ElBee

What is justice, and to what ends should we fight to preserve a legal system’s power in society versus fixing mistakes made by the people in positions of power within it?

Through the lens of “Team Zero,” a team of legal professionals seeking to overturn wrongful convictions in line with non-profit organizations like The Innocence Project, we are taken back in time to a case wherein a family’s home was broken into and stolen from with everyone but the very young daughter murdered in the process, the daughter traumatized having been awoken to the noise and hidden away in a closet by her mother just before hearing the sounds her mother cried out while being stabbed to death, the father already killed by that point.

The man arrested had a prior record of theft. Partial prints matched on the weapon. He’s nearing the point where he will be hanged, and the attention brought to the team has only made certain parties involved with the conviction wish to speed up his death. That is our starting point. Whether this team, led by an inspiring lawyer and lecturer who aspires to live in a nation with “zero wrongful convictions” (knowing that is not going to happen, of course, but aiming to never let innocent people suffer out a prison stay or even die because of someone else’s crimes), can succeed is less the point of this than questioning the system that puts the wrong people in prison far too often and makes it insanely hard to get a retrial request approved.

I thought this was really a rewarding watch. Tackling an old case as a retrial is a whole different story from what I see far more often, cold cases examined. Stats from international groups similar to Team Zero are in line with the figures mentioned at the end of the final episode. The pain showcased across this entire case and the beautiful return to the starting point (I’ll just leave it there to avoid spoilers) for so many who got involved in this one way or another was meaningful without feeling contrived at all. I hope everyone in the end had that moment to see their mothers again.

I recommend this to anyone who is interested in legal dramas or the legal process in general, this drama focused on a single case and shining light on just how many cogs there are in the machinery, how many people bring about convictions and carry out the punishments, be them rightful or wrongful arrests that land any given person in prison. I found the performances solid, many kinds of pain and distress on display from different people that can provoke empathy at times and anger at others. It is a short drama begging viewers to look more critically and keep their officials held accountable, to pause before placing blame and to consider the complexity of cases and need for the ability to have them retried more effectively with pride set aside and basic human dignity and moral rights of the one accused prioritized over the gains of people pressing the buttons and flipping the switches of the giant legal machine, many of its cogs aiming to grow in power/rank, plenty in politics likewise bowing to the interests of the wrong people. It shows what people with good and bad intentions are capable of doing and how that has a domino effect impacting so many.