All Rise EP Talks Lola's Potential New Boss, Mark's Professional Dilemma, Emily/Luke Reunion and More
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Tuesday’s All Rise premiere. Proceed at your own risk!
Judge Lola Carmichael’s fight for her seat is far from over on All Rise. Although she won the election during Tuesday’s Season 3 premiere by a small margin, Lola still has a target on her back in the form of Corrine Cuthbert (guest star Anne Heche).
More from TVLine
Elsewhere in the episode, Judge Lisa Benner was appointed to the Court of Appeals, paving the way for the conservative Judge Thomas Marshall to potentially fill her supervising judgeship; Amy was hesitant to set a wedding date, while her fiancé Mark still hadn’t filled the Head Deputy DA position; public defender Luke reunited with Emily, who returned to practice holistic law, but he left their conversation to have dinner with a pretty new bailiff; Sara settled into her new job as a victim’s advocate in the DDA office; and Amy had her hands full with Ness’ overtime pay lawsuit.
Below, showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence breaks down the characters’ professional and romantic futures following the Season 3 opener.
TVLINE | Lola won the election by a small margin, not by a landslide, and Corrine is still gunning for her. So in how much jeopardy is Lola’s seat still? And is that changing how she views her job and how she rules?
It changes how she views her job, not how she rules. Lola doesn’t take her job for granted now, not that she ever did, but even more so [now]. It surprises her that people are gunning for her. But it also means she’s doing something right… Just like our election right now, so many people are talking about the judges and who are they and they should get a lot more screen time. Because they’re nonpartisan, people don’t tend to highlight them. It was a way of — which is funny that this ends up falling on Election Day [in California] — highlighting that you really should be paying attention to the judges that you put on the bench. So it will play out in other ways, [like] what happened with the campaign, etc., [and] Lola and Sherry will go through an arc in the beginning of the season.
TVLINE | With Lisa moving to the Court of Appeals, how will Lola handle not having her mentor around, while also having this new set of eyes watching her in Judge Thomas Marshall?
She’s going to miss her a lot. Judge Thomas Marshall, [Lola] never knows where he’s coming from. She doesn’t know what he’s going to say, she doesn’t know how he’s going to react. He’s very interested in her cases. And so she misses talking it out with Benner. Judge Delgado will try and take [Benner’s] place, but she knows that Benner was [Lola’s] mentor and they would talk things out. But you also will see the judges’ lounge with the different judges talking about and with Judge Thomas Marshall. So that will play out throughout the season.
TVLINE | And how much will we see of Lisa going forward? Will she still be around?
Oh yeah, she will be around. Not as much like in the hallways, but you’ll see her around between the chambers, the HOJ and Court of Appeals. So that’s exciting that we can expand our worlds from the HOJ, with everybody in their new beginning.
TVLINE | After his talk with Lola, will Mark reconsider his stance on the head DDA job and not wanting to take that on?
That whole arc is going to be around for a while because, as you saw in the first episode, Bravo has tasked him with [filling] it because he won’t take it. So then it becomes, OK, who does he see as a viable person for that role? Bravo is only going to wait around for so long for him to make that decision. And is [Mark] going to try to get in there before he puts somebody in there that Mark is not going to like or answer to?
TVLINE | Does Amy’s hesitancy about setting the wedding date signal bigger issues for her and Mark’s relationship?
Yeah.
TVLINE | Is it no longer just about the health insurance for her husband?
No. I mean, it is that and other things.
TVLINE | Emily has not been in touch with Luke for a really long time, and she comes back and they’re still kind of in different places, even though they’re physically in the same place now. So where does that leave them in terms of their romantic prospects this season?
Learning how to be friends. They’re going to go through a journey. I can tell the fans it’s going to be a satisfying journey, but they’re going to go through a journey, and it’s really a journey of friendship… What [does] their friendship now look like when they’re working together? Well, not working together, but working at the HOJ, [with] Emily in a different capacity, and then Luke finding his niche in the public defender’s office, and what does that look like?
TVLINE | Is there a part of him that’s upset that she didn’t call him, that she didn’t keep in touch?
I think he learned in the second season to not push. He’s also changed. And that was a big thing, even in the beginning of the season, I’m like, “You’ve changed, as well, as a character. You have found your way as to what you want to do and be as a public defender. It was hard when Emily first left, but you figured out how to move on from that.” So when she comes back, Luke’s in a different place. Everybody’s like, “Oh, what is Emily going to be like?” but Luke’s in a different place, too, which then becomes intriguing to Emily like, “OK, what did I miss? What happened?” So they’re two people that know each other, but they’re learning new things about each other.
TVLINE | I think one of the questions that viewers are going to be asking after the premiere is: What’s going on with Luke and the new bailiff?
[Laughs] People gotta watch for that one!
All Rise fans, what did you think of the show’s return? Grade the episode below, then hit the comments!
Best of TVLine
Get more from TVLine.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
