TRIAL & ERROR: LADY, KILLER “The Murder Clock” (S2E3) & “A Hole in the Case” (S2E4): A Hilarious Blend Of Small-Town Humor & An Engaging Crime Narrative

After a great opening, the next two episodes of Trial & Error: Lady, Killer kept up with the wonderful depiction of small town humor as well as accurately capturing the true crime genre. This season, Trial & Error has focused more on the crime podcast, where the first season focused more on the crime docu-series. This slight change in focus helps keep the comedy fresh, while still exploring similar true crime beats through a comedic lens.

Last week, another two episodes aired: “The Murder Clock” and “A Hole in the Case”. Both episodes managed to explore recurring jokes in new and creative ways, as well as exploring new comedic ground. The talented cast captures the intricacies of their characters through humor and emotionally fueled moments.

Using Comedy to Push the Plot Forward

Trial & Error is especially good at combining the humor that comes from the small-town setting with its central case. This season takes the established combination of docu-series parody and small-town humor and takes it in a new direction by focusing more on true crime podcasts rather than the true crime documentaries the first season captured. Trial & Error finds strength in taking its premise and finding new and unique ways to draw the best comedy from every scenario.

The episodes this season make just enough references to the previous season, but spend more time crafting memorable moments featuring recurring elements from this season, especially a recurring joke about flags that gets more involved as the season goes along.

Another memorable moment in this episode features a business name creating comedy and establishing more about the town. The town’s insurance company is called East Peck Casualty and Casual Tees, and the owner sells insurance on one side and slogan tees on the other side. The name alone takes this scene of case exposition and turns it into a moment of small-town comedy, but Dwayne holding up a huge shirt and asking if it comes in anything but a youth small takes everything to the next level. Trial & Error is especially good at creating memorable comedic moments while also moving the plot forward. This scene is a particularly good example of that quality story-telling I have come to expect from Trial & Error.

In “A Hole in the Case”, Anne’s face blindness is brought back and plays an important part into the plot when she is the notary that can possibly identify who made changes to the insurance policy. I really loved how nothing really needed to be said in this scene, but you just know she can’t identify who made the changes, and the comedy comes more out of an awkward silence.

Connecting the Comedy with Memorable Themes

“The Murder Clock” and “A Hole in the Case” both utilize recurring jokes within the show, but also utilize a connected theme featuring humor connected to animals. Anne’s affliction in “The Murder Clock” deals with having dog-level hearing. Throughout “The Murder Clock”, Anne responds to sounds far away, such as animals fighting on the roof among many other fun moments. In “A Hole in the Case”, Anne’s affliction of inadvertently raising her hand lands her winning an auction for a goat, which she and Dwayne name John Lith-goat.

“The Murder Clock” starts with an amusing local tradition, similar to that of Groundhog Day, but taken in a more absurd direction. The people of East Peck use a moose, Mickey Moose, to be exact, to know how many Saturdays they will have in November. This joke would be great even if it were limited to this single scene as a cold open showing how different East Peck is from New York, which Josh has left behind.

Trial & Error goes one step further and connects this scene through the entire episode, showing how much Dwayne, Anne, and other residents of East Peck rely on this moose, going so far as having two calendars made for November, one depicting extra Fridays in replace of Saturday. Moments such as this give Trial & Error its much-appreciated charm.

Jayma Mays is wonderful as Carol Anne, and her trip to the doctor is especially memorable. This scene follows the episodic theme because she has to go to a veterinary gynecologist. The whole scenario is amusing from a commercial featuring a local East Peck trade school where you can focus on Veterinary Gynecology and Air Condition Repair among other trades to Carol Anne after her appointment with her hair groomed like a show dog.

Capturing Comedy Through the Documentary Style

One of my favorite aspects of Trial & Error is how they utilize so much of each frame, from documentary titles, business names, magazines, and other small on-screen elements. Trial & Error does a wonderful job of fully utilizing the documentary style, and these episodes were no different. The scene in “The Murder Clock” where Carol Anne goes to the veterinary gynecologist becomes that much better when we see the magazine she is reading is called Fur-Tility.

In “A Hole in the Case”, there is more of a focus on Carol Anne’s campaign, complete with conversations with her campaign manager about the posters, which read ‘tough on grime’ instead of ‘tough on crime’ and have a laundry basket covering Carol Anne’s belly. There is something especially strong about the campaign manager not wanting to remind East Peck residents that Carol Anne is a woman by covering up her pregnancy, but it’s done in a way that downplays Carol Anne’s abilities and shows her carrying a laundry basket instead of focusing on her talents as an Assistant District Attorney.

Another moment in this episode that utilizes the documentary style well involves a charity Edgar supported, Klocks4Kids, which gives antique clocks to poor children. Instead of having this joke be limited to something a character says on screen, we see a commercial for the charity. This makes the joke about trivial charities that much better and clearer by showing a commercial where a child looks at the camera and says she’s hungry.

Trial & Error: Lady, Killer makes the right amount of connections to season one and the true crime documentaries and podcasts from which it draws inspiration, while still creating something unique and memorable. I am enjoying this season for how much it stands on its own, yet still captures the charming tone established in season one.

Strong Ensemble Comedy

Every episode of Trial & Error showcases the talents of every member of its cast. The entire cast of Trial & Error, from the recurring cast to small roles, are all so talented and they all work together to create a wonderful ensemble comedy that will hopefully be remembered as one of the great sitcoms.

In “The Murder Clock”, Nicholas D’Agosto has a great moment where Josh keeps getting interrupted by podcaster Nina while he is talking to the camera about his relationship with Carol Anne. These moments end with him singing about having a heart attack to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”. I’m pleased with this season for introducing new characters, while not taking away from the characters we have come to know and love throughout the first season. Even if the show explores flirtations between Josh and Nina, I never feel like they are pushing away what we have seen grow between Josh and Carol Anne throughout the show.

Kristin Chenoweth has many stand-out and memorable moments as Lavinia in each episode, and her performance during the house tour, showing all the rooms where her children would have stayed if she could have any, is both funny and chilling. In “A Hole in the Case”, Kristin Chenoweth’s scenes with Nicholas D’Agosto are especially strong. One moment in particular stands out, where Josh has to pick Lavinia up in order to dance with her.

Steven Boyer and Sherri Shepherd work so well together, and this comes across especially well in the desire of Dwayne and Anne throughout the episode to just figure out if Mickey Moose saw his breath, after not hearing the end of the report in the opening scene. In “A Hole in the Case”, Anne and Dwayne attend an auction together, in hopes to find the killer when the clock comes up for auction. This auction leads to some important information about the case, and also leads to some wonderful jokes.

I have watched shows before where only a few characters hold the show together. Trial & Error is not one of those shows. Every character has strong moments that work well together to create a truly engaging and hilarious show.

Conclusion

Every episode of Trial & Error is filled with memorable jokes that makes each episode feel like it doesn’t even last its half-hour running time.  In addition to creating new and memorable jokes from recurring themes established in season one, Trial & Error: Lady, Killer is establishing many of its own recurring jokes such as the frequent scenes of flag boys, Carol Anne’s campaign advertisements, and Nina’s podcast interludes taking Josh out of context to name a few.

Trial & Error: Lady, Killer airs Thursday nights on NBC at 9/8 c.

If you watch Trial & Error, have you been enjoying this season? Do you hope it gets picked up by another network for a third season after NBC declined? Tell your thoughts in the comments below!