S05.E02: The Great Divide

[thewhiteowl]

The TAC team experiences a conflict of interest in court when Benny represents the plaintiff and Chunk represents the defendant in the same civil suit, where a mother sues a young artist she deems responsible for her daughter’s death.

[hoopznyo]

Not sure if this aired or not.. but I'm trying to get my head around how this "conflict of interest" could happen at a multi-million dollar company like TAC appears to be.

[HurricaneVal]

I wonder if this case was modeled after the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland which was a similar kind of artists enclave squatting in an old abandoned warehouse.  As I recall, that squatter artist colony was a lot more organized than the one depicted on Bull, which just seemed to be a bunch of artists who all squatted in the warehouse together, and the girl on trial was just the one who found the warehouse and therefore became their de facto leader.  The show didn't do a very good job of showing how the jury could find that the deaths were the girl's fault.  It isn't like she told the couple to go sleep under the bulging ceiling because she knew it would collapse on them and wanted it to collapse on them.  It was an accident.  Everybody was at fault for even being there, but nobody was responsible for the accident.  An equal argument could have been made that the couple who died were culpable in their own deaths, simply because they agreed to move their sleeping spot.  I dunno. 

It seems to be a tragedy, and other than the fact that she was rich and she could, I couldn't see any reason why that grieving mother (who looked so familiar to me, yet I couldn't place her) should want to continue the lawsuit.  It isn't like she's going to get any compensation from that homeless artist girl.  The homeless artist girl was already completely upset about the accident, it isn't like she was going to be even more sorry it happened if she lost a lawsuit.  But the grieving mother actress did a good job at humanizing what could have been a wholly despicable character--she almost wore her grief like a cloak, and you could see it was helpless anger fueling her along. 

I didn't like that the plot pitted Chunk against Benny.  Benny is a shark, as we saw over and over during the trial.  Rookie Chunk was constantly playing catch up.  Boy, you can tell that Freddy Rodriguez just relishes playing Benny at his best.  The actors are certainly well matched, but the characters are not.  I loved that Bull loved watching Benny in his element, owning the room, even though he was on the "opposite" side!

If Benny does run for DA and wins, does this mean that TAC will be doing a lot more criminal defense cases?

[Dowel Jones]

On 11/24/2020 at 1:40 PM, HurricaneVal said:

I couldn't see any reason why that grieving mother (who looked so familiar to me, yet I couldn't place her) should want to continue the lawsuit.

Benny made some mention that a DA would look at a successful civil suit as a basis for a felony indictment and trial.  Maybe that was it, but I can't see how that would work either in this instance.

I'm nowhere near a legal mind, but this show irks me nonstop with its flouting of legal principles and procedural rules.  I wish that at least once the judge would shut down those smarmy "I'm sorry, your honor, it won't happen again" setups and tell them to start acting like attorneys.  In line with that, wouldn't Benny's courtroom antics come up for public shaming by his opponent(s) if he did decide to run for DA?

[Sarah 103]

On 11/24/2020 at 12:30 PM, hoopznyo said:

Not sure if this aired or not.. but I'm trying to get my head around how this "conflict of interest" could happen at a multi-million dollar company like TAC appears to be.

I'm not sure I completely understand your question, but I am going to try to answer it. Here is the short version: Chunk and Benny had not been talking to each other about possible cases and clients for TAC.

Here is the longer version: The dead girl's mother heard about TAC and Benny and decides to hire TAC. Chunk is looking for clients/cases that will establish him as a lawyer in New York. Through some artists Chunk came in contact with during his time in law school, he finds out about the warehouse case. Chunk is completely unaware of Benny's involvement in the case. Benny is completely unaware of Chunk's involvement in the case. However, this only explains how we get to both sides showing up at the warehouse completely unaware that they are representing opposite sides of the case.

I hope this helps.

My thoughts on the episode: I liked the idea but was disappointed by the execution. The idea of splitting up the team and giving each lawyer different people/resources sounded great. I wish we had seen more of that play out and what happened behind the scenes. How did the team each lawyer had impact their ability to find witnesses, evidence, and the way in each lawyer presented his case. I wish we had spent less time in the courtroom and more time in strategy sessions.

[Netfoot]

9 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

I liked the idea but was disappointed by the execution. The idea of splitting up the team and giving each lawyer different people/resources sounded great. I wish we had seen more of that play out and what happened behind the scenes. How did the team each lawyer had impact their ability to find witnesses, evidence, and the way in each lawyer presented his case.

Funny how TAC was able to operate with no technical analysis id the jury pool, no mirror-juries, etc. I thought that was the backbone of TAC's raison d'être.

[mythoughtis]

Please do not turn this show into a musical.  I did not need to see Chuck and Benny set to the music  from Clint Eastwoods early Westerns.  

[Reiki]

I would, and have paid to hear Christopher Jackson sing for real!

[Grrarrggh]

Once again TAC team is showing how unprofessional and stupid they are. How in real life they'd never win cases. No way would Chunk not have looked into his client's text messages beforehand. And if Benny wanted jurors that were interested in people taking personal responsibility wouldn't that hurt his case, because the jurors would say that the dead couple were responsible for their own safety?

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

Quote

 I couldn't see any reason why that grieving mother (who looked so familiar to me, yet I couldn't place her) should want to continue the lawsuit.  It isn't like she's going to get any compensation from that homeless artist girl. 

The mother blamed the girl and thought she should have been arrested.  The DA wasn't interested in prosecuting but as Benny point out, the DA might reconsider if the mother was successful in a civil case.  A successful civil case would show that the DA might be able to persuade a jury to find the girl guilty (what the charge would be, I'm not sure - manslaughter, negligent homicide?).

The mother was the actress from Fletch (the 1985 Chevy Chase movie - her character was Gail Stanwyk)

 

[LuvMyShows]

Since the scene on the balcony with baby Astrid took place before Bull fell into his fever-dream state, then the hideous CGI baby face was 'real' on the show.  That must mean that the show personnel were fine with what they saw, given that they chose to keep the scene in.  So...WTAF?  We were horrified...how could they have been pleased?

Also, there was one inconsistency about Bull's dream.  In the dream, we saw scenes that Bull wasn't in, like when Marissa, Taylor, and Danny were together at TAC talking about how Bull is keeping them all employed.  But really with dreams, you only know about stuff that's occurring around you, so he couldn't have been dreaming what we saw.

[Netfoot]

10 hours ago, LuvMyShows said:

That must mean that the show personnel were fine with what they saw, given that they chose to keep the scene in.  So...WTAF?  We were horrified...how could they have been pleased?

I am assuming that they were not willing to subject a real baby to any possible risk of infection on the set. Or they couldn't find a parent willing to allow it.

[jabRI]

I don't see under what scenario Benny would make a case for running for DA.  He's basically a lawyer front for Bull who can't try cases. I've never seen that he has a great political or even legal network outside the office.

[Netfoot]

As for Benny leaving to become the DA, I'm just fine with it. And he can take Chunk with him. And Bull.  And... Marissa, the non-entity whose name I have to look up every time. The show would have to be better if the only people in it were Danny and Taylor. I mean, it could hardly be worse!

[LuvMyShows]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

I am assuming that they were not willing to subject a real baby to any possible risk of infection on the set. Or they couldn't find a parent willing to allow it.

But there was no need to show a baby's face at all...just keep showing from the back like they had been at first, and then have the crying sounds stop and turn to maybe cooing-type sounds.

[Callietwo]

I'm tempted to go back & look as I didn't even notice anything weird with the baby at all.

I'd rather this than the movie I saw recently that you could see the actual doll that was a stand in for a newborn... they didn't even try to get a newborn looking doll, just wrapped some random doll up.