--E1: After a truly terrible outing in the Ark's sublevel, Benson's returning to the station to find out who killed Edmond Laraby, courtesy of Dr. Jeanine Russell's inspection/autopsy. The part in Red here kind of annoyed me but I'm not able to articulate why. Anyone who has followed along a few chapters will probably understand.
Because with how inconsistently the book has treated what Benson does and does not know, having him wondering if he really knows anything about the ship he's been patrolling for ten years really feels like a middle finger?
Or they know attacking you in a public setting would be dumb and tip everyone else off to the attack definitely being connected to the murder.
What is this petulant bullshit? Theresa asks him about his sleeping habits, he shrugs it off and she gets ready to storm off and leave him to the murder mystery because he's a bit grumbly.
Funny how NONE of this bullshit explanation has ever been so much as hinted at through this entire story, Benson never tries to relate to Laraby or being indignant about the matter. In fact, Benson and story treat Laraby like a throw away character despite the fact that he's the center of this entire story, talking jack shit about who he was outside of 'He was a dude who did good work and liked to be clean.'. Benson was basically apathetic to the case until it involved people he wanted to see get fucked over.
God, I wonder why they're suddenly talking up Laraby and pretending he means anything...
So, again, what's the point of all the pretend cover-up over comms bullshit when, if your plants are being monitored by conspirators, they're going to see all this shit anyway?
And no, the fucking paints established jack shit. Once again, the painting Laraby had wasn't one of the stolen paintings, it had nothing to do with the heist that Feng's father took part in, it had nothing linking it to Feng unless we had prior confirmation that Feng had possessed that painting. It's like the second Phoenix Wright case where one of the characters gives his priceless painting to the villain due to black mail, but instead of Phoenix noticing that Grossburg's prized painting that he saw prior was missing, he just assumes Red White's painting is Grossburg's because they both look expensive.
Mahama's dialogue is starting to make me physically ill.
Benson asks Feng if he murdered Edmond Laraby - Feng, vehemently, answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he conspired to murder Edmond Laraby - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the Truth.
Benson asks Feng if he hired someone to murder Edmond Laraby - Feng answers No, and the lie detector determined, that he's telling the Truth.
...Aren't those two basically the same question? Hiring someone to kill someone is conspiracy to murder.
Oh, so that's why Laraby was suddenly getting respect.
I love the reaction here, Benson goes from still not being able to understand the concept of cheating on your wife to affirming that he's totally cool with gay people guys. Which is even funnier considering how long it took him to figure out 'Wait, wait, don't fuck the child prostitute, Benson' two chapters ago.
Wait, this makes my Ace Attorney comparison even funnier: in that game, you can make Phoenix accuse Grossburg and Red White of being lovers too!
That explanation for being in the closet sounds so petty. Dude isn't even facing hate crimes or fearing the reaction of possibly intolerant loved ones, he just doesn't want to publicly admit that he and his gay lover probably won't get children.
Gotta love how Mahama never actually asked for Benson's new evidence, she just went straight to firing up the perfect lie detector that would have been insanely useful earlier in the investigation.
Unless it's gonna turn out that Laraby was murdered by the wife who found out about the affair, this entire plotline with the paintings and getting evidence on Feng is absolutely fucking pointless and this mystery has gone nowhere. Our mystery, two chapters away from the end, is: An important man was killed by someone who had the credentials to alter security logs. How fucking pathetic.