As rich and thrilling as this Great Depression noir HBO series was with sublime acting all around — especially Matthew Rhys’ turn as the P.I.-turned-attorney who overcompensates for his demons and mediocrity with his “eureka!” discoverings — the Perry Mason case of who killed baby Charlie Dodson was rather long-winded.

However, through various Byzantine rabbit holes explored by Mason, his gal Friday Della Street (Juliet Rylance), and his sidekick investigator Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham), our title character discovered that the Radiant Assembly of God was to blame for the kidnapping of Charlie, with Detective Ennis (Andrew Howard) orchestrating all the murders, down to taking the church’s Elder Seidel (Taylor Nichols) out.

The church was in debt for $100K, a perfect tune to ransom baby Charlie with; his father Matthew Dodson (Nate Corddry) the son of Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick), a rich benefactor to the Radiant Assembly.

“If I thought for one second that Emily Dodson was guilty, I would walk her to the gallows myself,” Mason tells the jury.

Meanwhile, Emily joins up with the remaining members of the Radiant Assembly of God, now led by Sister Alice McKeegan’s (Tatiana Maslany) mother Birdy (Lili Taylor).

And in tying everything up in a perfect bow, tonight’s season finale went so far to let us know what happened to Sister Alice after she fled the bungled stunt of raising Charlie from the dead (his coffin empty during its reopening).

Mason, thanks to Paul Drake’s (Chris Chalk) findings (who has left the police force and is now working for Perry), tracks Sister Alice down in coastal mission town where she’s working as a waitress.

As suffocating at times as the Charlie Dodson case was this past season, what gave Perry Mason a greater dynamic was the Sister Alice storyline, and how a faith-based church of supposed healers rocked the city.

The whole Sister Alice plot is inspired by Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, an early 20th century Canadian Pentecostal evangelist who pioneered the use of radio with religious services and even used stage techniques in her weekly sermons at the Angelus Temple.

Mason tells Sister Alice that he knows what went down: that the church was involved in Charlie Dodson’s kidnapping, that Ennis put a crew together.

“A baby was killed to prop up your church…you can look at this and still believe?” Mason asks Sister Alice.

“Did you really think you could bring Charlie back?” he asks her.

Fearing she is to be blackmailed, she asks Mason for help but she seems dishonest and tries to incriminate him!