Episode 5 of “Accused” shows the extent to which a childhood experience can affect the human psyche. More than showing a trial, the episode explores sexuality and how it can take a toll on a person who hasn’t been able to acknowledge it due to external factors like mockery and abuse. In this way, “Accused” Episode 5 deals with an issue that needs to be addressed big time. Many among us suffer from this insecurity, and it is very important to make them understand that it is okay. Reassurance goes a long way.
Spoilers Ahead
The Accused
Kevin Milstead is inside a cell at the Norfolk County Detention Center in Quincy, Massachusetts. He is trying to rub off what seems to be nail polish or some other mark on one of his fingernails. That’s when a guard comes and tells him that his trial is about to begin. It is time to go.
The Drag Queen
Robyn Blind dances at a club and makes a loving out of it. One night, as she’s returning home late, some guys try to hit on her. But when she starts talking in a male voice, they back off. One of them calls her a freak. After the guys leave and she waits for a cab, one of the guys approaches her and apologizes for his brother’s (the guy who called her a freak) behavior. Robyn accepts the apology. The guy offers to drop her home in his cab. Robyn and Jamie get comfortable talking to each other, and Robyn offers him a drink at her place. They end up sleeping together. The next morning, Jamie has already left. Robyn finds a ring on the kitchen floor.
Brother’s Revenge
Kevin is in the washroom struggling to get the last bit of nail polish off one nail when the guard ushers in Matty, Jamie’s brother, and closes the door behind him. Matty starts beating Kevin until he is down on the ground with drops of blood rolling down his mouth. Before he could do more harm, the guard pulls Matty back and takes him out. Clearly, Matty had paid the guard for this chance.
The Missing Ring
A week later, Kevin is in his room when the bell rings. It is Jamie who is asking for Robyn. Kevin doesn’t open the door, but it is clear from Jamie’s words that he doesn’t want to make things awkward. Kevin asks him to return in half an hour. Jamie returns with beers after half an hour, and Robyn opens the door. They end up making love again, and the next day, Robyn gives him her number as well as the ring she found, asking if his wife knows that it’s missing from his finger. Jamie tells her that his wife died in a car accident the previous year. Robyn is shocked and apologizes for her words. Jamie tells her that he cannot do this anymore and leaves.
A month later, Kevin gets a call again from Jamie. Kevin is glad about it and returns home, and waits for Jamie. Jamie arrives at her home three hours late, and Robyn is enraged. She snaps at him because what she does for him takes both time and work, and she gets paid for both. Jamie tells her that he has to figure out how to meet her because he cannot let his brother Matty find out about them. Robyn makes Jamie understand that whatever they are having, or have had, isn’t real. So they need to let go and accept that “facts are facts.”
The Trial
The guard brings a bruised Kevin to the courtroom. His lawyer asks him what happened to his face. Kevin says that he tripped and fell. That’s when Matty enters the room. The lawyer turns back to look at him, realizing what must have happened. Robin tells her to let it go.
Jamie’s Life
Robyn is performing at the club when she sees Jamie watching her and smiling. After the show, she brings him home and applies makeup to his face just like she does to hers, thanks to her custom-made green room. Robyn hasn’t been able to get over Jamie, and neither has he gotten over her. In bed, Jamie tells her how once, while he was a kid, his brother Matty mocked him as a “queer.” It seems that Jamie has been hiding his queer identity all his life, but he finally opens up after meeting Robyn.
Later that day, Kevin is returning from work when he notices Jamie pass them by. Kevin follows him and sees Jamie come out of a clothing store with a woman. He has his arm around her shoulder.
Natalie works at the counter of a posh women’s clothing store. A queer man asks her to help him out with a couple of dresses. They end up talking about stuff, like how she has been trying organic IVF methods and how her relationship with her husband has been complicated of late. Her husband suffered from trauma since he was a child. He was abused by a queer. Kevin, too, opens up to her about his life, telling her how the guy he got involved with was married and lied that his wife was dead. The funny thing is Kevin has been talking to Natalie about her and her husband, and she doesn’t even know it. Moreover, she, too, has unknowingly revealed Jamie’s trauma to Kevin.
The Truth
That night, when Jamie returns home, Natalie tells him that she wants to try counseling to get over the fear of not being able to conceive a child. But Jamie doesn’t want to go because he cannot handle someone asking him “sick questions.” We, the audience, know better. The reason he doesn’t want to go to the counselor is that he doesn’t want to risk exposing his sexuality in any way. They have a heated argument, but Jamie ends up apologizing to Natalie. After the heat lowers, he asks her how she came to think about it. This is when Natalie mentions meeting a guy who is gay at the store, and that they’d discussed these things. She tells Jamie that they cannot have the same fights again and again over the same thing. They need to accept that “facts are facts.” As soon as Jamie hears these three words, something strikes him. He has heard them before.
Kevin is at home when he receives a voicemail from Jamie, who tells him that he cannot stalk his wife just like that. Kevin texts him back. They meet at a park. Jamie points the finger at him, addressing his drag persona as nothing but an act, saying that he is seeing him dressed like a man for the first time in the first months that they have seen each other and telling him that he has no self-respect. Kevin backfires by stating how Jamie has lived his life as a lie, pretending as if it was childhood abuse that made him gay. But that is not true because that is not how it works, and Jamie knows it too. It is he who has no self-respect because he denies who he is. Saying all this, Kevin walks away. Unbeknownst to both of them, Natalie has been watching them from a distance in her car.
The Crime
The same day, Jamie calls Kevin, whose voice is trembling. Kevin realizes that Jamie is crying. Jamie tells him that he has told Natalie about them, and she has told him to leave the next day. He asks Kevin to pick him up the next day at 8 a.m. so that they can go somewhere. Kevin agrees with a sad smile. Jamie disconnects the call. In front of him, Natalie lies motionless on the ground, with blood slowly oozing out of her head. She is dead.
In The Witness Box
The prosecutor holds Kevin responsible for aiding Jamie in dumping the body of Natalie. She states that Kevin had become obsessed with Jamie and even tried to befriend Natalie. All of this, Kevin denies, stating that he had decided to call off their relationship, and that is why he met Jamie at the park, not because he was obsessed with him or to plan Natalie’s death.
The Escape
Jamie and Robyn (Kevin) are in the car. Jamie takes it near a lake and halts. That’s where he tells Robyn that he didn’t tell Natalie about them. She saw them together at the park, and after Jamie returned home, she started screaming at him and abusing him. She had even decided to tell Matty about it. Jamie couldn’t let that happen, and in a fit of rage, he’d killed Natalie. When he tells Robyn that they have to drown her body in the lake, Robyn realizes that Natalie’s corpse is in the car with them.
The prosecutor questions the presence of Natalie’s fingerprints inside the trunk of the car and the traces of her blood on Kevin’s clothes. Moreover, if all that Kevin says is true and he is indeed blameless, why is Jamie not corroborating his story? (Because Jamie isn’t, although he has confessed to killing Natalie and will serve a long sentence.)
Robyn opens the trunk and finds Natalie’s body. She tries to contact the police, but Jamie snatches her phone and throws it into the lake, stating that he already has a record from a year ago (Natalie had called the cops on him). With no other option, Robyn flees the scene, with Jamie following her, shouting and asking her to stop. Robyn reaches a road nearby and stops a car.
‘Accused’ Episode 5: Ending Explained – Is Kevin Milstead Found Guilty?
There is a break in the hearing. Kevin asks his lawyer if she can buy him an hour. She agrees, and Kevin leaves. An hour later, Robyn arrives in the courtroom along with her drag queens. She takes her seat in the witness box, and her lawyer announces that Robyn is, indeed, Kevin Milstead. Robyn makes it clear that she doesn’t dress the way she does unless it’s for work, much less when there is a dead body in the trunk of the car she is in. Secondly, for the sake of argument, Robyn also states that fingernails and shoes with heels aren’t really the most practical things to wear when disposing of a dead body. So, if she knew what Jamie had planned, she wouldn’t have dressed like that. As for why Jamie isn’t corroborating her story, it is because she put a mirror in front of him and made him face the truth about being gay. He hates her because he hates himself and has done so all his life, not because someone abused him as a kid. The jury hears all this and finds Robyn, aka Kevin Milstead, not guilty. “Accused” Episode 5 ends with drag queen Robyn Blind rocking the stage with yet another of her scintillating performances at the club.
Episode 5 of “Accused” shows the importance of owning oneself. Kevin realized that the only way he could fight was with the truth, and so he did. She came out as Robyn Blind to prove herself. If only Jamie had done the same to his wife Natalie, she would have been alive, and Jamie wouldn’t have had to go to prison.
