‘Perry Mason’ Season 1, Episode 2: In the Trenches (Published 2020)

Season 1, Episode 2: ‘Chapter Two’

The flashbacks occur at intervals throughout the episode. They take us to the trenches of World War I — still without its even more savage sequel by the time “Perry Mason” takes place — where our title character is an American military officer, leading his men in a charge over the top. In the chaos of the no man’s land, the charge breaks down. Those who’ve survived German machine guns and flame throwers now must contend with a huge wave of enemy troops mounting a counterattack … and the lethal poison gas clearing their way.

As Perry flees, ordering his men before him, he sees that some are too badly wounded and maimed to move. Unwilling to let them suffer or leave them at the mercy of the gas, he takes his handgun and shoots them to death himself, one after another. When one of them begs — whether for death or a reprieve from it isn’t entirely clear — Mason murmurs, “Forgive me,” and pulls the trigger.

If it accomplished nothing else, this week’s episode of “Perry Mason” established why the private detective seems so perpetually ground down. With memories like that playing in your head every time you take a cigarette break, wouldn’t you look and feel exhausted? Moreover, it accounts for his dishonorable discharge from the military — and, according to his wealthy backer Herman Baggerly, his bloody nickname: “The Butcher of Monfalcone.”

Even for a private eye, a career for which an unsavory reputation kind of comes with the territory, it’s a lot of weight to bear.

But Perry is now on a different kind of mission than the one he was on in the trenches: Clearing his client Matthew Dodson of the kidnapping of his own infant. Suspicion falls on Mr. Dodson when District Attorney Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root, who, as always, seems to be having the time of his life) uncovers a secret of Dodson’s own: He’s Baggerly’s son from a one-night stand, back before the magnate found Jesus. Suddenly it makes sense why someone would try to extort a grocer for $100,000 — and who is in a better position to do so than the man who knows best that Baggerly would pay on his grandson’s behalf?

The story, of course, stinks, and only partially because the murderous Sergeant Ennis (Andrew Howard), who killed the kidnappers himself, is on board with Dodson’s arrest. For one thing, Dodson has an alibi, though not the sort that would necessarily hold up in court: He was out gambling that night, and there are eyewitnesses to that effect; the witness who placed Dodson at the scene of the murder of the accomplices was coached by Ennis and his partner, Detective Holcomb (Eric Lange). The two men also tamper with the findings of a beat cop, Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), a black officer forced to change his observant report on a blood trail at the scene to fit his white superiors’ preferences.