"Always follow the wife."
Hello everyone!
See, I've been a HUGE fan of hers since her Shadowhunters days, and once she joined Arrow as the one and only Mia Queen? Forget it, I was set for life to be one of her biggest fans.
She's just an amazingly versatile actress, and I'm reasonably sure she just hasn't found the role that would skyrocket her for life, which is a shame because I feel like she could do really, really well among the big Hollywood A-listers.
Then again, maybe she's perfectly happy where she's at right now though? Who can tell!
I know that I was pleasantly surprised seeing her name pop up in association with Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, so this weekend I sat down to watch the little movie she made with them.
Because, don't you know, I like murder mysteries, too. Which True Justice: Family Ties absolutely, definitely is.
I don't have anything connected to this on the blog yet, so it's just going to be a standalone, though I'm thinking that they might be hoping it evolves into a franchise. I hope it does, too! It'd be amazing if it did.
Onwards!
Casey (Kat) is a law student, and her little brother's just been accused of second degree murder.
Yup, we're starting hot right outta the gate with that one, and apparently, he killed the girlfriend of one of Casey's classmates, a rich guy named Eli, so of course he and Casey are going to be going toe-to-toe in this.
Because there's such a flood of cases for the public defender's office to deal with, they don't even really process evidence as they should before sending the kid to prison, so Casey and her friends, Sarah and PJ, decide they'll just have to solve the whole thing themselves.
Eli gets roped in because, well, he's initially reluctant, but it turns out that HE'd probably be the prime suspect otherwise, seeing as murder usually happens within a close-knit circle.
They start hunting down a supposedly older man that the dead girl used to hang out with, which is how they begin their little adventure with Liam, a private investigator, who tracks down the trio of possible other suspects for them so that he can tell them it's all a bust.
None of them could have done it (one is actually dead himself), so they're back to square one.
The only thing they have is a latent set of prints off the victim's watch that don't match those of Casey's brother, and then they get a hint from someone ... who doesn't want to be named, and only sends them an article about a similar case, a girl who showed signs of strangulation (which was the cause of death here) but whose killer was never caught, either.
She interned for two really rich people, one of which just so happens to be older and distinguished ... so our sleuths go undercover to see whether or not HE was the one who did it. Was he seeing the girls on the side even though he's married to an interior designer?
This prompts Eli and Casey to go undercover as a young married couple, and somehow I was SO expecting and hoping for them to put Kat in a gorgeous outfit - only for her to show up in head to toe black.
Hallmark, listen.
Sure black is sophisticated, but it makes people look OLDER than their years and also, there's genuine colours to be had all around, too.
Anyway, turns out the husband IS up to something nefarious - or was, as he's soon found dead himself, and without a confession from him, their case is as good as dust in the wind.
But Liam put up cameras to monitor the guy, and who pops up on them at one point but the victim's dad?
Listen, I called that it was going to be him the minute he started going in on Casey for not cutting her brother loose after she and the dead girl became besties. I just knew it.
Turns out, he'd noticed that his kid was acting weird and got the name of this sleaze bag out of her, when she said they'd be running away together and making new lives for one another. Only, it was the oldest trick in the book, and the guy never would have gone, so her dad went to have a word and things got a little out of hand.
Seeing as there's a confession of a different sort that he filmed, he gets away with self-defense, but that still doesn't explain who murdered their original victim.
The dead guy didn't admit to it, after all.
Then Liam hits the nail on the head when he realizes that she was contacted from her beau's OFFICIAL phone rather than his secondary, mistress-only phone - which his wife didn't know about. She just knew about phone numero uno, and the fact that there was a chit wanting to take her husband away.
Just like the previous one.
Undercover again, Casey cracks the case wide open and ALMOST gets strangled herself, but thankfully her friends are there to help her out, and her brother's released, his record wiped clean of this little mistake the people committed against him.
Casey also decides she wants to switch her focus from the DA's office to something a little closer to home after this case, and she and her friends all agree they make a pretty good team.
Even Eli, who lied too many times to count, but was forgiven anyway and sparks are FLYING between he and Casey, so we're all hoping to see a second installment and where this might go.
Heck, I'm betting Hallmark could REALLY make this into an ongoing series and we can just follow everyone's adventures along the way. Liam was making eyes at Sarah, after all, so why not see where this might all go?
Funny, entertaining, and with just enough mystery to make you bite the questions they serve you, as well as making the hints relatively straightforward so it isn't headache-inducing, True Justice: Family Ties serves as a pretty strong entry into a possible franchise, if you ask me. There's more than enough to take this off the ground, and plenty of things WORSE on Hallmark that can't even compare.
If you want an easygoing, relaxing afternoon watch, this is one for you.
xx
*images and video not mine
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