Chicago Redshirt

Matty's claim is that she had not been working as an attorney for like 30 years. That pretty much makes her reference-check resistant. Had she been telling the truth, many of the people who would have worked with her would be dead, retired or in the wind. Assuming she pretended that she never worked for firms that were still around and that she only worked for small firms, there might not be easily accessed records to show that the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe didn't in fact exist, or that there was no Madeline Matlock who worked there. Since her work history would have largely preceded the Internet, doing a Google search or similar probably wouldn't have yielded anything. Where she might/should run into trouble is that I believe most state bar associations have put some basic facts about their membership online, and that would be easily searchable. So if she said she was originally licensed in FL/GA in 1975, that could easily be checked. Now she could have bribed her way into false bar certifications, or changed her name from "Madeline Kingston" to "Madeline Matlock" so that her actual law license and history might come up. There may have been an attempt to contact her references, or she may have not listed any, which would have been understandable if her situation was real. Or the powers that be might have just said, we'll she's already helped us get $4 million more on one deal and win a $20 million verdict. Let's not look this gift horse in the mouth.

In fairness, there is no particular reason she should think that she needs a fake LinkedIn account to stalk Shae. I don't think it would be widely known that there is a version of LinkedIn subscription that would let you know how long people have viewed your profile. I tend to doubt that real-life LinkedIn Premium tells the information about how long someone spent looking you up rather than just "these are the people who looked you up." Even if you knew that LinkedIn potentially did work like that, there's also the question of whether Matty should think that Shae would be attuned enough to check who's viewing her LinkedIn page.

I'm not scolding you, getting panties in a twist or being didactic. I was literally wondering what symptoms you would be looking for/expecting. I'm fine with your answer "None."

I don't expect any law show (or police show, or medical show etc.) to be a one-for-one replication of the field they are in. I expect there are going to be some standard departures from reality in order to make things more convenient or entertaining (such as a criminal trial going from arrest to acquittal in basically the space of less than a month when in reality, even the simplest case is likely to take a year). That said, I do expect that characters and cases have some level of internal logic. Maybe I'm looking at things through nostalgia-colored glasses, but the episodes I watched of Boston Legal, the court cases generally were inherently coherent for what they were. Matlock not so much. YMMV.

This show is so frustrating because it can do so many things well and then just fall apart on so many other things. I wish I weren't obsessed with it. Like others, I found Matty stoned was hilarious. even though it should have set off red flags to get stoned with Senior on company property. She should have taken the offered edible and eaten it at home to avoid the possibility of it hitting her in a way that might help her blow her cover, and also avoid the possibility that Senior was trying to hit on/hook up with her. The non-denominational bunny bit was funny, but would Olympia really go out of the way to fuck with Senior and give Julian a break when she's angling for partner? I look forward to getting to know Matty's sister, and discovering that there is an actual Cindy Shapiro. I liked them dealing with Matty blaming herself. I don't like Edwin rationalizing "Well sooner or later Ellie was going to OD." No, absolutely not. Billy, you are an idiot. With you recognizing that Simone is flirting with Kira just to fuck with Sarah, the thought has to cross your mind that she's fooling around with you just to fuck with Sarah. It also should concern you that she is as petty and nasty as she has revealed herself to be in general, let alone toward your friend. No sexytimes are worth that shiznit. Get thee to a nunnery! The return of Alfie was...not great. The revelation that he was born addicted did nothing to endear me to him on his return. I didn't need a MWBSP, Alfie being enlisted in the conspiracy, the contrivance of Alfie leaving his wallet behind in Olympia's office (how was that supposed to happen? Why would he have taken his wallet out there?) although I enjoyed the payoff. A short summary of problems with the Case of the Week: 1. With the upcoming class action against the energy drink set to go to trial, one more piece of evidence should not make that big a difference that it is worth this massive side quest of taking on a new case in an area outside their expertise. 2. Since the energy drink caused the death of Sorority Girl, it doesn't matter so much what the intent was of the person who administered the drink. In fact, I would argue it's better for Olympia's case if the person who administered the drink did so intending to harm its recipient. 3. If anything. Olympia should have recruited the family of dead Sorority Girl as a client. 4. With the suppression hearing it was cute and all, but presumably the evidence of the cup and its contents were only obtained after Sorority Girl had been injured. At which point police had every right to be on site to investigate a potential crime, and there would be no reason to exclude evidence. The clothes drop-off was cute but it doesn't work as a basis to justify the police presence on scene. The invitation allows people to be present only for certain reasons (dropping off clothes) and in certain places (wherever the clothes drop off area is) It wouldn't give people carte blanche to go through the Sorority house for whatever purpose, let alone law enforcement. 5. I'm not sure the actions/motivation of actual culprit make much sense. They have a grudge against Client Sorority Girl such that they are willing to risk the health of Dead Sorority Girl and frame her for pranking Dead Sorority Girl? They go out of their way to swipe Client Sorority Girl's ID to buy the Max Rager energy drink to frame her? Are they thinking that someone is going to be checking where the energy drink came from? It's a college campus -- I'm sure you probably can't walk 2 blocks or go two dorm room floors without finding cans and cans of the stuff. 6. I don't know if the revelation that it was Culprits who bought the energy drink with Client's ID entirely gets Client off the hook. Culprits could have bought the energy drink at Client's direction. Or Client could have come to know that the drink was spiked with energy drink and given it to her anyway. The case had IMO reasonable doubt beforehand but if the prosecutor didn't think so, I don't know that the revelation changes things much.

What symptoms of autism are you looking for her to exhibit? Because her focus on harvesting bamboo seems to fall with one category of focusing on one task and repeating it. She also self-described being overstimulated and needing to engage in soothing and self-soothing behavior as well as an inability to read social cues. Those are all autism symptoms. But were you looking for that to be shown to us rather than told to us? Also: https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-symptoms

Not only was it probably unprecedented that someone has effectively said, "I would give up my shot at a million dollars for another player voluntarily," I have little doubt that Joe meant it in the moment. If there still was a fan favorite award, Joe probably earned it right there. Of course, it's easy to say that in the moment. And I have no clue if Eva would reciprocate.

I think the real props are due to Sai's alliance, who helped her figure it out. I'll take a season with no standouts over one where there are five who stand out for annoying me any day. The only ones I found bothersome at first sight were the tech lady hippie and Sai. Although I must confess to caring enough about astrology that I do wish I knew which specific signs they were. That would be a fun twist of dividing tribes up by astrological signs, lol. Where does one go to do this? I'm enough of an optimist to hope for the best for these two, enough of a cynic to envision a future where one will have to (or will choose to) backstab the other. Should that come to pass, it'll be heartbreaking. Not that it was necessarily his motivation, but it bought him goodwill with Kevin that might be useful if both make it to the merge. Also, what else is he going to do for the next half-hour? I would have laughed if he broke Kyle's jug too and neither team got supplies.

I was wondering about Elijah's text: are we sure that he in fact meant to text the other woman? Because if so, it seems to me one of two things should have happened. If he had previously realized that he sent a text to Olympia that was meant for Other Woman, he would have sent Olympia a follow up text saying "My bad, that was meant for someone else." Especially because there was ample time between when the text was sent and when Olympia came to talk to him in person. If he hadn't previously realized that he made a mistake, he should have been like, "Whatchu talkin' bout, Olympia?" when she started to raise his text. Given that it is hard to accidentally text someone -- the name of the person you're texting is right at the top of the message, after all -- and given that I find Elijah petty and semi-shady in general, I think it more likely that he's playing mind games with Olympia. Having a woman he's in the early stages of dating come to his office also strikes me as odd (unless she also works for Jacobson Moore, which maybe she does).

Earlier in the thread, I transcribed the conversation to illustrate how there was ambiguity and Matty could have meant "When you've been clean for a year, you can have daily supervised visits" or "You can have daily supervised visits now and you'll get custody back when you've been clean for a year." Thanks for letting me know that I was wrong in my assumption. I don't know if I would trust an over-the-counter kit with someone as much of a confirmed liar as Ellie is. Then again, Ellie has apparently worked her way around other tests that are presumably professionally done, so shrug emoji? I tend to agree with everything you say here. But again, the theme of this episode seems to be: is it better to be right or to be happy? Fortunately, that is typically a false dilemma. On another front, I wonder if the revelation that Alfie was born addicted to drugs has affected the opinions of all the Alfie haters in the forum (or at least, the Alfie non-enjoyers). As someone who falls into the latter category, I don't think I am any happier with the character, but I am curious. Does he know about the custody battle over him, about his mom neglectfully letting him burn himself, about having been addicted to drugs? Have there been any lasting effects from his addictions and his baby seizures? Does he have any actual memories of his mother? Have Matty and Edwin been truthful about Ellie when talking to Alfie or doing a lot of spin. Is the "MWBSP" thing extra BS?

People's mileage will vary. But at least arguably, Matty's tough love approach and insistence on full custody/no visitation triggered Ellie to relapse/overdose. One possible interpretation: The exchange with Matty left Ellie in despair, so she wanted to shut out the pain and depression from losing her kid, took drugs to numb the pain and she accidentally overdosed. Another possible interpretation: The exchange with Matty and losing the ability to see her son for a year made her either in despair or anger commit suicide. While in either of these scenarios, Ellie would ultimately be responsible for taking the drugs, it seems fair to me to question whether Matty deserves some of the responsibility for triggering her. And it seems Matty does blame herself a little -- it's all but said out loud that her going to war over Alfie was the one thing she wishes she could take back every single day. Under the circumstances, Matty would almost be a monster if she never thought, "If I hadn't taken as hard of a line, would my daughter still be alive? Could I have taken another approach that would have kept Alfie safe and gotten Ellie the help she needed?" It's clear that they had good intentions, but even without the power of hindsight, was going for full custody really the best option? Especially as it appears the Kingstons had plenty of wealth and were already about retirement age. Surely they could have had shared custody, gotten Elliie live-in help to help protect Alfie and keep her clean, had a little faith in her. All those might be pipe dreams, and maybe seeking full custody was still the best option, given how messed up Ellie might have been. But it seems like all this should haunt Matty - and in fact does.

I assume, but we don't know for a fact, that Ellie never intentionally tried to hurt Alfie. Time will tell as we delve more into the backstory with Ellie and her relationships with Matty and Alfie. But based on what we've been shown/told thus far and some reasonable speculation from that: Matty's mom was an addict and so Matty has been exposed to addict behavior her entire life. Ellie's addiction affected Alfie at birth, having him be addicted to drugs and his survival be uncertain. Ellie's addiction contributed to Alfie getting burned just recently. Ellie's addiction had Matty and Edwin going to drug dens looking for her. Ellie has lied to Matty in the past about getting clean and had gone through rehab. Ellie had her attorney claim that she had been clean for three months (and may have committed perjury about it herself). Ellie confessed that was a lie and she had only been clean for one because of the accident where she let Alfie get burned. From this, I extrapolate: Matty might think that 100 percent no-contact with Alfie would be best for both Alfie and for Ellie now. Matty sees Ellie as manipulative and untrustworthy (gee, I wonder where she got those traits from?). BTW, on another note, I would imagine that daily drug tests would be expensive but there'd also be some level of lag. If Matty tests Ellie today, it will take time for those results to be processed and to show if Ellie has drugs in her system. Let's say it's two days' turnaround. That's two supervised visits that Ellie would be under the influence for. And supervision isn't necessarily a guarantee that Ellie won't go off the rails. Even with supervised visits, one can't tell if Ellie will do something large or small to cause a setback for Alfie. In this very episode, Paloma (who as far as we know, doesn't have any drug dependency issues or mental health issues) flipped out and barricaded herself in the very law firm that was trying to help her retain custody at a time when she was supposed to be in front of a judge arguing for that very custody. If she could have supervised visits daily, Ellie might be incentivized to be satisfied with those and not clean up her life. She'd get all the good parts of raising Alfie like playing with him and taking cute pictures of him but none of the responsibility like caring for him, changing diapers, taking him to the hospital, paying for his needs, etc. That actually might sound like a sweet spot for Addict Ellie. Matty might rationalize that to get the good parts of being a mom back, Ellie might stick to the program and stay sober. Matty may also be assuming that Ellie isn't capable of going a year sober at this point. Having Ellie regularly in their lives at this point might be (in Matty's eyes and maybe in reality too) a hard thing to process for Alfie. It might be better to just have a clean break. I'm not convinced it wasn't Matty's fault. In fact, based on what we've been shown, I believe it is at least as much Matty's fault as Big Pharma. Ellie is IMO most at fault. Onto another topic: I like Sarah, or at least think the character has potential. A sharp, semi-antagonistic woman who contrasts with Matty both as to age, experience, approach to truth-telling (brutally honest with no filter as opposed to Matty's brutally dishonest with multiple filters) is a good place for a character to be. I think that they needed to flesh her out so she seems more like a 3D person rather than a vehicle for comic relief or tension. They started to do that the other episode by talking about how she was adopted and dealt with her own aging grandparent(s?). I think that they still should flesh her out some more. Like others have said, it strikes me as odd that a person who apparently graduated from a top-tier law school, who is in therapy, and who has some performing arts background, would be so oblivious about interpersonal dynamics and office politics to pick an unnecessary fight with the boss's bestie, would blatantly tell her office husband "I'm a better lawyer than you," and would steal his cologne as a prank. I'm not as sold as Billy, but maybe that is more that they have yet to flesh him out beyond people-pleaser, insecure about his skills, had a long-time fiancee, has a cop mom and a bunch of sisters.

Let's go to the conversation blow by blow between Matty and Ellie so I can map out where there IMO is ambiguity: E: Please don't take him away, Mom. You're going to destroy our relationship. [Note, I am assuming by "our" Ellie means her relationship with Alfie. But she could also mean her relationship with Matty] M: Drugs are destroying your relationship. E: I'm clean. M: Three months? [Matty's expression is clear disbelief and builds up from the court exchange where she suspected this of bullshit] E: One. Ever since the burn. [Matty interjects a look like, really?] But Mom, I promise. You've scared me enough. I'm done! I'm going to meetings... M: Great. When you've put together a year... E: (interrupts her) You can test me every single day M: You can have supervised visitation every single day. I took this originally as Matty responding to her offer of daily drug tests by explaining, hey, no worries, that Ellie could already have supervised daily visits now. But the other way it could be taken is that Matty was just finishing her thought and ignoring Ellie's plea: 'When you've put together a year (of sobriety), you can have supervised visitation every single day." Ellie clearly sees to take it the second way and then pleads for Matty to give Alfie his lovie. It is clearly symbolic to Ellie of her love. And when Matty declines, Ellie sees that being further shut out, even though Matty may have meant keep the lovie as inspiration to stay clean.

Point well taken that Ellie is a liar and that she might be lying about how long she has been sober and her willingness/ability to stay/get sober. I may be a sucker that the burning would be enough of a wakeup call to give Ellie the benefit of the doubt. But I do believe we previously saw Ellie say that she was going to get clean because of her being pregnant, and now we know she did not. So Matty had every reason to doubt her. But I guess that's part of the theme of this episode: is it better to be right than to be happy? (Maybe I'm weird, but if I had to choose one, I'd rather be right than happy in most/many circumstances). It seems with their resources, there should have been a way to reach a better win-win than "we've got full custody of Alfie, and you need to prove yourself plus you're on your own."

I know it's easy for me to say as someone not going through the grief that Matty and Edwin are going through, but hoo boy, do they need therapy. Their crusade against Big Pharma is even more misguided if Ellie committed suicide by overdose after having been clean for month and clean-adjacent for three. Yes, Ellie wouldn't have been pushed to suicide (presumably) if she hadn't lost the custody battle, and she wouldn't have lost the custody battle if she hadn't been an addict. But to divert blame from Ellie for making that choice and from themselves for pushing for sole custody to opioids in general and Wellbrexa in specific is wild. They also need to stop jumping to conclusions. The e-mail from Joey said very little -- I'm a friend of Ellie's, or used to be, and I'd like to talk to you. From that, they have extrapolated: 1. This is probably Ellie's baby daddy 2. He was/is probably an addict 3. He is possibly interested in seeking custody of Alfie None of these assumptions are necessarily true, or even likely. Ellie presumably had other friends she might have lost touch with who might want to connect with them for various reasons. Even assuming it's baby daddy, he could have never taken drugs a day in his life or he could have successfully kicked any habit. Even assuming baby daddy is an addict, there's no reason to assume that the reason he wants to reach out is because he wants full custody or shared custody of Alfie, or even knows Alfie exists. In fact, it almost seems a given that the 3rd isn't true, because if he was interested in a custody battle, not responding to his e-mail isn't going to stop him. It would not take anyone who'd actually have designs on a court battle much effort to find where Edwin Kingston works/lives and to get them served. Especially if you spot them that he works at a given university. As someone pointed out "Joey," could even be a nickname for Josephine. It would be a different thing if Ellie had told them that she had dated a Joey or something, but as presented, they seem to know absolutely nothing about Alfie's father. What we were shown was that the very day that Matty and Edwin took custody of Alfie at court was the day that Ellie ODed. That seems to be too quickly on the heels of "I've been not using for a month and I've been scared straight about Alfie having been harmed" to be coincidence. It very much seemed like she was devastated at the prospect of losing full custody of Alfie and either in despair over it or very much as a f--- you to Matty for her taking Alfie away killed herself. And let me say that last exchange between Matty and Ellie, I could see both sides there too. Ellie wanted Matty to give Alfie his lovie, and Matty refused saying that Ellie could give it to him herself when she gets custody back. From Matty's perspective, she was trying to be sympathetic, and maybe even give Ellie a security blanket of her own to hold onto as she continued her efforts to be sober. From Ellie's perspective, Matty was refusing a simple request that would cost her nothing, shoving the platitude about the program working in her face and highlighting that she wouldn't get custody back for a year. Yes, I know that addicts (like other people) don't act rationally. But it makes far more sense to me that Ellie deliberately ODed than she went from "I'm trying to be clean and got scared straight and haven't used for a month" to "Well, time to hit the pills again because my pill use in the past led to me losing custody, but whoopsie I took too much accidentally first time back." Even assuming that it is was accidental, I think the possibility of it being suicide is something that I'd think Matty and Edwin would have to struggle with. I've experienced friends/loved ones who have been suicidal but not specifically (as far as I know) ones who were drug addicts, so my views on this may be skewed.