Recipe for Turnabout, Day One Investigation

 

Hallo, alle miteinander!  This is Wright Wednesday, a weekly blog series where we recap, analyze, and review the cases in the Ace Attorney series. Last week, we finished the second case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney-Trials and Tribulations, so today we're starting the third, Recipe for Turnabout. My name is Roy, and my evil doppleganger is known as Yor. They love to insult people's choices in favorite pieces of media.

And I'm Sam, whose evil doppleganger is named...Mas. He gives more of things, I guess. And speaks better Spanish than I do. This next case opens as the Judge hands down a Guilty verdict, despite the defendant's pleas that they didn't poison the victim's drink, and in fact saw another man do it. In a shock, it seems the prosecutor is Winston Payne and the defense is…Phoenix Wright!

This is, if not the best opening cutscenes in the series, the second best only by a hair. The music especially is just utterly amazing.

True! It's a very effective one, and starting a case out with Phoenix losing is a big surprise.

Or at least it would seem so, but not everything is as it appears. We cut to Maya talking excitedly about the new year in Wright and Co. Law Offices, when Gumshoe busts in to talk to Phoenix. Apparently Wright gave a shockingly amateur performance in that trial, a month ago now. It's all over the news, and Gumshoe is unhappy with the result. Problem is, Phoenix didn't do a poisoning case in December, and has no idea why this is being reported. The only conclusion to draw is that there's an impostor! A phony Nick!

Remember last case, when someone brings up the idea of a "phony Nick" during a trial? Foreshadowing!

When they get to the Detention Center, turns out the defendant is none other than Maggie Byrde, the police officer Phoenix defended in the series' worst Tutorial Case (so far, but probably ever too). She's upset at Phoenix for failing her, but once he explains the situation she calms down and fills him in. After the aforementioned incident, she was fired from the force, and has been working at a French restaurant called Trés Bien. Then, on the third of last month, two men at the restaurant were drinking coffee when one of them slipped poison into the other's cup. The victim died, Maggie fainted, and she was accused of the murder.

Sam, who are you, Richard Wellington? Her name is Maggey, not Maggie!

Oh no. I messed it up, and that's after seeing her name all the time. Oops. Maggey, then.

She claims to have never seen the victim in her life, which means she has no motive. She also saw the other man, seen in the game's dramatization to have spiky hair similar to Phoenix's, sitting at the table with the victim, who had a fancy earpiece and a sample CD lying on the table with an "MC"-something name on it. But somehow, all others present testified that the victim was alone at the table. What's worse, they found a bottle of poison on Maggey's apron.

Perhaps one of the worst defendant situations in the series, up there with Edgeworth in Turnabout Goodbyes.

When asked about Phony Nick, she says he met her here in the Detention Center, wearing his suit as usual. Apparently he spoke with an accent, and in hindsight he was a bit taller, and kinda shady, but he had the spiky hair and blue suit so she went with it. The good news is that getting a retrial should be easy since the court gave its previous ruling in the absence of an actual defense attorney. Maggey bemoans her constantly bad luck throughout her life, and hopes that she might one day find a single moment of good luck.

I absolutely love Phoenix's indignation and anger at how completely unlike him this fake attorney was.

And yet somehow, the truth we eventually find is even worse than he imagines here. 

Phoenix and Maya go to investigate the scene of the crime, which still has police tape around it and the stain of the poisoned tea. A month later. For some reason. They also find a newspaper from the day of the crime with scribblings on it, including the words "MC Bomber" and a crossed out "100,000." Maggey later clarifies that Trés Bien doesn't get newspapers, so this must have been brought in. She also says "MC Bomber" is indeed what was written on the disc, and they theorize the 100,000 is in reference to a down-payment on a record deal.

Can I just say, I absolutely hate the ambient music for Trés Bien? Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with it compositionally, it just hits all the worst buttons for me, and I don't know why.

Totally understandable. This one doesn't rub me the wrong way as much as the clown music and the mystic music from Justice for All, but I can definitely see how it could be rather grating. 

Returning to the restaurant, Phoenix and Maya are accosted by a…French drag stereotype? I am not entirely sure how to discuss this character, honestly, but he's Jean Armstrong, owner of Trés Bien, and he remembers Phoenix from his flirtatious interactions with Phony Nick. He's a chef and aromatherapist whose business has suffered in Maggey's absence. Like Maggey, he says a man came in around 1pm on the day of the murder, became ill, and died. Armstrong was in the kitchen at the time, and heard the sound of the man collapsing; when he came out, the man was dead and Maggey was unconscious. And  he testifies that the victim was alone at his table. 

It occurs to me, the game does use masculine pronouns for Armstrong, right? Pretty sure it does but I'm doubting myself now.

Armstrong...is a lot to talk about. Let's continue using he/him for now since that is what the game uses, and cover him more in-depth in the analysis.

He also mentions an old man who witnessed the murder, and can be found in the nearby park. When Armstrong is questioned about Maggey, he implies he knows the supposed motive, but Psyche-Locks block him from telling. What's more, the Magatama is missing! Incidentally, I had noticed it wasn't in my inventory before this, but had been at the beginning, and I don't know when it disappeared. But Phoenix thinks it must be nearby, since he saw the Psyche-Locks to begin with.

It disappears once you enter the restaurant when Armstrong is there for the first time, and yeah, it's neat to notice it before the game points it out.

Heading to Vitamin Square, Phoenix and Maya quickly see who the restaurant owner was talking about: an old man throwing birdseed at birds. Not, like, to feed them, but as projectile weapons. Also, his nose is so red and bulbous it looks like a cartoony clown’s nose, but I don’t know why. Anyway, he isn’t very talkative, the most Phoenix can get him to say is that he hates the food at Trés Bien and thinks the clothes the waitresses wear are too revealing. I feel like this old guy would faint of shock at a Hooter’s. 

Anyway, when Phoenix tries to ask about why he goes to Trés Bien regularly if he hates everything about it, he clams up. Clearly there should be a Psyche-Lock here, but with no Magatama, we can’t see it or break it. Oh, and there’s a magazine with job listings nearby that clearly belongs to the old man, but Phoenix takes it.

The old man character kind of annoys me, but he also manages not to fall directly into some of the tropes I most hate, so that's something at least.

Showing the job magazine to Armstrong has him assume Maya is asking for a job, and he accepts immediately, taking her from Phoenix to get her ready to work. Now Maya-less, Phoenix heads to the Detention Center, only to find Maggey is gone as well, off being questioned again. From there, the necessary stop is the Criminal Affairs Department. Gumshoe shows up, fired up to make sure this time Maggey gets a Not Guilty. He got the retrial paperwork processed, and it’s been scheduled for the next day at 10am. Oh, and Godot will prosecute instead of Payne this time. Showing Gumshoe the sports paper leads to him struggling to remember how he knows the phrase ‘MC Bomber’, before giving up. Still, he takes the evidence so he can at least perform a handwriting analysis on it.

Helpful Gumshoe as always, if more personally invested than usual. He's good people.

When Talking to Gumshoe about Maggey, it’s once again made clear the big lug has a huge crush on her, which Phoenix teases him about relentlessly, before thinking about how he has to gossip with Maya later. Adorable. Gumshoe confirms that Maggey had no prior connection to the victim, and it was his first time at the restaurant. Still, a motive had been established in the original trial, but Gumshoe doesn’t know what it was.

It’s made clear Gumshoe is doing everything he can to look into this case by himself, since it was already ruled on, and he has other work swamping him as well. The point that Maggey saw an additional person at the table, one no one else witnessed, is hammered home again. Plus, the cops never found the CD she mentioned. There’s also something about Armstrong that Gumshoe knows is fishy, but he feels bad talking about it. The only way he’ll tell Phoenix is if he can find some evidence of this mystery part of the chef on his own.

You have to love when characters are like, "There's an important thing, but I'm not going to tell you, gotta play the game to find out."

Considering how much Gumshoe is trying to actively help, it feels kind of egregious here.

Heading back to Trés Bien has Phoenix just catch a glimpse of a woman with a dark aura and bandages wrapped around her head leaving the building. Before Phoenix can think of what to do about that, Maya appears in her waitress outfit. Phoenix is her first customer, and she convinces him to buy the lunch special, a Twin-T set that costs $20. More than that, actually, considering Maya tells the chef to add on everything possible, which puts the total at $45. As always, she’s ready to drain Phoenix’s wallet dry. She’d be a great salesperson.

It’s ready shockingly quick, but Phoenix doesn’t seem to have the palette for this kind of food. Mostly because, as Maya finds when he offers for her to finish it, it tastes terrible.

The $45 dollar one is called "Fortify," further enshrining this series' place as the best for puns.

...I...I completely missed that. Every time I've played this case. Which is about ten times.

Maya offers to sneak Phoenix into the Kitchen, because apparently the chef disappeared in the last minute or so, I dunno. It is a good idea to look in there though, considering the missing Magatama is sitting right on the chef’s counter. I really don’t like that, after being added back into the Court Record, it’s placed last among evidence, instead of next to the Attorney’s Badge. It just feels wrong to me. 

There is one other important thing to find: Examining the aromatherapy bottles reveals one odd one out, hiding among them. It’s in a completely different container, it’s green, and it has no smell. So, evidence.

I completely agree about the Magatama's placement, it threw me off too.

Good to know I'm not the only one weirdly neurotic about evidence placement. Heading back to the Criminal Affairs Department, Gumshoe’s finished the writing analysis. Apparently, the doodles are all from the victim, Glen Elg. He’s also happy to take the green bottle we just found, so it can be examined to find out what it actually is.

This is also enough for Gumshoe to talk about the chef’s secret. Namely that, because his food is so inedible, he’s racked up deep debt. So much that he currently owes $500,000. We get a copy of his loan contract for evidence, which if we look at it in the Court Record, tells us the one giving out the loan was a business called Tender Lender.

An excellent name, but almost certainly an extremely predatory company.

From there, heading all the way back to Vitamin Square starts out oddly. The old man isn’t there, but a bright pink scooter is. Examining it has the owner show up. He appears with a roar, speaking with a thick Brooklyn accent that matches oddly with his red skin and pointy black hair. I don’t mean red like any kind of known human skin tone, I mean crayon red. He’s very aggressive, apparently thinking that Phoenix was messing with his ride. He contradicts everything Phoenix says, blaming him for everything that’s wrong with his scooter.

When he says something about bringing in a horde of lawyers to sue Phoenix, our hero brings up that, well, he’s a barrister of the courts himself. Phoenix even introduces himself, showing off his badge...which makes this guy laugh. Why? Because this guy says that he is Phoenix Wright, before taking off on his scooter. Once he’s gone, Phoenix realizes that guy was probably Xin Eohp, which just makes him angry. After all, aside from the hair, they didn’t exactly look alike.

Not in the absolute slightest. But I love that the game just leans into that absurdity.

Once the ruffian is gone, the old man reappears to laugh at Phoenix’s fear. Now that we have the Magatama back, we can Talk about him being a Trés Bien regular again, this time with the Psyche-Locks appearing. There’s only three of them, and they’re easy to smash. When Phoenix asks again why this guy goes there so often, the old man tries to say it’s for the food. Luckily, we still have that lunch special in our evidence, so that proves him wrong there. But when Phoenix mentions the price, the old man tries to say that isn’t a problem, because he’s so rich the high prices mean nothing to him. Here, you need to Present the job listings we found before. Clearly, this guy is looking for work.

Next, the old man tries to say he goes there not for the food or the coffee, which costs $8 a cup, but for the free newspapers. We know that isn’t true though, because we learned earlier that Armstrong hates newspapers, and doesn’t offer them. Phoenix decides enough is enough, he’ll just end it. The reason this man goes there is because of the waitresses, he enjoys looking at them in those outfits. Thus, the dirtiest unlocking of Psyche-Locks occurs. Yaaaaay...

Yep. Better than Dr. Hotti at least.

Now that the secret’s out, we learn this guy’s name: Victor Kudo. Sadly, that’s all we can get out of him, even though his locks are broken. The trick to break his silence is to head back to the restaurant and Present his profile to Maya, which leads to Phoenix asking for her to come talk to the old man with him, in the outfit. Sadly, the gambit fails. Kudo seems to think Maya is too underdeveloped to arouse his interest, which I honestly kind of agree with (don’t @ me).

But once again, Mia returns to save the day, as she is very easily able to woo this dirty old man. He blabbers on a lot, most of it irrelevant, but there are two important points: Kudo also only saw one man at the table, and he has dirt on Armstrong. Namely, he has a criminal record, one we've seen in action: he steals from his customers, and he was once arrested for it. That gotten out of him, Mia is ready to leave, annoyed at being brought back from the dead for that.

That said, I do appreciate that her annoyance confirms that Maya summoned her, rather than Mia just showing up like she does sometimes. Considering Phoenix wasn't upfront with the "let this old pervert ogle you" plan, it's nice to know on some level that Maya got on board with the plan.

Back at Trés Bien, Phoenix is almost ready to end the investigation, when Armstrong appears. He still had some Psyche-Locks, regarding Maggey's motive, so it's time to break those. He immediately reveals under pressure the motive given in court: during his meal, the victim had won the lottery, a jackpot of half a million dollars. They think Maggey poisoned him to get the ticket. Phoenix brings up another possibility though: Armstrong stole the winning ticket. After all, he has a history of thieving, and he's in the hole for exactly how much the ticket was worth. At all of that, he does admit to taking a ticket, but makes clear he didn't poison anyone.

Godot appears, apparently having been there drinking coffee, waiting to enter the conversation dramatically. Armstrong's ticket wasn't the right one, it was only worth a dollar. Where did the real ticket go? Godot thinks that's better saved for the main event. So, Sam, let's talk analysis.

Well, these first segments are always more setup than anything, but we once again see the theme of masks and hidden identities in...a lot of ways, actually. Armstrong, Kudo, Phony Nick...nearly everyone here is hiding something about themselves. But of course, until these threads lead somewhere, there's only so much to say.

I think the one thing we can very specifically point to is the entire idea of someone impersonating Phoenix and getting someone a Guilty verdict. The last case took the overall theme of identity and false identity in the direction of masked figures, trying to find out who really was who. This case goes somewhere different with the general concept: we know for certain that someone has pretended to be Phoenix Wright, capitalizing on his reputation. This is less 'someone hiding who they really are' and more 'someone assuming another person's identity and reputation'.

That's very true! The most interesting case study in here to me is actually Victor Kudo. More specifically, he's the only one here who we've got completely figured out already, and his whole deal that rings very true to life. The "creepy old perv" stereotype is overdone in Japanese media, but still. That a man would criticize women for dressing inappropriately, all while not only secretly getting off on it but being rather creepy about it, is a very common dynamic among conservative men in power. Using a mask of disapproval while exploiting the very thing he speaks against is a particularly common (and harmful) kind of mask.

I feel like I would feel more positive about it if I felt like the story treated his perversion as a genuine character flaw, and less a funny thing to exploit for humor and information. It's the same way I feel about Master Roshi or Mineta. I don't think making a character like that the butt of ineffectual jokes really does anything worthwhile or positive, even with the added dimension of him hiding his perving behind acting scandalized. I also just kind of hate his character design, and his theme music is boring.

The one thing I will say I find interesting is he's probably the first individual character, aside from the entire Fey family/Kurain Village thing, that is very clearly Japanese. Some people are just going to roll there eyes and make jokes about "Eat your hamburger, Apollo," but I actually think it works really well with what has been said is the idea behind the differences of Ace Attorney vs. Gyakuten Saiban. If you didn't know, the translators have said that Ace Attorney takes place in an alternate timeline where racism and xenophobia towards Japanese immigrants was far less common in California in the 1800's and 1900's, leading to far more Japanese people immigrating there, and to Japanese culture much more heavily impacting California's culture. Victor Kudo as a first or second generation Japanese immigrant who is very proud of where he comes from rings true to me.

I agree that he's not a good character, and the gender dynamics and treatment of the creepy dude here are, as ever with this series, Not Great. And I'm honestly kind of annoyed that Phoenix just dragged Maya into that situation without filling her in on it; that's kind of a dick move, reminded me a bit of coercing Ann into nice modeling in Persona 5. I think Kudo is a surprisingly effective image of hypocritical old dudes regarding women as thing to be controlled except where their own boners are concerned, and I think that contributes to this running theme we've been discussing, but that doesn't necessarily make his inclusion or the game's treatment of the situation good on other levels. It's a little too uncritical of the situation and doesn't actually challenge the hypocrisy, just going "Haha old man is secretly horny, what a perv," which is pretty much just a different side of the same puritanical coin.

But yeah, I agree the Japanese element of the character is interesting, especially in the context of the weird timeline stuff.

Hey, let's go from talking about one headache of a character to another, namely Jean Armstrong. As the queer one between the two of us, I have a lot to say about him. I think the fact we even use the pronoun 'him' is something to start with. In a lot of ways, Armstrong very much fits into a Japanese stereotype that is beginning to fall out of favor: the okama.

I've done a full research paper on the topic, but in short, okama are comedic stock characters who are at times shown to be cis gay men, other times drag performers, and other times trans women. There is a lot more too it, but it is something that even in Japan has drawn criticism for confusing people who don't actually understand queer culture. In terms of the character's queerness, the best I can tell is that, aside from some jokes about him calling himself a woman, Armstrong does identify as a man, and embraces his personal aesthetic really hard. That's open to interpretation though.

The thing is though, there are okama characters I like. In One Piece, there are two prominent okama-related characters, and while that aspect of them is still kind of difficult to jive with at times, they're absolutely some of the best characters in the series. Armstrong, at least for me, is not that. The thing is, all I said there, that controversy is almost his entire personality, and it could have been localized in a better way. They could have written him however they wanted to, so long as they kept with the pink aesthetic and how it clashes with some of his more masculine traits.

But they not only kept that ambiguity regarding how he sees himself/where he falls in the queer spectrum, but it's clearly meant to be funny. Other people might disagree, but I would argue the story's intent is that he is a comedic character, and the clash between his physical manliness and his feminine interests and affectations is the joke. Which, honestly, I just don't find funny. "Oh look, a man acting feminine, it's the height of comedy!"

I absolutely agree on this front, and have little to add on account of my aforementioned straightness. I do wonder how much of the character's presentation is also related to a French stereotype, but even if that's an element at play it isn't significant enough to substantially affect our reading of the queer stereotypes.

It seems like they were trying to use French stereotypes to kind of smooth out the other parts of his character, but that didn't really work, at least not for me.

What is strange is that, well, he's not the only queer part of this case, though I like these other parts far more. At the beginning of the case, at the office, you can Talk to Maya about how weird Gumshoe is acting, and she brings up if maybe it's because Gumshoe has developed feelings for Phoenix. Neither discount the idea to make fun of it for being gay, Phoenix just says he doubts it because of how how Gumshoe usually treats him.

Similarly, when you Present Armstrong's profile to Gumshoe, he says there's something odd about the chef. At that, Phoenix asks if he's "interested" in Armstrong, to which Gumshoe shoots it down because, and I quote, "He's not my type." What I love about that wording is it could be read as "I'm not into guys," but it almost reads more clearly as "I do like guys but not guys like him."

I noticed that too, and I am 100% here for Gumshoe the Bisexual Icon.

Same! Bi Gumshoe all the way.

In other second best detective in the series news, there's another interesting scene if you Present Mia's profile to him. This time, he brings up that they actually had a court encounter once, where she cross-examined him. He talks it up like it was some big battle, before once again getting sad, making it clear how much he misses her, and how hard it is to accept she's gone. I'm really sad they never did anything with this past friendship aside of having Gumshoe reference it sometimes.

Honestly in general Gumshoe doesn't get as much development as he deserves, which is disappointing.

Did you think I was out of Gumshoe things? You were wrong. Gumshoe finally unveils the secret explanation to a reoccurring element of the series. See, frequently, people respond to things Phoenix is thinking, not saying out loud. This happens at one point with Gumshoe, and when Phoenix calls him out, Gumshoe just tells Phoenix to blame his own face, it completely gives away everything going through his head. I absolutely love the idea that Phoenix, known for bluffing through everything, has a terrible poker face...at least for now.

Okay, I hadn't really connected that. I can certainly buy that explanation.

Sadly, I cannot just talk about Gumshoe forever. But still tangentially related to him, I did find it interesting that he mentioned Godot is actually taking a lot of cases, all of them high profile, though he's willing to drop them to face Phoenix. It's a good distinction that, while whenever we see him he's just trying to screw with our hero, he does have other stuff he does for his job, and it seems like he's really going above and beyond from the way Gumshoe describes it

Which is weird to me, considering he hadn't even taken a single case before showing up to mess with Phoenix. Apparently he's taking his job seriously all around, despite only doing it for that reason?

Well, there is more to it than that, though this is just a hint of some of what will be revealed/implied later.

Fair. I don't remember the reveal very well, so I guess I'll figure this out eventually!

We haven't talked a lot about Maggey Bryde, but I am happy to see her again. I think the main concept of this case works especially well considering it isn't just anyone who thinks they were betrayed by Phoenix, it was someone we already met and has been established as really looking up to him.

Oh for sure. And someone as pure and tragically accident-prone as her, too. She deserves that one moment of good luck, and I am easily motivated to give it to her.

I feel like we talked a lot about Mia showing up to save the day last trial, but did you have anything more to say about it kinda happening for comedy here?

Eeehhhhh...I mean I don't have the same issues, since it was specified that Maya called her for this specific purpose (rather than the deus-ex-Mia's that usually happen), it's mostly just the whole context of the scene I'm unsure about. Mia using her charms to get info out of Kudo is fine, and the fact that she and Maya are the ones with agency in the situation is helpful. But the scene still comes across as both sex negative (Kudo's hypocrisy isn't so much the subject of the jokes as his sex drive itself) and sorta sexist (Phoenix volunteering Maya to go get ogled at), and I'm left without any brief way to fully express my feelings on the scene.

But I don't think it had the same problems that most of Mia's scenes do, for whatever that's worth.

I mean, we can go whole hog into that scene if you want to. I would be up for that.

Oh to hell with it, why not.

Okay, so, I actually think my biggest problem with it is that, well, it's a comedic relief scene. The fact this dude is oggling Mia, that Phoenix brought Maya to him so he could oggle her, that Mia flatters the guy's ego to hell and back to get what they want, it's all played as a harmless joke. Like, oh it's so funny, this pathetic old man is a pervert! But the problem with that, and so many 'harmless pervert' tropes, is that in real life people like that aren't always harmless, sometimes they are quite clearly harmful. And even when they aren't, they still frequently make women feel unsafe, feel anxious, feel unwelcome.

For sure. Treating the subject lightly here feels a little careless. I do still think it manages to keep its head above water a bit by keeping Mia in control (and by extension Maya, since she intentionally called her for this purpose), but the fact that Phoenix brought Maya in without bringing her on board first, the way the game plays it all for laughs, and the fact that it seems weirdly unaware of what's actually wrong with Kudo's actions make it...less workable than it could have been.

I don't know, I could hate it more than I do, but there are also some extremely obvious missteps that keep it from actually being any good.

I think your comparison before to Persona 5 was an apt one, though I do think the situation here is a little better. While Phoenix is still throwing Maya into this situation, at least she's not being peer-pressured into it against her will. Mia's indignation towards Maya is also something that works about the scene for me, but I absolutely agree that, on the whole, it just leans too far into uncomfortable territory without getting anything useful out of it, only a few chuckles at best.

Yes, that's pretty much what it comes down to. I sure hope the next segment doesn't expand on this in annoying ways.

...I don't remember if it does, but there's a memory tugging at me.

Hehehehehehe

Hahahahahahaha

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Anyway, ready for some examinables?

I sure am!

Of course, we have to start with Charley! Sadly, there's not much there about our favorite plant boi, Phoenix just mentions that, no matter how dirty the office gets, he always makes sure Charley gets water.

Diligent Phoenix.

Looking out the window, Phoenix talks about Gatewater Land again, then mentions that apparently the bellboy from Turnabout Sisters has sent him greeting cards before, and wonders if he’ll do it again.

Oh? Guess he did enjoy his time in the spotlight, but as a chronically procrastinating ADHD boy I will never understand that kind of consistent card-sending.

I can't get it either. There's nothing new from Examining the poster, and while the bookshelf is mostly the same, Phoenix now lowers his expectations on maybe just pretending like he’s reading some of the legal books, so they get less dusty.

I guess that's...progress?

Now, last case that would have been it for Examinables, but in this case we can finally go to the Criminal Affairs Department again, which means the return of the Chief of Detectives and dude on his computer working on something!

The most important characters, obviously.

Unlike office stuff, these guys actually change what they say depending on how far in the segment you are. The detective at his computer seems to be coming up for slogans about driving more safely, and apparently believes that humor will work better. That’s the same both times you can Examine him, though the slogans are different.

You can't just leave me hanging like that, what are they?

"Don't die running a red light. Die the old-fashioned way -- of old age!" and "Hitting the gas is your passport to paradise!"

...okay yeah, better keep workshopping those, pal.

The first time you can Examine the Chief of Detectives, he’s reading something online about Mask✰DeMasque appearing at a bank to stop bank robbers. I don’t know if someone published an old story about that time Ron met Desiree for a slow news day, or if Ron is actually running around fighting crime as Mask✰DeMasque now.

That would be pretty cool, actually, I'm here for Mask✰DeMasque as a superhero with his kickass biker sidekick.

The second time you can Examine him, he’s reading about the retrial case, and focuses on the poisoned coffee aspect. He jumps to the conclusion that because his coffee kind of tastes funny, one of the detectives is trying to poison him.

If that clue bears out, the poison is tasteless/odorless, like it usually is in these mysteries. But he can have his fantasies.

There is something else. For the first time, there’s a new little feature to the room that’s easy to miss: next to the Blue Badger is another mascot, the Pink Badger. She’s just a girl version of the Blue Badger, and they’re married apparently? Seems like some commentary on how so many series just make a pink version of a character to add a girl.

The She-Ra to the Blue Badger's He-Man.

Also, funnily enough, this isn't the Pink Badger's last appearance.

I'll look forward to its continued presence. Maybe it won't be as creepy.

Fans who know what case I'm referring to are laughing at that. That foreshadowing delivered, we're done with today's part of this case. Next week, we'll be going back to court to face Godot once more. Auf wiedersehen!

Until next time!