The Donny Ray case was not only significant because it was Rudy’s first case, but also because he’d started to care deeply about his client, Dot Black. He knew how important it was for Dot to bring justice to her son, and even though gathering evidence to prove that Donny was not under the influence was a challenge, Rudy refused to give up. In The Rainmaker episode 2, Deck and Rudy went above and beyond to make their case strong. Meanwhile, Sarah decides to patch things up with Rudy. After going through the rules of professional conduct, she’d come to realize that as long as they abided by the rules, they didn’t have to worry. Rudy agreed to give their relationship another chance, and all was well before Sarah was pulled into the cunning world of lawyers.
Spoiler Alert
Who had been following Melvin Pritcher?
In the first episode, it looked like Melvin Pritcher was responsible for his mother’s death, but that might just not be the case. Melvin was determined to find his mother’s killer, and it was evident that the North City General Hospital had something to do with the case. Rudy and Deck decided to follow Melvin since he was one of the primary suspects in the Donny Ray case. Melvin met his pre-trial services officer at a diner, where he disclosed that he’d been laid off by the hospital and currently didn’t have a home because someone had burned it down, which meant he was staying at the Barrel Motel. Melvin got quite aggressive when the officer accused him of the fire; he firmly stated that he was innocent. Rudy and Deck broke into the motel room Melvin was staying at. They tried to find evidence against him, but all they found was Jackie’s address. She used to be the other nurse who worked at the hospital with Melvin. Maybe Melvin and Jackie knew something (perhaps related to the Donny Ray case) that could’ve been used against the hospital? Was that the reason they were laid off? Maybe his mother wasn’t the target; perhaps ‘they’ wanted to kill Melvin in the fire.
Before entering his room, Melvin had heard voices and seen shadows from outside. He assumed that the men inside were his mother’s killers, so he did something completely unexpected and bizarre. He got into a random car and rammed it into his room. He was a little disappointed seeing Rudy and Deck there; he knew they were not the ones who’d started the fire. Melvin fled the scene. A man and a woman had been following Melvin in their car. They decided it was time to kill him, and they’d come up with a rough plan to do it in the deserted streets. But Melvin wasn’t a fool. He knew that there were people secretly watching him, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when he noticed a woman with a gun following him. Melvin managed to fool her, and he ended up injecting the man who’d been accompanying her with the sedative he always kept handy.
Melvin took the man to the woods and tied him to a tree. He wanted to know who’d sent him, and when the man tried to pin the blame on the young lawyer and his colleague, Melvin didn’t buy it. He shot the man in the leg and demanded a clear answer; when the man chose not to confess, Melvin shot him again. By the time his partner found him in the woods, he was already dead. Even if Melvin was a victim, there was no denying that he was violent and cared for nothing but his survival. At the very end of The Rainmaker episode 2, we discover that the woman who’d been following Melvin was Jane Allen, the lead investigator of the Tinley Britt firm.
What did Rudy and Deck find in Donny Ray’s room?
After their near-death experience in Melvin’s motel room, Rudy and Deck exhumed Donny Ray’s corpse and conducted an independent autopsy, but the result was not in their favor. According to the report, he died of the influenza virus, exacerbated by 6-MAM (methadone, meperidine, morphine, and heroin). Which meant that there was no way to prove that it was the morphine administered by the hospital that resulted in his death. Jocelyn suggested Donny convince his client to come to a settlement with the hospital, but clearly Dot Black wasn’t up for it. She wanted to bring justice to her son, and she wasn’t ready to settle for anything less. She lost faith in Rudy, assuming that he wasn’t entirely convinced her son was clean.
Rudy and Deck decided to inspect Donny Ray’s room in the hopes of finding something concrete to prove in court that he was sober before he was admitted to the hospital. When they walked into the washroom where Donny was found lying on the floor, Rudy discovered that Donny had urinated before he’d collapsed. The urine sample was still in the commode, and he and Deck took a sample of it and got it tested. The report proved that Donny didn’t have drugs in his system before he was taken to the hospital. But according to Jocelyn, the report wasn’t enough to prove their case in court. Since they were the ones who’d taken the samples and done the testing, she believed that the Tinley Britt firm would tear them apart in court and accuse them of tampering.
What evidence did Rudy present in court?
On their first day of court hearing, Leo Drummond appealed to the court for summary judgment (in layman’s terms, it meant that they were suggesting that there was no need for a trial since they believed there were no disputed facts). He added that the plaintiff hadn’t produced any concrete evidence to establish any connection between the hospital and Donny Ray’s death. Jocelyn accused Leo of an ambush and explained that they didn’t get enough time to make a full discovery. Dot Black got agitated, and she loudly stated that her son died of the flu and not an overdose. Jocelyn added that the blood test report only proved that there was a drug found in Donny Ray’s body at the time the test was conducted at the hospital, and considering that a dosage of morphine also could show the same result, the report wasn’t enough for the court to conclude that Donny Ray had overdosed. The judge stated that an assumption couldn’t be used as a disputed fact, and without it a trial didn’t make sense. Rudy stepped in to save the show. He stated that the independent toxicology report based on Donny Ray’s urine sample from moments before he was taken to the North City General Hospital confirmed that there were no drugs in his system when he was admitted. Leo objected, and he questioned the legitimacy of the report, something that Jocelyn had already predicted would happen. Rudy stated that when Donny was found by the paramedics, he had his pants down, and he was lying next to the toilet, suggesting that he had urinated just before he’d collapsed. Rudy innocently added that he was the one who’d collected the sample with his colleague, Deck. Leo firmly told the judge that such a report shouldn’t be admissible in court. Rudy refuted that claim; he believed that the report should be read along with Mrs. Black’s affidavit, where she’d mentioned that her son had been clean for a year. Rudy added that all reasonable inferences should be viewed in favor of the plaintiff, and considering the report and the statement of the plaintiff, there was a clear dispute on what resulted in Donny Ray’s death. The judge finally announced that the defendant’s appeal for a summary judgment was denied. Jocelyn was impressed, and Dot Black finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Did Dot Black accept the compensation?
Immediately after the court hearing, Leo made an offer to Jocelyn on behalf of his client, Wilford Keely. He hoped Jocelyn would come to realize that the case would be a waste of her time and money, and a settlement was the best outcome she could aim for. His client was willing to pay $150k to the plaintiff to close the case, and he asked Jocelyn to think about it. Keely later offered $250k, and he asked Leo for his assurance. Clearly Keely was worried that Rudy would make the case all the more complicated for them. Leo asked Sarah to share whatever she knew about Rudy. She was hesitant at first, and only shared information that wasn’t too personal, but later, when she figured that she could lose her job at the firm if she didn’t give Leo something significant, she mentioned Rudy’s dead brother. Leo didn’t mind playing dirty, and once things start to get complicated, he will use Rudy’s personal history to mess him up. Leo and his team met Mrs. Black and her legal team to come to a settlement. They believed that the sum they were offering was quite generous, though their client was not ready to apologise to Mrs. Black for her son’s death, because they wanted to maintain the position that the hospital wasn’t responsible. Mrs. Black simply walked out of the room; she clearly didn’t care about the money.
Rudy followed her; while she always thought Rudy was not in the position to understand her emotionally, she realized she was wrong when he mentioned him losing his brother. Before his brother passed away, he’d asked Rudy to look after their mother, and he believed Donny Ray would have wanted the same. He assured Mrs. Black that Donny wouldn’t have cared about the apology and would have wanted his mother to be well taken care of. Rudy wanted her to know that by accepting the settlement offer, she would not be doing an injustice to her son. Mrs. Black realized that Rudy was, in a way, right. She went back to the conference room. She grabbed the pen and tried to convince herself to sign, but she just couldn’t. She needed to know the truth, and no amount of money would ever be enough for her to give up on it.
At the end of episode 2 of The Rainmaker, Rudy held Mrs. Black’s hand and told Leo and his team that she wasn’t ready for the deal. He didn’t want her to feel pressured, and it was pretty evident that she wasn’t really ready to sign the papers. After Mrs. Black stated with conviction that she wasn’t ready, Jocelyn decided to respect her decision, and she told Leo that she would see him in court. The Donny Ray case is clearly far from over, and Jocelyn and her team will not rest until the truth prevails.
Is Sarah going to bring Rudy down?
In The Rainmaker episode 2’s ending, Leo asked Sarah if she was ready to commit to the firm. Sarah confirmed her allegiance, and she was ready to prove that even if things got messy and corrupt, she would choose to side with the firm. Leo thought it was time to introduce Sarah to their lead investigator, Jane Allen. Sarah clearly had no idea what she was signing up for, and even if she did, she wasn’t quite aware how bloody it was going to get. Jane and her dead colleague were likely instructed by the firm to murder Melvin. So, was Melvin a key witness in the Donny Ray murder case? From what we’ve learned so far, that seems to be the case. Even though Sarah and Rudy had decided not to let their professional lives affect their relationship, that will definitely be a challenge. Sarah was desperate to prove her worth to Leo, and she was willing to put Rudy under the bus for that. She felt guilt, but she was also afraid of losing the opportunity of becoming a valuable employee in the firm. Her conscience told her that whatever Leo was demanding of her wasn’t justified, but she was at an early stage in her career, and losing her job wasn’t really an option. Will Rudy forgive Sarah after finding out that she’d shared his personal details with her team? Maybe not.
