MEA CULPA

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens with lawyer Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland) in couples therapy with her husband, Kal Hawthorne (Sean Sagar). Mea accuses Kal of seeing another woman, though he denies it. It is also stated that Kal’s overbearing mother Azalia (Kerry O’Malley) is too involved in their marriage, but Kal hasn’t told his family that he has recently lost his job and that Mea has been supporting him.

Mea goes to a restaurant with Kal for Azalia’s birthday, where they are joined by Kal’s district attorney brother Ray (Nick Sagar) and his wife Charlise (Shannon Thornton), the latter who is close friends with Mea. Mea runs into her boss Maddy (Gene Weygandt), who tells her that local artist Zyair Malloy (Trevante Rhodes) is looking for a lawyer and specifically asked for her. Mea then joins the family, and Azalia brings out a friend of Kal’s named Jenna (Arianna Barron), whom Azalia openly says she wishes was her daughter-in-law instead. Outside the restaurant, Mea and Charlise notice paparazzi outside because Zyair is in the restaurant. Ray notes that Charlise bought two of his paintings, to his chagrin since he is set to prosecute Zyair.

When Mea goes to work, she finds Zyair there waiting to meet her. The big story surrounding him is the disappearance and possible murder of his girlfriend Hydie (Maria Gabriela Gonzalez), though Zyair claims he is innocent and that his life is being ruined. He asks Mea to represent him, and she tells him to leave his number with her secretary.

On their way out of a workout class, Mea and Charlise see women protesting outside an art gallery because the director, a woman named Renee Carter (Angela Robinson), refuses to take down Zyair’s artwork. At home, Kal, Ray, and Azalia all try to guilt Mea out of not representing Zyair since it would conflict with Ray’s own work on the case.

Mea visits Zyair at his apartment/art studio to discuss details on the case. He discusses how he met Hydie and began a relationship before things took a dark turn. Mea produces a photo from the crime scene, stating that blood found at the scene matches Hydie’s, and skull fragments were found on one of his paintings. Hydie had also recorded a video stating that she was fearful that Zyair would kill her.

Mea later goes to see her private investigator friend Jimmy (RonReaco Lee) to try and dig up dirt on Zyair. He has tried to track down Hydie’s family in Mexico, who all won’t talk because of fear of Zyair. Jimmy goes with her to speak to Zyair and learns that he and Hydie had an intense sex life. Jimmy travels to Mexico and finds that nobody seems to have heard of Hydie at all.

Mea’s marriage with Kal shows obvious cracks with her lack of interest in him physically or satisfaction with their sex life. Meanwhile, she sees Zyair personally, despite the reputation he has garnered in the media. She visits him again, and he gets her to paint with him while seductively guiding her hand across the canvas. Zyair later invites Mea to an underground sex club that he frequents, which makes her uncomfortable, but he notes that she is obviously attracted to him.

Jimmy later relays to Mea that he took a picture of Kal and Jenna walking into a hotel room together. This drives Mea to give into her attraction to Zyair and goes to his place. They cover each other in paint and have passionate sex. The next morning, Mea finds Kal and Charlise at her job wondering where she has been all night. Mea learns that the whole family was in the hotel room because Azalia is staying there while undergoing chemotherapy for her cancer, which causes Mea to feel immense guilt over the affair.

Mea then goes to speak to Renee at her gallery. Mea learns that Zyair similarly seduced her in the same way (making her paint with him and using the exact same lines as he did with Mea) and that Renee is keeping his artwork up because she thinks that they will make her more money than she already has, but he was never violent towards her. When Mea returns to Zyair’s place, she comes across a painting of herself, but she peels it back to find multiple paintings of other women before finding one of Hydie and a message stating “DIE BITCH YOU RUINED MY LIFE” etched on it. Zyair explains that he did that in a fit of rage over Hydie’s accusations, but Mea angrily tells him this is enough to implicate him.

Mea returns home to find Kal, Ray, Azalia, and Charlise all gathered to confront her over where she has been. When Mea is accused of being dishonest, she looks at Kal, who finally admits to his brother and mother that he is unemployed and in rehab. Mea then confesses to her affair with Zyair, leading to Kal throwing a tantrum and Mea being ordered to leave.

Zyair is later incarcerated while Mea goes to a resort in the Dominican Republic. To her surprise, she finds that Hydie is alive and working there as a maid. After Mea says her name, Hydie makes a run for it and gets away from Mea. She calls Ray to try and convince him to have investigators try to find Hydie and prove that Zyair is innocent.

Mea returns home to find Kal’s family at the house once again. Jimmy contacts her and says to check her emails, leading her to find some shocking new information. Azalia then breaks Mea’s phone and tries to pass it off as an accident. Ray also gives Mea a wine glass that has been drugged, which she seems to catch. After some prodding, Ray and Azalia are forced to reveal that they set everything up to frame Zyair since he and Charlise had an affair as well. Also, Azalia never had cancer. Mea tries to run out of the house with Charlise’s help, but Azalia fatally stabs Charlise.

Mea takes Ray’s pickup truck and evades him with Azalia jumps onto the hood of the car. Mea crashes into a tree, killing Azalia. She abandons the car and runs onto the road, where Kal happens to be driving up. She joins him but learns quickly that he was in on the scheme as well, and that Ray had told him to hit Mea to keep her in line. After he does strike her, Mea sees a truck coming and unbuckles Kal’s seatbelt, then steers the car into the truck’s path to crash and send Kal flying through the windshield and dead onto the road.

Ray is later arrested in connection to the crimes, while Zyair is exonerated and freed. He thanks Mea in the press for helping him go free. He later texts her to thank her and ask to see her again, but Mea just throws her phone in the garbage and walks away, now also a free woman herself.

Mea Harper is a lawyer who takes on the case of charismatic artist Zyair Malloy, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend Hydie. Further complicating things is that Mea's brother-in-law, district attorney Ray Hawthorne, is set to prosecute Zyair. While her marriage with Ray's brother Kal starts to fizzle out, partially due to his overbearing mother Azalia's involvement in his life, Mea starts to find herself attracted to Zyair.

Mea and Zyair sleep together after she is mistakenly led to believe by her private investigator friend Jimmy that Kal was seeing another woman, when he was actually visiting Azalia at her hotel room because she is recovering from chemotherapy. Feeling guilty after being forced to confess to the affair, Mea goes to the Dominican Republic and finds Hydie working as a maid at a resort. While she doesn't get Hydie to talk, Mea tries to contact Ray to get investigators to track her down and get Zyair out of jail.

When Mea returns home, she finds a message from Jimmy revealing that Azalia was lying about having cancer. It turns out she and Ray cooked up a whole scheme against Zyair because he had an affair with Ray's wife Charlise. Azalia kills Charlise and goes after Mea, but Mea kills Azalia after crashing Ray's pickup truck against a tree. She runs into Kal, who was also in on the scheme and plans to keep Mea in line by abusing her. She responds by unbuckling his seatbelt and making him drive into the path of a truck, causing him to fly through the windshield and die.

Ray is arrested and Zyair is exonerated. He publicly thanks Mea and privately asks to see her again, but she chooses to ignore his message.