Loved the game so far! But i have been doing the villian mode with Samantha and even with the choices you recommend in the walkthrough the bar never gets past Miranda's shoulder.
I recall someone else had a similar issue and it turned out that they were using their distraction on a similar but different line at some points. Basically, the idea is to use the distraction as late as possible before a new fresh point comes up to maximize how long they spend trying to get back on track.
Be sure to object on all the possible points where you can object as well; the distractions and objections are listed separately from each other for organization, but are mixed together in the trial it's self.