit of fleeing suspicion that maybe the killer is someone we’ve yet to even meet. There is enough time left on the series for someone new to surface; the one thing that the writers have done well with this case is that both Terry and Hildy have received a chance to investigate several people who could in theory be guilty parties. The investigation, complete with loose ends and runarounds, feels relatively similar to how one would in reality.

In moving over to the specific relationship between Terry and Hildy at present, it’s frustrating mostly in that it keeps jumping all over the place. First, it took a false cancer diagnosis (which feels entirely like old news at present) to cause the two of them to get together in the first place. Then, it took a threat over their jobs to break them up. Now, Hildy’s relationship with Burnside is over after two episodes, and we’re now back to more will-they-or-won’t-they. These two are great characters, but we hope by the end of this season there is really some sort of arrangement to make this a little clearer. At present, it’s a little all over the place.

In the end, we consider this to be yet another interesting but imperfect episode for the season. While we appreciate the show taking its time with many stories, there are some (including the Terry / Hildy relationship) that we wish that we had some faster answers on.

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