The Trial (Il Processo) Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Chapters Of A Book

Episode 2 of Il Processo begins with Elena speaking to Linda again and this time she has a harder tone. In this darkened room, Ruggero tries to plead with Elena to get to the point. We then skip forward to the 18th December, nine months later. Ruggero arrives in prison and implores Linda to stay calm given the trial is coming up. Given they’ve been practicing for such a long time, Ruggero reminds her that it’s showtime and now they need to do this for real.

Elena meanwhile is ready. She has a whole stack of evidence and clear witnesses to use but in the process, has seemingly lost Giovani who’s no longer with her. Her Father tries to reassure Elena though and gives a great analogy about this being a book and she needs to put the chapters in the correct order.

December 19th sees the first hearing commence and Elena gives her opening statement. She believes Linda killed Angelica in a hate-fueled revenge and did so knowing that she was also pregnant. By comparison, Ruggero gives his opening statement – which is simple and to the point. Given there’s no murder weapon and the statement is just Elena’s word, Ruggero plays the card that this was prejudice.

We begin with the photos from the party on the 3rd March. 678 photos to be precise. These pictures put Linda at the party at 11.53pm. As both the defence and prosecutor start discussing what may have happened that night, we see it re-enacted through cleverly written segments.

It turns out the forensic team also found a dress tear at the Palazzo Te; the place where the party took place. It’s possible then that Linda murdered Angelica and threw her in the water canal, which would have then seen her washed up in the river. To counteract this, Ruggero tells the court they can’t be sure, based on these pictures, that they didn’t just exchange a quick glance or even that the room was obscured with people. He then goes on question the actual time of the murder and if there’s a 6 hour window, is it not possible that Angelica died later than midnight?

Mr Colombo, a neighbour, is then taken to the witness stand. It turns out he heard a heated exchanged between Angelica and Linda. Ruggero promises to tear him apart and on his turn, he asks if the old man has underlying health problems. As Ruggero questions the man’s hearing, Mr Colombo bites back and repeats what he said before “I’ll tear him apart”. It’s something that puts the defence on the back-foot as they take a lunch break.

With financial irregularities and several calls around midnight that implicate Linda, Elena talks to the police Captain about their wire-tapping and decides to dismantle Linda’s alibi through questioning Linda’s friends, Anna Manfredi and Lavinia Belei.

On the stand, she uses Anna’s children as leverage and she caves, telling the court Linda got up for 10 minutes and left during the party. She tells them all that she looked upset and it’s enough for Linda to stand up, incredulous at her friends, and shouting in court. On the back of this, the Judge has no choice but to adjourn the trial for now until Linda has calmed down.

The outcome of the hearing is disastrous for Ruggero, who is then grilled by his superior Mara, a woman in charge of the Monaco holding accounts. Forced to change tactics, Ruggero is put in a difficult position and threatened to be taken off the case if he doesn’t change things up.

January 8th sees the second hearing begin, and this time Ruggero speaks to Anna about her sudden change in tact to implicate Linda. Given she asked for a loan before Linda was arrested, Ruggero plays the angle that Anna wanted Linda to go down as she was filing for bankruptcy on the back of her refusing to give a loan. This would give her a good reason to recant her original statement. In the aftermath of this, Mara questions Ruggero’s tactics and warns him against playing solo in the future.

Back at the station, the police find another lead in the form of a conversation between Marco and Lorenzi taking place in a hotel in Cape Verdi. As Elena arrive at the scene, she finds Giovani leaving with another woman. She pushes this to the back of her mind and instead speaks to Silvia who, as it turns out, has been threatened.

11th January sees the third hearing begin and this time Silvia takes to the stand. She explains how Angelica was worried about Linda on the back of the affair. Given they were working together, she tells the court that she saw Angelica leave outside. Within the hundreds of photos, number 327 clearly shows two shadowy figures together walking in the distance, one with a rip in the dress that looks suspiciously similar to the dress tear uncovered before.

As the episode comes to a close, Silvia apologises to the court and tells them she can’t keep it in any longer. The woman in the picture is her and she was the one who killed Angelica.

With a big twist in the tale, the court case has been completely turned on its head as Elena looks on in horror at what’s transpired. Given Silvia just admitted to murder, is she being threatened into doing this to deflect the situation away from Linda? And is Linda really guilty? Or is there someone else responsible for what happened to Angelica?

Given there’s no murder weapon right now and a lot of unanswered questions, Il Processo takes an unexpected turn and given what we’ve seen so far, it’s fair to say there’s plenty more story left in this one. Quite what will happen next however, remains to be seen!