Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-5430952-20200104163125/@comment-4010415-20200113072604

The Devil&#039;s Advocate WP wrote: Yeah, but Jacques reacting that way was even more absurd. He didn't manipulate his way into the Schnee family and control of the SDC by being someone who falls apart because he forgot to prepare for his actions being exposed. Also, Jacques giving Watts his personal log-in without preparing for a double-cross seems like the dumbest move ever for someone like him. This was lame story-telling, plain and simple. Made him look like an amateur.

Here is a more plausible way for this to have played out: Weiss plays the footage and Jacques becomes nervous, but rapidly transitions into being indignant. Jacques says the footage is clearly faked, raises that his daughter is disgruntled after being disinherited for her life-endangering actions at the charity ball, and then demands to know the source of the "so-called" footage. At this point either Weiss refuses to out her mom as the source, giving him the opportunity to further attack the authenticity, or does and he immediately responds by highlighting Willow's alcoholism to impugn her credibility.

Would have been a far more believable scene had it played out that way. It also would have been more believable if they fought over it, only for Ironwood and the other Council members to say clearly there needed to be an investigation to determine the truth of the claims. At that point, they get interrupted by the whole business with the heat being turned off, so any further action or discussion is delayed. However, instead we get this ridiculous display. I seriously hope they aren't basically concluding things with Jacques this way as that would be like Adam all over again, only worse. That does sound better, though again, how would Weiss or anyone else fake Watts' actual voice saying very specific things that perfectly line up with what happened? Councilman Sleet didn't believe the footage until he listened to Watts talking in the video. That seemed to be what got him to believe it.

I also have to wonder if Jacques had history with Watts, enough to trust him, unaware that Watts held no attachment to him. After all, not only did they seem somewhat familiar with each other, but we've known that the SDC has had a connection with the Atlas military's science team since Volume 2. In A Minor Hiccup, Ironwood states that the Atlesian Paladin was built in cooperation with the Schnee Dust Company.