ABC's For The People Season 1 Episode 1 Recap And Spoilers
For The People Recap
Shonda Rhimes super fans will find a lot of comparisons betwixt Grey's Anatomy and For The People, but the new law drama had a few twists in its premiere episode.
Click through the slideshow to find our For The People season 1 episode 1 recap, For The People spoilers, and just WTF we think is going to go down in the long haul for these characters.
For The People Episode 1 Recap
For The People is set in the Southern District of New York Federal Court, which is considered one of the key courthouses in the country.
We join a cast of ragtag, fresh off the press lawyers as they are sworn in as either prosecutors or defense attorneys.
For The People is set to be a heart wrenching episodic that pulls stories straight from the headlines, all while driving home the importance of empathy and friendship.
For The People Spoilers
Every show that follows a Shonda Rhymes formula is filled with iconic characters (case and point? Grey's, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder), and For The People is no exception.
For The People Cast And Characters
Britt Robertson plays Sandra, the lead of the show. She's as hardworking as she is naive, God bless her.
Jasmin Savoy Brown plays her best friend, Allison, who is also a defense attorney.
The last defense attorney is a true pure for this world cinnamon bun named Jay played by Wesam Keesh.
But, and I will go on record here, the prosecutors are much more interesting.
Seth, played by Ben Rappaport is probably the least interesting — a glass of milk and Allison's boyfriend.
But Leonard, played by Regé-Jean Page, and Kate, played by Susannah Flood, are the true breakout stars.
They're both cutthroat, intimidating, slightly scary, and incredibly inspiring.
Rounding out the cast is the chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Roger Gunn (Ben Shenkman), a mentor in the public defender's office Jill Carlan (Hope Davis), clerk of court Tina Krissman (Anna Deavere Smith), and Judge Nicholas Byrne (Vondie Curtis-Hall).
For The People Season 1 Episode 1 Spoilers
Here's everything you need to know that went down on the first episode of For The People.
There's A Total Gray Area
When it comes to the characters, there's no "good guy" or "bad guy." It's a fresh look at the legal system. There are prosecutors and defendants, and they both have to do their job, if they believe in their client or not.
This is true in Sandra's first case — which she gets by total accident.
She is going up against prosecutor Leonard as she defends her client, a Muslim-American who was entrapped by the FBI into thinking he was going to blow up the Statue of Liberty.
YES, VERY HEAVY FOR EPISODE ONE, RIGHT? RIGHT?
While the audience may be swayed by Sandra's case that it's illegal to entrap a person, and the FBI clearly did so, the jurors still rule in favor of Leonard.
Sandra lost a plea deal, and her client was sent to jail.
LOVE IS REAL HARD.
At the beginning of the episode, before everyone is sworn in, Allison informs her bestie Sandra that her and her boyfriend, Seth, are keeping it professional. She says, "I don't have a boyfriend today. Seth doesn't have a girlfriend today."
Classic foreshadowing — Seth and Allison's first case is against one another. When both refuse to back down, Seth ups the ante against her client (again, someone we don't know if we can consider fully innocent). Allison, however, sticks to her guns and throws him under the bus.
By the end of the episode, he's packing his bags.
When Sandra finds Allison, she repeats what she said in the courthouse earlier in the episode.
Leonard and Kate have to be endgame.
Kate is a character who is entirely by the books. She even delivers my favorite line in the episode.
Seth asks her, "I heard you were a procedural guru, can I ask you a question"
She responds:
"If you have to, but I don't want to be the help desk for every man in this office too lazy to look something up for himself. Were you too lazy to look this up for yourself?"
She could quickly be written off as the typical "bitch" character, but so far she's been so endearing.
When she realizes Sandra arrived at the courthouse first, only to be locked outside, she makes it a point to say she can enter first, because she was there first.
Leonard was less kind. When the doors unlocked, he waltzed in, with complete disregard to Kate stating Sandra should be first.
However, there's a human side that shows from Leonard later in the episode — where he realizes he sent a man to prison despite entrapment.
On top of that, Leonard and Kate share a bowl of ramen together, and he asked her to make it their tradition, before every trial.
Sandra and Allison are #FriendshipGoals
Right off the bat, you know this is going to be the most important relationship on the show.
Sandra and Allison met on the first day of law school, they live together, they're each other's rock.