‘Reasonable Doubt’ Star Emayatzy Corinealdi on Jax’s Pact With Corey, That Cliffhanger Ending

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Reasonable Doubt Season 2, Episode 5, “Guilty Until Proven Innocent.”]

The stakes for Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi) are raised in the latest episode of Reasonable Doubt, which teased an edge-of-your-seat cliffhanger for the lawyer who continues to fight for her friend and client Shanelle (Shannon Kane) on trial for killing her footballer husband JT (Christopher Mychael Watson).

As court proceedings carried out, Jax and new team member Corey Cash (Morris Chestnut) remained at odds, but as the episode reached its end, it felt as though the tides might change. When the firm members went behind Jax’s back to see how they could make Corey’s job easier as lead on Shanelle’s case, it forced Jax to confront her colleague, and they made a pact to focus more on helping members of the Black community together as some of the only people of color on staff at the firm.

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“I think that came as a bit of a surprise to Jax, to even see it start to play out that way,” Corinealdi says of Corey’s influence by the other firm members. “That’s not what she anticipated.”

“Corey’s participation in it… he didn’t tamp it out as quickly as I think she would have thought. So once she does go to Corey and say, ‘Hey, look, this is not what we’re going to do here. We can’t do this. We have to be a united front,’ and he understood and he was on the same page,” Corinealdi notes, “I think that’s when the tide turns for both of them.” Corinealdi adds that the characters might have different approaches to a case, “but our goal is still the same.”

How that will impact their relationship moving forward will remain to be seen as Jax found herself in a precarious position, agreeing to meet Shanelle’s lover Adrian (Vaughn W. Hebron) at her incarcerated friend’s house. When Jax greeted Adrian, she was unaware that he’d come armed with a gun and instructions from JT’s business associate Evan (Nathan Anderson) to prevent her from digging further into his schemes.

While we wait to see how it all plays out, Corinealdi teases that what’s about to unfold is “unexpected.” The star goes on to say, “By the time Jax gets to Shanelle’s house and sees Adrian there, she’s certainly not expecting anything of the sort. When he threatens her with this gun and everything happens, she realizes this is a much bigger thing.”

Beyond that, Jax is still unaware that her husband Lewis (McKinley Freeman) may have fathered a child out of wedlock with witness Toni (Tristan Cunningham), who had also been involved with the late JT. How their dynamic will shift remains to be seen, but for now, fans have gotten some sweet family moments between the couple who have been attending therapy sessions and trying their best to remain close to their kids who are growing up.

See what Corinealdi had to share about Jax’s family life, the ongoing case, and the drama that looms on the horizon as Reasonable Doubt Season 2 unfolds in the full video interview, above.

Reasonable Doubt, Season 2, New Episodes, Thursdays, Hulu