S01.E03: A Guy Named Greg

[Driad]

If the recorded message was so important to Olympia, why did she keep the one and only copy on her work laptop?

[Yeah No]

 

On 10/25/2024 at 4:18 PM, Elbaite 2.0 said:

Agreed! I've been in the workforce for 40 years and I've never met anyone like Olympia, male or female. I find her irritatingly over-the-top in her aloofness. Most corporate players don't get into power positions without the ability to fake being warm human beings. To be so obvious, alerts people to watch their backs around you.

I think this episode is (among other things) an effort toward humanizing Olympia. Like you and others I find her a little too OTT and hard to take/unrealistic but I think the show intends to soften her with her backstory. I hope so because she's a little too much for me. I think they're going for a stark contrast of opposites between her and Matty but yikes! In fact, the new "Meerkat" character hits me the same way as does the junior associate. I get it that they're trying to show career-driven women, and with 40 years in the corporate world I was around MANY, some of whom were lawyers, but this is just not feeling realistic to me. A little too cartoon-like and over-much. Again I think that might change. I hope so. And what's with all of them talking so fast they sound like a machine gun? At times I find them as hard to follow as I find them hard to take. I think the show needs to take them down a notch.

9 hours ago, preeya said:

There's no way that could happen. The computer's internals were destroyed when she purposely spilled the coffee on it, and who knows how it was even setup before the spillage. The IT person said it was fried, so there would be no way to remotely communicate with it.

I'm thinking that this voicemail may be the thing that works on Matty's conscience and she finds some kind of creative but hopefully not TOO unrealistic way to give it back to Olympia without "outing" herself. And since when are shows like this all that realistic? Lawyers complain about the courtroom scenes and legal stuff, etc. so I'm hoping they use a little of that unrealism in this case to allow Matty to right her wrong without outing herself. I don't think the plot is far along enough for her to come clean and this will work on her if she doesn't find a way to make it right.

On 10/25/2024 at 5:02 PM, Silver-hyren said:

Though I did like how they approached the generational divide this time.  It wasn't the humorous "older lady doesn't understand social media/young folks don't know what a commercial break is" but a really serious look at how perceptions of workplace harassment have changed.  Matty going from "well, it's just something we dealt with" to "maybe we shouldn't have had to" was a welcome bit of character development.  

I'm about 10 years younger than Matty's character and I remember being right on the cusp of change in regard to workplace sexual harassment. So yes, it struck me how she had a different perception of it than even I did. And yet that doesn't mean I wasn't on the receiving end of it, I was, I just never would have said it was something I "dealt with", although in the beginning it was not something I would have reported unless it went over a certain line. Before a certain point reporting it could be worse than keeping quiet about it as companies were not educated on how to deal with that situation and in many cases would dismiss any accusations.  So for a while it wasn't that I "would just deal with it" and didn't want to report it, it was that I feared that reporting it would hurt me. And most of it was very mild flirtation and not anyone "hitting on me". So I had to think about the severity too. It wasn't worth opening that can of worms back then over a mild flirtation.

And I did report it in one case - my boss was sexually harassing me in the late '90s and I told HR about it. I was quickly reassigned and I don't know if they approached him about it. I think they did but he never let on to it. I just remember them telling me he wouldn't be bothering me again. And he kept far, far away from me from then on even though he was just down the hall.

After that when sexual harassment training became a bigger thing in the early 2000s it stopped altogether. I knew certain male coworkers would have been doing it but they bit their tongues and kept quiet, thankfully!

Also, re: Matty, maybe I just came from a more progressive background than she did. I think part of Matty's perception on this is a part of her personal background as much as her generation. I grew up in NYC to a very progressive mother regarding women's rights who raised my consciousness about such injustices so that makes a difference too. I never would have felt that the young woman in this episode did anything wrong. She had the right to be at a party, drunk and alone with her boss without being harassed. I feel like even for her age Matty's character comes from a much more socially conservative background than I did.

Edited October 27 by Yeah No

[shapeshifter]

12 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I was imagining that Mattie's grandson would somehow remotely place the file on the replacement computer

11 hours ago, preeya said:

There's no way that could happen. The computer's internals were destroyed when she purposely spilled the coffee on it, and who knows how it was even setup before the spillage. The IT person said it was fried, so there would be no way to remotely communicate with it.

Even assuming that Mattie's grandson had Googled what type of coffee spills would totally destroy a hard drive and then he pre-destroyed the substituted laptop before Mattie's planned spill when Olivia walked in:
I'm imagining something like:

• At Mattie's request, grandson Alfie gives her another fake laptop to substitute that has the file of Olivia's Dad's voice still on it, and Mattie shares some extra special data retrieval measures she learned from a young geeky neighbor, and: voila! Dad's recorded voice file is there! Mattie substituting another laptop would be tricky.
  Based on the show's schtick thus far: I imagine Mattie is caught partially red-handed with (just one) laptop in a special-clearance area, and she explains about the retrieval technique she learned and how terrible she felt about the coffee spill and how it reminded her of a disappointing Christmas 30 years ago etc. etc.

or:

• It turns out the private data that Oliva thought would not be uploaded to the company cloud backup, "somehow was."
  This could open a whole new can of plot-worms, depending upon what else was in her partitioned area.

 

 

Edited October 27 by shapeshifter

[peachmangosteen]

On 10/25/2024 at 12:21 PM, babyrambo said:

I also really liked Shae, the consultant they brought in, and thought Olympia had way more chemistry with her than she did with both the ex husband and now ex bf, but I also find both of those characters a bit bland right now so that could be it.

I agree. I was wondering if they had an affair or something.

[DanaK]

Regarding Matty saying she wasn't a trial lawyer, didn't she say in panic when Olympia wanted her to do the closing that she hadn't tried a case in 30 years? Then she says in the closing to the jury that she moved out of litigation to contacts to stay away from her harasser. That sounds like a discrepancy/lie

[AnimeMania]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

At Mattie's request, grandson Alfie gives her another fake laptop to substitute that has the file of Olivia's Dad's voice still on it, and Mattie shares some extra special data retrieval measures she learned from a young geeky neighbor, and: voila! Dad's recorded voice file is there! Mattie substituting another laptop would be tricky.

If the grandson removes the storage device from Olivia's "ruined" laptop and puts it in a new laptop, all the files would be intact and it would be exactly the same as Olivia's old laptop. Matty can say that Olivia asked the tech the wrong question "Can you save my laptop, instead of, can you save my data."

3 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

On 10/25/2024 at 12:21 PM, babyrambo said:

I also really liked Shae, the consultant they brought in, and thought Olympia had way more chemistry with her than she did with both the ex husband and now ex bf, but I also find both of those characters a bit bland right now so that could be it.

I agree. I was wondering if they had an affair or something.

Now that would be an interesting development, since Shae would immediately know if Julian was attracted to her and wouldn't be able to deny it. It would be funny if Julian and Shae were living together, which is why he can get her to take pro bono cases for the firm.

[Yeah No]

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

If the grandson removes the storage device from Olivia's "ruined" laptop and puts it in a new laptop, all the files would be intact and it would be exactly the same as Olivia's old laptop. Matty can say that Olivia asked the tech the wrong question "Can you save my laptop, instead of, can you save my data."

I don't know if I'd believe it if someone told me that a tech. didn't understand what I meant by that. Having worked in the corporate world and seen this situation many times, nobody cares about their laptop because they will just get a new one from IT to replace it. All they care about is the information that was on it. I would be like, "whaaaat?"

Also, even though this is a small-ish firm, usually IT, or someone working for them in that capacity keeps track of the serial numbers of work computers. I guess we have to believe that no one would have noticed that the laptop she gave them was not the same laptop she originally had, unless Matty miraculously had the serial number changed too.

Also, as to why the document was not in the cloud, since it was a personal document she may not have saved it in a folder that was uploaded to the cloud and only existed on her hard drive. Some workplaces have a strict policy about stuff like that. She may have only saved it to her desktop, which where I worked was never saved to the cloud.

Edited October 27 by Yeah No

[Ellee]

@AnimeMania  Can ‘they’ actually save the data only?  
 

I thought that Julian paid Shae out of his pocket.  There are so many ways that the storylines can go. I think it is going to be interesting to see what happens. 

[chitowngirl]

I wish Jason Ritter was given more to do…

[AnimeMania]

12 minutes ago, Ellee said:

@AnimeMania  Can ‘they’ actually save the data only?  
 

I thought that Julian paid Shae out of his pocket.  There are so many ways that the storylines can go. I think it is going to be interesting to see what happens. 

Sure they can save the data, it is on a device that can be transferred from one computer to another.

Shae said Julian paid her fee, but that fee may not have been money, "if you catch my drift", he might have let her choose where they were going for dinner.

[Ellee]

2 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

I wish Jason Ritter was given more to do…

I think he will be and probably very soon.  Between his and Olympia’s relationship — both work and personal and Maddy’s need to get involved with the pharma business of the firm.   I think it will be interesting to see if we get to know him personally or if he’s portrayed more as a villain first.  
 

Still think that Elijah(??) is the bad guy in it all.  Personal only, business only or both?  And then there is Shae …

[chitowngirl]

3 minutes ago, Ellee said:

Still think that Elijah(??) is the bad guy in it all.  Personal only, business only or both?  And then there is Shae …

I agree about Elijah. I’m glad there is a “Shae” character to see through the facade.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I found Shae annoying as FUCK. Because I worked on a trial last year and we had a jury consultant. Another caricature was Shae.

And yes, @Ellee, Julian paid Shae so she didn’t have to work pro bono.

I don’t think this show is the type for all these possible speculations about the laptop and tech, as it would deviate from the premise. But what do I know? I’m also wondering why Olympia’s father’s message isn’t on her phone instead of her computer file. I’m assuming he called her work landline? But with all of today’s tech, I would think he’d call her phone. And I’m clearly overthinking this.

[DearEvette]

15 hours ago, Driad said:

If the recorded message was so important to Olympia, why did she keep the one and only copy on her work laptop?

The funny thing is, the show never actually shows Olympia being super pressed about the voice message. 

She is shown to be surprised at Matty in her office dropping the coffee on the machine, which she quickly dismisses because Matty taking over lead is more important in the moment than the computer.

Later she is shown to be disappointed that the tech could not fix the machine, but no more so than anyone would be in the same position thinking of the hassle of setting up a new machine.

It is the last scene with Matty that we are told via Matty that Olympia seemed "really worried about something she didn't back up."  which of course leads to Matty listening to the voicemail.  The whole thing was done in service to Matty's resolve,  not for Olympia's loss. We are meant to infer that is was the only copy from that scene.

But the reality of it is, for a voice message from when she was taking a test (probably the Bar) from years ago, to be a file on her current computer, there had to be a copy of it somewhere else that got loaded onto this computer.

[AnimeMania]

11 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I’m also wondering why Olympia’s father’s message isn’t on her phone instead of her computer file. I’m assuming he called her work landline?

I thought this was a very old message from when she was in law school, but I could be wrong. If so, Olympia might have it on several old devices, so she might have another copy lying around.

[Yeah No]

15 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I don’t think this show is the type for all these possible speculations about the laptop and tech, as it would deviate from the premise. But what do I know? I’m also wondering why Olympia’s father’s message isn’t on her phone instead of her computer file. I’m assuming he called her work landline? But with all of today’s tech, I would think he’d call her phone. And I’m clearly overthinking this.

 

If you are overthinking it, so am I. If the call came into her cell phone and she saved the voicemail from there it would have to exist in a file on her cell phone first before she could send it anywhere else. So maybe she'll remember that eventually and Matty will be off the hook.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I’m also wondering why Olympia’s father’s message isn’t on her phone instead of her computer file. I’m assuming he called her work landline? But with all of today’s tech, I would think he’d call her phone. And I’m clearly overthinking this.

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

But the reality of it is, for a voice message from when she was taking a test (probably the Bar) from years ago, to be a file on her current computer, there had to be a copy of it somewhere else that got loaded onto this computer.

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought this was a very old message from when she was in law school, but I could be wrong. If so, Olympia might have it on several old devices, so she might have another copy lying around.

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

 

If you are overthinking it, so am I. If the call came into her cell phone and she saved the voicemail from there it would have to exist in a file on her cell phone first before she could send it anywhere else. So maybe she'll remember that eventually and Matty will be off the hook.

Okay. 
So I've actually been dealing with something very similar in the last few days. 
Long short explanation:
I just discovered this week that Mom's last phone from 2020 still takes a charge but needs a pass code to get into it. 
I was very excited about the possibility of getting some videos with her voice on them, because when I changed phone carriers shortly after she died, I didn't realize I'd lost access to my voicemails until it was too late. 
After a dozen tries of possible 4-digit codes supplied by my sister, the phone is now "disabled" and telling me to "connect with iTunes" which still requires her email password. I'm still hoping to get into it.

So I imagine Olivia has at least changed phone carriers since her Dad left the message, and keeping it on her work laptop seemed safe
— but only if she thought it was backed up??

 

[peachmangosteen]

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Now that would be an interesting development, since Shae would immediately know if Julian was attracted to her and wouldn't be able to deny it. It would be funny if Julian and Shae were living together, which is why he can get her to take pro bono cases for the firm.

I actually meant Olivia and Shae because they had way more heat than Olivia has had with Julian or Elijah.

[Nashville]

10 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Also, as to why the document was not in the cloud, since it was a personal document she may not have saved it in a folder that was uploaded to the cloud and only existed on her hard drive. Some workplaces have a strict policy about stuff like that. She may have only saved it to her desktop, which where I worked was never saved to the cloud.

Agreed; in my workplace it was a given that ANY file saved on company resources would be treated the same as company property.

 

9 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I’m also wondering why Olympia’s father’s message isn’t on her phone instead of her computer file. I’m assuming he called her work landline? But with all of today’s tech, I would think he’d call her phone. And I’m clearly overthinking this.

Not much IMHO - but I have very definite opinions on this specific topic. Let me put it this way:

• My father passed away several years ago, and the only record I have of his voice is an audio capture I got of his voice mail message on his landline.
• I have redundant copies of this audio file on every hard drive I own - AND at least three USB thumb drives - AND burned to at least three CDs, with one USB and one CD sitting in my safe deposit box.
• Sound like overkill to you? Possibly - might be considered an occupational hazard of mine, even 😄 - but I’m never taking the chance of losing the only record of my father’s voice I will EVER have this side of eternity.  Would you?

[Yeah No]

1 hour ago, Nashville said:

Not much IMHO - but I have very definite opinions on this specific topic. Let me put it this way:

• My father passed away several years ago, and the only record I have of his voice is an audio capture I got of his voice mail message on his landline.
• I have redundant copies of this audio file on every hard drive I own - AND at least three USB thumb drives - AND burned to at least three CDs, with one USB and one CD sitting in my safe deposit box.
• Sound like overkill to you? Possibly - might be considered an occupational hazard of mine, even 😄 - but I’m never taking the chance of losing the only record of my father’s voice I will EVER have this side of eternity.  Would you?

I have my father's voice in several places, but not any of his voicemails. He's on video and cassette tape, etc. But what this reminded me of is how I have every email he ever sent me since 1998 until he died in 2020 on thumb drive, hard drive, and at least two different cloud storage platforms. That may already sound like a lot, but it's even more than that because he sent me an email pretty much every single day. They are a treasure trove of family history, wisdom and just a diary of whatever was going on in my father's mind and life (and often mine). I often pick a random email and look at it, and it's like Dad is still with me somehow. And despite all I have done to save them, I still worry about losing those emails, that's how much they mean to me.

[CrazyMoon]

The easiest solution to the voicemail is for Alfie to transfer it to Olympia's phone...after all, he has the passwords.

Matty is just a couple of years older than me. We can be very invisible in these situations. I think it's a part of Matty's charm to be able to know this and use it to her advantage. 

[preeya]

20 hours ago, Nashville said:

And I’m clearly overthinking this.

We all may be overthinking this, and it might be of minimal importance.

[Sake614]

On 10/25/2024 at 9:52 AM, Gregg247 said:

laptop.  I loved the fact that she managed to simply steal the laptop

It was a great twist but IRL she’d never get away with it. The company’s IT dept would scan the serial number on the laptop when they were swapping it out for a new one, and the jig would be up. There’s just no way they don’t track their inventory to prevent exactly what Matlock did. So it kinda took me out of the scene when I realized what happened.

[Shrek]

1 hour ago, Sake614 said:

It was a great twist but IRL she’d never get away with it. The company’s IT dept would scan the serial number on the laptop when they were swapping it out for a new one, and the jig would be up. There’s just no way they don’t track their inventory to prevent exactly what Matlock did. So it kinda took me out of the scene when I realized what happened.

I was in inventory management for over 10 years & you would be amazed at some of the places that had never had an inventory taken, even big department stores with over 100 locations & multi millions in inventory in each store. Hospitals (VA particularly) are some of the worst when it comes to inventory management & millions of $ just vanish without anyone noticing until it's too late.

So yes it is very believable that they wouldn't notice a laptop missing, doubtful but certainly not impossible.

[12catcrazy]

On 10/26/2024 at 12:36 AM, HelloooKitty said:

Who else’s brain kept calling “Shea”, “Petra”?

I have no idea who "Petra" is, but my brain kept calling Shea "Not Taylor Swift".

[peachmangosteen]

10 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

I have no idea who "Petra" is, but my brain kept calling Shea "Not Taylor Swift".

The actress played Petra on Jane the Virgin.

I wouldn't mind seeing Brett Dier show up on this show.

Edited October 30 by peachmangosteen

[HelloooKitty]

4 hours ago, 12catcrazy said:

I have no idea who "Petra" is, but my brain kept calling Shea "Not Taylor Swift".

Character played by the actress on the show Jane the Virgin

[Johannah]

Still hate the subterfuge and ongoing subplot and I hope Matty feels like shit for stealing Olympia's last connection to her father.

Liked the COTW, as always.  I almost started fast forwarding through the subplot crap, so I can see that happening in the future.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 10/27/2024 at 12:23 PM, DanaK said:

Regarding Matty saying she wasn't a trial lawyer, didn't she say in panic when Olympia wanted her to do the closing that she hadn't tried a case in 30 years? Then she says in the closing to the jury that she moved out of litigation to contacts to stay away from her harasser. That sounds like a discrepancy/lie

One could fairly easily reconcile these two things. Young Matty dabbled in litigation/was interested in litigation even though she was a contract lawyer primarily. Heck even if she was in litigation, it often takes a while to get to a trial in real life. Some/most cases settle, sometimes people win through motions, sometimes people decide it's not worth their time to pursue a case etc. 

Young Matty went on to have a one-of attempt to try a case 30-ish years ago. Then sexual harasser lawyer entered the picture and got her to stop pursuing litigation to avoid him. Perhaps sexual harasser lawyer was her supervisor in that trial, perhaps sexual harasser implied to get more trials there might be something she could do, etc.

On 10/27/2024 at 2:15 PM, AnimeMania said:

I thought this was a very old message from when she was in law school, but I could be wrong. If so, Olympia might have it on several old devices, so she might have another copy lying around.

I infer from the message that Papa Olympia was giving her a pep talk about passing the bar when he was referring to the big test. The bar is probably the biggest single test any lawyer will take, as most potential lawyers spend months studying for it, in most states it takes place over two days and getting licensed and having a livelihood ride on it. Although I suppose it could have been a reference to a test during law school, or a metaphorical test since she became a lawyer.

I am working under the assumption that Olympia has been an attorney for at least a decade to be a potential suspect in the Great Opioid Deception, or GOD. It could certainly be even longer. I am further working under the assumption that since the Olympia actress is 43, the character is about that age too. And if I further assume that Olympia finished law school at 23-24 like most do. So that would make it something like 16-20 years since she took the bar and got the voicemail.

If the message was from the bar/law school time frame, the message obviously wouldn't originally have been on a work computer. Olympia would have had to put it there from some other place. Why did she transfer it to her work computer without leaving it wherever she got it from? I guess it could have been on a voicemail on a phone that she has since abandoned or with a provider she no longer has. Or it could just be that over time, her provider deletes some voice mails for space. Again, if my assumption is correct, we're looking at a message that is 10-20 years old.

I just checked to see what voicemails I have from my late parents, and it looks like there aren't any from my mother who passed in 2017 but a few from my dad from 2019. (I didn't make a particular attempt to save any. That's just what my service has apparently kept.) I could see her wanting it specifically on her work computer as a pick-me-up during a tough time at work. 

 

[PurpleTentacle]

On 10/25/2024 at 3:47 PM, NeenerNeener said:

I've watched it twice and I still don't understand what p*ssed Matty off about that voice mail they listened to at the end of the episode.  

Nothing pissed her off. She feels bad, because it is a voicemail of Olympia's dead father, she had on her computer, but seemingly didn't back up anywhere else.

The advice on the voicemail was also the advice Olympia had given to Matty earlier in the episode.

Which is why Matty had to reaffirm to herself that they aren't friends, as to not do anything dumb, like give the voice mail back, out of guilt.

[shapeshifter]

On 10/25/2024 at 9:47 AM, NeenerNeener said:

I've watched it twice and I still don't understand what p*ssed Matty off about that voice mail they listened to at the end of the episode.  

5 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Nothing pissed her off. She feels bad, because it is a voicemail of Olympia's dead father, she had on her computer, but seemingly didn't back up anywhere else.

The advice on the voicemail was also the advice Olympia had given to Matty earlier in the episode.

Which is why Matty had to reaffirm to herself that they aren't friends, as to not do anything dumb, like give the voice mail back, out of guilt.

Yes. I think the “p*ssed off” look on Matty’s face followed by her “We're not friends” could also be Matty wishing the enemy wasn’t so damned human. Until then, Olivia had acted and seemed pretty hard boiled.

Here’s the transcript of the voicemail Olivia had saved on her laptop:

• “Ollie baby, it's Dad. I know you've been nervous about your test, but don't forget you're two and a half times as good as everyone else. So you go in there and don't just give them hell. Give them the damn heavens, limbo, and everything in between.”

 

[NeenerNeener]

On 10/30/2024 at 10:21 PM, HelloooKitty said:

Character played by the actress on the show Jane the Virgin

And the creator for Jane the Virgin is also the creator for this show. I keep thinking this is another one of the Kings shows, because it's about lawyers and Elsbeth comes on right after it, but it's by Jennie Snyder Urman.

[nicepebbles]

On 10/27/2024 at 1:39 PM, chitowngirl said:

I agree about Elijah. I’m glad there is a “Shae” character to see through the facade.

I thought Shae was referring to being able to tell that something romantic was going on between Olympia and Elijah, which is ridiculous. 

I found Shae to be annoying. She doesn't have to come back. If she does, the character needs to tone it down. Not clear on why she's called Meerkat. 

I don't like Olympia's style in court. She's a hair from being over the top. 

I enjoyed Matty's closing. It wouldn't fly IRL. I know Mattie says the lying is hard. She can do it as well as she does because enough of it is based on truth. That's what would sell the speech IRL if it was depersonalized. To me, it's also what allowed her to sell it (i.e., the audience believe it) as we watched it. 

Part of me hopes, she gives the recording back to Olympia. The other part of me says she shouldn't, at least not any time soon. It's too soon to be softening.