'Perry Mason' Episode Seven Begins to Make Sense of What Happened to Charlie Dodson
Perry Mason has been on television for seven weeks now. In the beginning, there were fireworks, jazz trumpets, car chases, Perry thrifting at the morgue. Perry was sad, yes, but not like, sad sad.
Now? Nearly two months into a loaded legal case spanning the death of a baby, a possible replacement baby for that baby, Perry’s transformation from a rambling drunk to Johnnie Cochran in roughly 15 minutes of screentime, and a smattering of bookies and investors and church leaders taking the stand? I’ve begun to resemble Perry Mason myself, a sad, dumb man, scribbling illegible handwritten notes every week, trying to figure out what in the precise hell is going on in the case examining Charlie Dodson’s murder, leaving each and every episode confused. And sad. Just sad. I blankly stare out my bedroom window for at least 45 minutes after every episode of Perry Mason.
That said, Episode Seven of Perry Mason, which debuted on HBO Sunday night, begins to make sense after the third or fourth rewatch. The season’s penultimate episode does a bunch of legwork in setting up next week’s finale. Numerous people involved (or formerly involved) with the Radiant Assembly of God take the stand, giving a better picture of the corruption going on within its ranks. We finally figure out what happened to Charlie Dodson. (And it’s a doozy, boy-o!) Barring any last-second antics, the whole ordeal sets up a finale where we’ll figure out Emily Dodson’s fate—so let’s get all the evidence straight.
Let’s hit the stand first. This week’s courtroom antics focus on the stealing and double-crossing going on within the Radiant Assembly of God. First of all, Maynard Barnes is right—it’s never quite clear why Perry is investigating the church until the end of his questioning. Kind of. Jim Hicks and Herman Baggerly testify in court, where we learn that the church got into massive debt. And when they got into debt, they doubled down and bought a radio station for Sister Alice to preach the good word on. The grand total of said debt? $100,000. Hicks, meanwhile, was told by Elder Sydel to fudge numbers at the church too, of which he has physical records. So this is all legit.
This whole time, Herman Baggerly was one of the church’s biggest investors. When they got into debt, Baggerly stopped giving money to them. Remember, Baggerly needs all the money he can get for the construction of his personal utopia. Three weeks later, George Gannon—who was rigging numbers at the church, writing checks to himself so the church could claim an asset on its general ledger—kidnaps Charlie Dodson. Who is Baggerly’s grandchild. For a $100,000 ransom. Mister Mason takes a very long time to get there, but hey! Perry just started doing this whole law thing like two days ago. He’s doing his best.
On the other end of Episode Seven, we have Perry, Paul Drake, and Pete Strickland still trying to figure out what exactly went wrong in Charlie’s botched kidnapping that led to his death. Bet you didn’t see this one coming! Perry gets his ass beat again, this time near some garbage heap in the back alley of a brothel to find this out, but we leave the episode with a fairly clear answer. Detective Ennis, who we knew was involved in the kidnapping somehow, brought a prostitute from the whorehouse we visit in Perry Mason, along on the job. Apparently, this woman was a heroin addict. Charlie Dodson nursed from her, which caused his death. There you have it.
But! That didn’t stop Sister Alice’s mother, Birdy McKeegan, from pulling some baby-related heist job off-screen to find a new Charlie Dodson. In the third and final big storyline of the episode, Sister Alice, oh boy, seemingly fails to resurrect Charlie Dodson. She opens the casket and… Charlie’s not there. After this development causes a riot at the graveyard, Sister Alice and Birdy drive away, straight into a gaggle of people crowding around a baby. Birdy jumps out of the car, and look at that! She says the baby is Charlie Dodson. (The baby is clearly not Charlie Dodson.) Meaning Birdy likely stole a baby and hid the corpse of Charlie Dodson somewhere. Likely realizing this, Sister Alice books it, down the street, running away from it all.
That leaves a whole bunch of fun things for Perry to sort out in the finale. Will the discovery of not-Charlie Dodson Charlie Dodson affect the case at all? (Whose baby is that anyway?!) In court, Perry has more or less made his case, but we’ll see if the murder of Elder Sydel—whose testimony could’ve helped Mason’s case—will affect the verdict. Or if Team Perry’s discovery of Dodson’s cause of death will make its way into court.
Most importantly: What did that woman throw at Perry at the beginning of the episode? It looked like pasta salad. Or a vegetable medley of sorts. We know it smells. But Perry says it was trash. Doesn't add up. It’s in my notes. Check back next week.
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