Why Is Perry Mason In Jail? The Season 2 Ending, Explained

Spoilers ahead for the Perry Mason Season 2 finale. It will be a while before Perry Mason gets to work on another case — and not just because Season 3 hasn’t been given the green light yet. The Season 2 finale, which aired on April 24, ended with the titular detective-turned-attorney on the other end of the law. So, why is Perry Mason in jail?

The crime that earned Perry his four-month sentence in the county jail happened several episodes earlier, starting when Paul found the gun that killed Brooks McCutcheon. The weapon tied clients Mateo and Rafael Gallardo to the crime (later revealed to be a murder for hire), but Perry, Paul, and Della didn’t give up their case just yet. In fact, they quickly stowed the gun away in Perry’s office.

“It’s in our safe,” Perry told the Gallardo brothers. “And I’m pretty sure I’m gonna give it to Paul so he can hand it over to the DA, and they can hang you, unless one of you wants to start telling me the f*cking truth.”

Because the brothers did eventually come clean about their involvement, Perry didn’t want to make the opposition’s job any easier by giving them the gun — so he kept it tucked away as the case carried on. He would ultimately pay for this decision when the gun was discovered, though: Judge Durkin allowed Perry to see the trial through but sentenced him to four months in the county jail after that for concealing evidence.

Perry agreed that was fair, and so does the man who plays him. “That to me is classic Mason: ‘I will do whatever it takes for the right person to get punished and the right person to get off,’” Matthew Rhys told Vulture about the Perry Mason finale. “His means are always dubious, but he has a strong sense of right and wrong. He’s like, ‘I can happily tell my son I’m in prison because I did the right thing, therefore my conscience is clear. I did something that’s ultimately seen in the eyes of law that’s wrong, but it got one innocent man off and the man who did the crime is now serving his time.’”

Indeed, Perry seemed to be at peace with the decision. Lyrics from Louis Armstrong’s “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” which played as Perry was booked into jail, made that clear: “Not bothered / No I’m not afraid, baby,” viewers heard during his walk into the cell that would be his home for the next four months.

And the risky move paid off for Perry’s clients in a major way — as the scene is intercut with a look at Rafael, who didn’t have to go to prison with his brother and was able to pursue his passion for art instead.

While the question of a potential Perry Mason Season 3 hasn’t been answered yet, executive producer Susan Downey told Collider the surprising ending wasn’t a means of setting up a new installment (though she definitely wants one, anyway!). “We didn’t end Season 2 thinking about the next season,” she explained. “We wanted to really complete the story arc, from the guy at the beginning who’s facing imposter syndrome and not really wanting to even stay where he is, and by the end, without giving anything away, getting to a place where, despite where he might literally be, he is probably the most content with who he is inside and the choices that he has made.”