Does not intending to kill count as not guilty? After 12 episodes of “Accused,” we can answer this question without any second thoughts. And the answer is no. But the events that preceded the killing can tell us a lot about the person convicted and whether he or she even intended to kill or not. This is what we will find out in Samir’s case.
Spoilers Ahead
Happy Accident
Samir Khalil is being held in custody at the New Jersey Superior Court in Jersey City, New Jersey. It’s time for his hearing. But what did he do?
Samir is a cab driver who is preparing for the medical college admission exam (MCAT). He lives with his mother, who wants him to be a doctor just like his father, who is no more. One day, Samir picks up Alice Baylor, a well-known realtor, who is his drop-off at the airport. He starts to like her, and they have a nice conversation. He is supposed to take his test the next day, but his boss doesn’t care and tells him to pick up his next clients from the airport. As he is on his way to drop the couple off, he gets absent-minded thinking about Alice and hits the brake hard, thereby toppling the coffee the woman was drinking with her boyfriend. Back at the shop, his friend Thomas invites him to his place the next day. He can’t come because he has a test. Then, as Samir is cleaning the coffee stains, he finds a phone ringing under the backseat. Samir picks it up and finds that it’s Alice. She dropped it when she got out of the car at the airport. Samir tells her that he will give it to her when she returns. He will pick Alice up from the airport. Once back at home that night, Samir tries to unlock Alice’s phone but fails. How can he possibly think of guessing the pin?
The Test
The prosecutor tells the jury how Samir has had a secret life of rage and obsession, which led him to commit the crime for which he has been brought to court. It was no accident. Was it murder? But whose? What secret life is the prosecutor talking about?
The day of the test has arrived. Tensed and unable to concentrate, Samir leaves the test midway and arrives at Thomas’s place, where there are three other people as well. Thomas tells him to talk to his mom about it and tell her the truth: he doesn’t want to be a doctor. Later on, Samir, still preoccupied with his thoughts, mocks Becky, one of those present, and her statement that she needs a guy who can make her laugh. He states that she is lying because all she really wants is someone who buys her things and serves her, just like her ex. Before ruining things further, Samir leaves.
Meanwhile, his mother has been trying to reach him, but he hasn’t returned her calls. He returns home and tells his mom that the test went great. She is very happy. He retires to his room and tears up his notes, frustrated. He really doesn’t want to be a doctor, something that he has been forced to pretend to want all his life, perhaps by his mother, who also works at a hospital. To distract himself in the only way he could, he looked up Alice’s realtor website and managed to unlock her phone using a hint from the contact number posted on the website. He goes through her song list, looks up her social media, and even notes down her schedule from the calendar.
The day of Alice’s return arrives. He picks her up and gives her the phone, and she is more than glad about it. She is supposed to meet someone in Manhattan, so that’s where she gets down. On the way, Samir tries to make conversation and does so successfully by making up stuff to please her, like playing her favorite songs in the car and saying that he visits the same café that she goes to, right down to liking the same dish. They arrive at her stop, which is a hospital. Before leaving, he gives her his card in case she needs to go somewhere again. He gets in his car and is about to leave when he sees her kissing a guy wearing a lab coat. He is a doctor; that was the last thing he wanted.
The Date
Thomas testifies that Samir never had a girlfriend. He never mentioned Alice to him. He rather had a hard time getting along with women and used to get angry and snap at women when he got drunk. Women made him feel irrelevant and invisible.
Samir is outside Alice’s house in his car. He notices her with the guy from the hospital at the window. As he is waiting, Thomas calls and asks if he has told his mom about the test. He lies to him, saying he did. As they are talking, Samir spots the doctor coming out, and eventually, he gets into his car, mistaking it for his ride that has not yet arrived. Samir offers to take him to his destination instead. The guy agrees. On the way, Samir finds out that he is an orthopedic surgeon. Samir drops him off at home and notices a sticker of a family on the back of the guy’s car. This tells him that the guy has a wife and two kids. He’s been cheating on Alice.
A few minutes later, he knocks on the guy’s door and asks him if he has told Alice that he has a family. The guy threatens to get Samir fired, but he says that he is fine with it as long as Alice knows the truth. Either he can do it, or Samir will have to. The next day, Samir arrives at a residence where Alice is holding her open house. He meets her and learns that she isn’t seeing anyone. So, her doctor-lover did tell her the truth before Samir could tell her about it. Samir asks her out for dinner, and she gladly agrees. At the dinner date, Alice opens up to him about the guy, whose name is Josh, and his wife and kids. She has always been attracted to older men, but now she has no idea how to come out of the lie. Thankfully, the date with Samir seems to indicate that Alice is ready to try something new.
The Trauma
Thomas tells the defense that he has never seen Samir be physically violent toward any woman. However, it did seem that he had suffered trauma and kept it bottled up. This is what resulted in outbursts at times.
Thomas arrives at Samir’s house and meets his mother. She finds out from him that Samir hasn’t come to work for three weeks. He even left his car at the shop without telling anyone. However, Samir’s mother tells Thomas that Samir has been driving to save up for his medical school. Thomas finds this weird because Samir told him that he had spoken to his mother about not going to medical school or becoming a doctor.
Samir and Alice are dancing at a club. They kiss and have a great time together. He returns home late and finds his mother waiting. He hasn’t been returning her calls. She has found out from Thomas that he isn’t working and that he didn’t take the test either. On top of that, $10,000 is missing from their account. The bank said that it was Samir who drew the cash. That money was supposed to be for his medical school tuition. Samir finally tells her that he is not going to medical school and about Alice. His mother snaps at him, asking if the woman knows that he steals money from his mother. In a rage, Samir leaves the house in his car and arrives at Alice’s. She comes out and tells Samir that it’s not a good time to talk. That’s when Josh comes out. Samir is shocked. Alice tells Samir that Josh has left his wife, and they have decided to talk things out. Samir reveals that he was the one to make Josh confess. Josh then tells her that Samir threatened him. All this is too much for Alice, who goes back inside and closes the door on both of them. Josh beats Samir up, and the brawl ends with Samir getting inside his car and running over Josh, who was standing in front of it, trying to stop him from leaving.
‘Accused’ Episode 13: Ending Explained – Is Samir Found Guilty Of Murder?
Samir’s mother is in the witness box. She reveals to the defense that Samir lost his father, who was a doctor, in a bombing in Aleppo. She justifies the fact that she was too harsh on Samir so that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor. She knows that Samir could never kill or even intend to kill anyone. He has never been in a fight and has lived with her his whole life. Unfortunately, the jury finds Samir guilty of second-degree murder [murder with hostile intent but not planned], and he is sent to custody while waiting for a sentencing hearing.
We can tell that Samir really wanted to beat up Josh if not kill him, can’t we? He was borderline obsessed with Alice, and we do not know if he would have ignored Josh if he didn’t have a family. The prosecution mentions a secret life that Samir had as a resident of Syria. We do not get to know about this life of his. Was the prosecutor pointing at the hostile situation in Syria as it stands today and thereby concluding that Samir is an outcome of the hostility? This is baseless. We also do not know about the trauma that Thomas mentioned. All we can tell is that he never really interacted with women, so when he did, he went all in, to the point where he just wanted to get rid of Josh so that he could be with Alice. Well, guilty as charged.
