This review contains spoilers. It took the work of solicitor John Mayhew (Toby Jones) to uncover her motivation. An anonymous note led him to a facially disfigured ex-colleague of Romaine’s with a tale to tell of sadism and revenge. Mayhew lapped it up, and produced evidence in court of Romaine’s plan to get Leonard sentenced to death so she could be with her new lover. The twelve good men loved the opportunity to punish Romaine for her infidelity – Vole walked free while she ended up in prison, serving a brief amount of time for perjury, and we were only half way through the running time for this final episode. At that point things started to slow down and get emotional again. And it got really, heart-wrenchingly, emotional. Mayhew, now a rich man through Leonard Vole’s generosity, recovered from his persistent cough and took his quiet wife to France for a holiday. The lighting changed entirely, throwing a peachy glow over everything. I loved the fact that, in this unreal glow, Leonard presented Mayhew with a watch to say thank you – for time was such an important part of this adaptation generally. How much time needs to pass for people to move on from terrible events, and how much time does any of us really have? The brief respite over, the twist arrived, and it was a good one with plenty to chew over. Romaine had made herself up as the disfigured colleague and created the evidence to make her seem like an unfaithful, vicious woman. In court, the judge and jury bought into this narrative – for it was much more rewarding for them to believe her a bad woman than a good one, thereby ensuring they would side with Leonard, and release him. Suddenly those twelve good men looked a lot less good, and so did Mayhew. They had all bought into this idea of the “vicious, scheming bitch lying through her foreign teeth” (as it was phrased by Romaine herself) who needed to be put in her place because it made them feel righteous. Was Mayhew a bad man? That was the question I ended up asking myself. He was a tortured man, blaming himself for his son’s death long before his wife confirmed her own feelings on the matter. And he was a selfish one, not always doing the right thing – not paying up money that he had promised to others, and enjoying his own success a great deal. Yet watching him walk into the sea, his eyes fixed on the moon, brought me no peace or resolution as an ending point. His love for Leonard, and his determination to save him from the gallows, had been real. Whether Romaine’s love for Leonard was as real was left in doubt, but then, how could you ever feel safe with someone who knew all your darkest secrets? I had no doubt they wouldn’t be spending the rest of their lives happily together. Their time as a couple would surely be limited. Yes, it all boiled down to time. And what a great use of two hours this was, in terms of tying together both a great plot and wonderful amount of character development. If the ending didn’t leave me feeling joyous about human nature, well, that was absolutely intended. Murder is a horrible business, and The Witness for the Prosecution isn’t going to let us forget it. Not for a long time.
