who's on judge mathis today? #199
an idiotic recap of the greatest syndicated courtroom show of all time
plaintiff: isaiah from cleveland, ohio. my man looks cool as hell in his #3 groomsman finest: black pants, fitted black dress vest (it’s been a minute since we’ve seen one of those!!!!!!!!!), crisp white dress shirt that is so bright it appears to be glowing, deep grey satin tie. he has a single diamond earring and a fresh fade and a neck tattoo and i extremely, ahem, see the appeal. *sweats*
defendant: vicki from cleveland, ohio. i don’t watch other judge shows because i am extremely committed to fidelity in my television courtships, but it’s clear that judge mathis consistently has TV’s most beautiful litigants and it’s not even close. vicki is eight feet tall with a broad, gorgeous face and a veritable lion’s mane of curly black hair and her skin is glowing so brightly you can probably see it from space. she looks lit from within! she’s like sunshine!!! BUT, to keep her firmly rooted to planet hell where the rest of us live, she has a tattoo the size of a dinner plate smack in the middle of her chest that says “richard.” i couldn’t love her more if i tried.
the complaint: isaiah says he moved in with the defendant shortly after they began dating and his ex became controlling and accused him of cheating with both men and women, now he’s suing her for personal property. “personal property” is so vague and boring and usually means, like, a car or an xbox or whatever? but one of these days it’s gonna be something exciting, like a fucking HORSE, and i will scream.
what does he want: $1216, vicki is countersuing for $1600 for emotional distress.
how it went down: greg asks isaiah “what’s all that you got there?” and the camera pans over to isaiah who calmly replies “evidence” as he shuffles through at least 147 sheets of printer paper on his podium. okay i don’t want to contradict myself because you know i love an overstuffed accordion of truth™ as much as the next moron, but there’s a thin line between giving my man proof and getting your case thrown out because the judge ain’t reading all that. if the first thing judge mathis says to your ass is “why do you have all that paper” it’s already looking bad for you, pal. i’d be like “uhh…some loan paperwork, i gotta holler at the bank after this” and shove those printed out text sheets™ back in my briefcase. not gonna get my case dismissed on a technicality. come on, man, just throw that shit away before you make yourself lose!
isaiah says he and vicki were together for three years after having been reunited since their friendship ended in childhood. does that sentence make sense? i can’t tell whether or not that is structured properly, my brain is broken. the gist: friends as kids, fell out of touch, ran into each other years later, fell into bed. isaiah says that he was in love instantly and that their relationship was great until they moved in together. he says that everything changed when he moved in a few months into their relationship. i’m tempted to be a dick and say something snotty like “well there’s your goddamn problem” but as a woman with a wife i legally can’t!
isaiah, who i should note is as charming as he is adorable, says he loved vicki; they used to do lovey romantic stuff like text all day and go on picnics, two of my actual worst nightmares. but then, according to isaiah, vicki became a “petty betty.” she’d wake him up at three in the morning demanding to know why he’d left a light on or hadn’t paid a bill. that’s not “petty” that’s terrorism! isaiah says she became vindictive and constantly accused him of cheating with both women and men. greg is like “where did she get all that from?” and isaiah says “from inside that brain of hers” and the judge says “so you moved in and drove her crazy?” and the lady in the audience behind isaiah is like “MM HMM.” men, amirite?
vicki starts off asking the judge “how you doing?” which is my favorite, i love her already, and says that when they officially established a romantic relationship and isaiah moved in he went from a caring, charismatic guy to “a liar, a cheater, and a frequent strip club goer.” judge mathis asks vicki how she knew isaiah was cheating and she says she got a call from a woman who told her isaiah was hers and advising her to “keep it moving” (that’s so fucking funny, like……………………..keep it moving past his clothes and furniture in my fucking house, bitch??????? shut up) but vicki says she put it in the back of her mind and decided to work on their relationship because she’s not a quitter. while i admire that, i simply cannot relate. i almost quit writing this recap half a dozen times!
vicki says that there’s a strip club in their neighborhood that was open six days a week and isaiah started going there all six days (come on, man), wasting all their money on titties and butts. isaiah sighs and says “you know what, your honor” (uh oh, any time a person starts a sentence with “you know what” it’s gonna be some trouble) and vicki starts to interject, then isaiah snaps at her “don’t interrupt me! you put on a skirt and i’m gonna wear these levis!” i’m slow (read: stupid) so i was like “hold on, isn’t he wearing dress pants” but greg isn’t and yells, “SIR I DO NOT ALLOW SEXISM IN MY COURTROOM.” ohhhhh okay i get it and also my man appears to weigh 97 pounds soaking wet? who the fuck does he think he’s talking to???
counting on his fingers, the judge says there are several things he will not allow in his courtroom: 1 sexism, 2 racism, 3 discrimination based on religion, and 4 some other things he can’t remember right now. greg????? i mean, i shouted “homophobia!” as loud as i could at the screen but he either couldn’t hear me or doesn’t mind a light hate crime, but he did say he frowns upon “civil rights violations.” please, his nobel peace prize, where is it???
isaiah rebuts the strip club thing and says he has never been to one and when vicki challenges him he reminds her “we are under oath” and i’m sorry but this dude is so funny and irresistible and now i have to admit that i laughed at that levis line even though he’s dressed like a cater waiter and is obviously a nightmare to live with. isaiah is suing for property that wasn’t returned to him after their breakup even though he asked for it “2…3…4 times.” he gives greg an itemized list, photocopied receipts, and pictures of all of his stuff which is amazing????? i couldn’t tell you what i did with the receipt from the iced coffee i got an hour ago, let alone anything i’ve purchased in the last day/week/month/year. i did my taxes (late as hell) a couple weeks ago and our genius accountant mina was like “you can claim half the mileage on that old leased car for those weeks you worked out of town” or something and i didn’t even try to figure out how to do that, i just threw my calculator in the air like “you win this round, uncle sam.” YOU’RE WELCOME, AMERICA.
vicki says that she gave isaiah five months to come get his stuff from her apartment, which is extremely generous! she says she texted and called both isaiah and his niece and neither of them responded. isaiah gives the judge some photos of him wearing the clothes (they look very professional and instagrammy?) and greg is like “we’re not saying you didn’t own the clothes, we just want to know why you didn’t go pick them up.” isaiah pivots and gives greg a witness statement (stating what, we’ll never know) and launches into an impassioned speech that starts off being about his “expensive clothes and expensive tastes” and ends in a diatribe about vicki being in a new relationship a week after they’d broken up with a man named richard. the same richard from the tattoo???????? oh no!
the ruling: isaiah is shouting at vicki about this betrayal, about how she’d told him richard was her “best friend” and forced them to hang out and eat dinner together, and yeah i’m gonna go ahead and say this case isn’t really about the tight leather pants in the the printed out instagram photo™. isaiah is either still hurt or an incredibly good actor, and this performance is about to cost vicki twelve hundred dollars. he even starts manufacturing real-looking tears at the end! get this man a daytime emmy!
vicki’s counterclaim is for isaiah’s “ruining [her] self esteem” and he is absolutely incredulous, shouting “self esteem? you got a tattoo as big as i don’t know what across your chest and i ruined your self esteem???” and lmao vicki is like “it’s my chest, i can do whatever i wanna do” and these two are the best, i wish they could find shit to sue each other for every day but also they should probably move very far away from each other. but then vicki goes from arguing with isaiah (hilarious, entertaining) to yelling at the judge (dangerous, ill-advised) and this case is a wrap, baby! not even sexism can save her from the wrath of a chastised greg mathis. judgment for the plaintiff, the purveyor of his expensive skinny jeans, and his favorite exotic dancers.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: “y’all sound like brad pitt and angelina! some people just need to stay boyfriend and girlfriend.”
*bangs gavel*