He’s fallen far enough to see Jimmy at eye level now, and he questions Jimmy’s road to redemption as much as his own. “I don’t want to be the judge about that anymore.” Though Michael is trying to ingratiate himself with Jimmy in an effort to get Olivia the information she needs to prosecute him, his remarks are sincere in this moment. “I’ve always had such a strong belief about right and wrong,” Michael tells Jimmy. In fact, Michael kicks it off by thanking Jimmy for not telling Fia about his own mistakes because it would damage their relationship, too. That talk between Michael and Jimmy on the construction site, then, feels like a meeting of equals, two compromised men who have had to lie to protect their family’s best interests. It has to remain a “gas leak” if he has any hope of seeing Fia again. But he hedges about the use of violence, saying that it was used when he “had no other choice,” and he cannot admit, under any circumstances, that he blew up the Jones family home. He can say that “aspects” of the business were illegal and that he’d hurt people. In an excellent scene, Fia turns up at his door asking for “one honest conversation” with her father, but he winds up approaching it with a lawyerly calculation: How honest can he be without alienating her forever? He can say that grandpa ran the mob in New Orleans and that he and her mother inherited that organization. But even given the opportunity to step into the confession booth and seek forgiveness for his sins, Jimmy cannot stop himself from lying. In this penultimate episode of the series, Your Honor does fine work in assessing the true moral value of its characters, particularly Jimmy, who’s eager for a future in which his family can leave the past behind and live more peacefully under the law. Whatever happens at those ports … well, that’s none of his concern, right? The Calabris will have access to his ports over the duration of a multiyear construction. He also has a current deal going on with the Calabri family that allows him to get the financing he needs while feigning ignorance about the terms and conditions. Never mind the sordid wheeling and dealing it took for him to secure the property or the mountain of bodies that stacked up before that as he earned the dirty capital to invest in the project. And yet here he is, trying to talk Michael - and himself - into believing a pathway to legitimacy actually exists for him. Jimmy’s sins are profoundly more egregious, of course. And though this season has been engineered as a redemption arc, he cannot be restored to the person he wanted to be. Because in his efforts to protect a son who would wind up getting killed anyway, he discovered some unflattering things about himself and what he was capable of doing. And in the middle of their conversation at the construction site, where Jimmy surprises him with a proposal to be his new “right-hand man,” Michael utters the most important line of the season: “There’s a world of difference between who we are and who we want to be.” That’s the reason why Michael, the once-proud judge known for his integrity and compassion, now hides behind the beard of shame he grew out in the clink. Michael Desiato, who knows plenty about sin, has a good read on Jimmy’s aspirations for legacy. It’s like a capitalist baptism, cleansing him of his sins. His criminal past and present would then get flushed out like toxins in the system, creating a future where he could be a true civic leader with connections to City Hall, the NOLA’s executive elite. That’s the whole point of the Baxter District, to attach his name to a seaside complex where the Baxter name can be associated with housing, education, local businesses, and a fun night out on the town. Photo: Vulture Photo: Andrew Cooper/SHOWTIME
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