The Trial (Il Processo) Season 1 Episode 7 Recap & Review

The Missing Evidence Box

We begin episode 7 of Il Processo 11 months earlier with Elena continuing to interview Linda, asking her if she killed Angelica. Only, Elena’s new witness comes forward, which is enough to arrest Linda.

The tenth hearing begins and Elena prepares to question Zaia. Only, before she does Ruggero presents his DNA results to her and tells Elena it’s in her interest not to call forth the next witness. She doesn’t listen and calls Zaia anyway. Unfortunately Ruggero has no choice but to present his findings to the Judge, which leads him to remove her from the case. “Be prepared for the worst,” He warns her, as she packs her things up and leaves.

Overcome with shock, Elena passes out and ends up in hospital. Soon after, she visits Angelica’s adoptive parents and admits the truth that she’s Angelica’s biological mother. Incredulous, they ask her why she withheld this information.

The 11th hearing begins and in Elena’s spot is her replacement, Caputo. Unfortunately he doesn’t do as thorough a job as Elena and Ruggero takes the opportunity to go to town on Zaia while Elena listens from afar, seething in anger.

That evening, Ruggero does his best to coach Linda through her statement. After doing as much as he can, the 12th hearing begins and Linda takes to the witness stand. She tells her story, just like Ruggero coached her, but pauses at a crucial moment in her statement. Instead, she sighs and tells the court she lied about one thing – she was obsessed with Angelica and always hated her.

She didn’t follow Angelica but did talk to her that night. She tried to confront Angelica about the affair but couldn’t say anything as Angelica admitted to being pregnant. She offered money to make her go away but Angelica simply laughed at her. This inevitably made her think about killing the young girl but didn’t, instead promising to destroy her life.

She went to the bar that night and spoke to her Father in the aftermath of this. She wasn’t the one who killed Angelica but does berate Elena for the way she painted her as the murderer from the very beginning. Ruggero brings her attention to the cigarette butt and asks her to explain it. Linda suggests someone may have planted it there to pin evidence linking her to the crime. Despite Ruggero pushing her to name someone, she apologises and remains defiantly quiet on this front.

Elena heads back to the office where she finds a sealed bag of evidence the prosecutors completely forgot about. Within that is a receipt from the bar for three drinks, which backs up her alibi that she was there that night. Realizing she’s been blinded by vengeance this whole time, Andreoli convinces her not to pursue this any further and locks it away.

However, Elena heads up and sees the Judge, handing over the receipt she uncovered and telling him to do the right thing. As she leaves, she gets word that she’s pregnant from the doctors, leaving her in a dumbfounded and shocked state.

The issues continue to pile up for Elena but the macguffin box of evidence is a late twist that feels like a forced way of wrapping this case up for good. Is Linda really innocent? The evidence now seems to point that she is but given two prosecutors have completely missed a large cardboard box with “Evidence” written on the top until this conveniently placed penultimate episode, it’s a bit disappointing that Il Processo has seemingly undone so much good work done early on in the series.

Still, despite that the show remains a watchable enough law drama but unfortunately lacks the lasting power or tenacity this late on to make it more than a mediocre effort.