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S01.E11: A Traitor in Thine Own House

chitowngirl

By chitowngirl
in Matlock (2024)

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GHScorpiosRule

GHScorpiosRule

(edited)
7 hours ago, Zaffy said:

My main problem with this show it is the  side characters. They are not intriguing or interesting<snip> The only ones that are slightly interesting are Shae

Well Shae isn’t a main character, and she’s less than the side/supporting characters.

But I won’t be shocked if it’s revealed she FUCKED both Senior and Julian.

I wish we had seen an episode or two of Julian as attorney-unless he’s not a trial attorney and Olympia is? Still, it’s been uneven and suddenly Julian is a vindictive asshole. Alrighty then.

I have to believe the writers have a plan to make sense of what doesn’t considering it got the green light for a second season after the first three or four episodes aired. I can’t recall the number.

 

Edited by GHScorpiosRule
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Bastet

Bastet

8 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I have to believe the writers have a plan to make sense of what doesn’t considering it got the green light for a second season after the first three or four episodes aired. I can’t recall the number.

Even quicker -- it was after just the first two episodes had aired that it was renewed for a second season.

9 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I wish we had seen an episode or two of Julian as attorney-unless he’s not a trail attorney

He does trials.  In the one time (I think it was only that once) we saw her work on one of Julian's cases, the only reason he didn't take it to trial was Senior wanting the firm to avoid it.

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possibilities

possibilities

I really hope they don't make Shae into "woman who slept her way to the job". Just no. It's a sexist trope. Just let her be a villain based on villainy, not any gendered nonsense.

And in this case, she's actually on to something. Matty is fraudulent. Shae's not randomly suspicious of her. 

It bothers me that so far the biggest villain we have is a woman who actually hasn't really done anything wrong (professionally) and so her sexuality is beiung used to give us an excuse to hate her (the liaison with Julian).

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GHScorpiosRule

GHScorpiosRule

(edited)

Speaking only for myself, I couldn’t stand Shae from the moment she showed up-and that was before we learned she was the one Julian had sex with while he was still married/not separated yet. 

And she’s not an employee of the firm-she has her own office/business-that of a jury consultant. Unless this show is saying they have a sub-practice/services area for just her.

 

Edited by GHScorpiosRule
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andromeda331

andromeda331

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I really hope they don't make Shae into "woman who slept her way to the job". Just no. It's a sexist trope. Just let her be a villain based on villainy, not any gendered nonsense.

And in this case, she's actually on to something. Matty is fraudulent. Shae's not randomly suspicious of her. 

It bothers me that so far the biggest villain we have is a woman who actually hasn't really done anything wrong (professionally) and so her sexuality is beiung used to give us an excuse to hate her (the liaison with Julian).

I'm not using her sexuality against her. I always hate when characters have affairs with married people. I know it happens all the time in real life but I still hate it. I hate Shae and Julian slept together while he's married. I hated Carrie and Big having an affair while he was married. I hate Rory and Dean having an affair while he was married. 

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Speaking only for myself, I couldn’t stand Shae from the moment she showed up-and that was before we learned she was the one Julian had sex with while he was still married/not separated yet. 

And she’s not an employee of the firm-sue has her own office/business-that of a jury consultant. Unless this show is saying they have a sub-practice/services area for just her.

II couldn't either. 

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Yeah No

Yeah No

12 hours ago, DearEvette said:

I don't see Sarah as a villain, because  minus the main characteritis, Matty is the real villain.  Just because she thinks she has a righteous crusade doesn't mean she isn't doing willful harm to people, not just the work in the firm but to the actual people.  She is gaslighting Sarah to the point that she's broken down what little self confidence she had. She falsely accused Shae of age discrimination. I don't give a rat's ass about Shae and never actually liked her, but it is really icky that Matty is  weaponizing discrimination complaints in such a way since any actions against real discrimination takes a boatload of proof and usually multiple people complaining about the same person.  We have to handwave so much for this show already but each time the show clears a path for Matty to sail effortlessly by it gets harder and harder to do.

I will say that Sarah's treatment of Billy is on her and I am glad he called her on it and is showing her how much harm she did to him. But that is yet again a place where a character other than Matty is getting the consequences of their shitty behavior.

I also really dislike the 'war' Julian and Olympia are waging.  It was so refreshing, briefly, how evolved and friendly their divorce was and now they are going scorched earth. I hope something happens that allows them to come to their senses.

As much as I enjoy the scenes between Olympia and Matty and love the chemistry between Skye Marshall and Kathy Bates, I can't even really enjoy it for Olympia's sake because it is all a lie. 

Matty is a flawed person for sure and didn't think things through before she embarked on her crusade and has had to do some less than ethical things not to blow her cover but her general goal of righting a wrong, as ill conceived and flawed as it has been in practice is not in and of itself evil. Sarah isn't completely evil either but the show is sure playing her as potentially intending even greater evil. Her portrayal is a caricature, but one that is not pure comedy without serious and damaging consequences. One minute we feel sorry for her and the next minute she's vowing to screw Matty over for what she sees as having a job she promised her taken out from under her. What Matty did was unfair, sure, but it happens in business all the time. Matty is guilty of a lot of lying and deception even in doing that to Sarah, but she doesn't threaten people who somehow cross her. Yikes.

I worked a long time in the business world and anyone who acted like Sarah would be reported and fired on the spot for her threats to Matty. Of course Matty would be fired for her deceptions and misrepresentations too once found out. Her crusade is flawed and she is convincing herself that the ends justify the means, and they don't. But she doesn't vow to crush people and ruin them either. Same goes for Shae. The two of them (Shae and Sarah) are trying to crush Matty based on a lot less real knowledge than the audience has about her and as far as I can tell their motivations are less than altruistic while Matty's at least are on behalf of avenging her daughter's death (at least in her mind). Shae thinks she's spotting evil and stamping it out or something but who DF does she think she is, judge, jury and executioner all in one? Her words and behavior don't strike me as all that altruistic and well intended. No one that acts that way based on so little but just a "hunch" is well intended in my opinion. Matty at least appears to have a conscience which I hope will kick in eventually, but the other two seem like people that would follow through on their threats no matter how evil. And that's why I think she and Sarah are more evil and villain-like than Matty in the big picture.

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possibilities

possibilities

8 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I'm not using her sexuality against her. I always hate when characters have affairs with married people.

The SHOW is majnipulating her characterization to make us hate her, is what I'm saying. I don't like affairs, either, and I don't like characters having them. That's the point, though: the show decided to write that into her character to make us hate her more than her actual professional behavior so far would justify. They want us to hate her, even though she's right that Matty is lying, and even though Shae's job is to judge people's character and see through their surface, the show wants us to hate her for that because it threatens Matty. So they decided to write her having an affair.

Yes, she has been annoying, but other than the affair she hasn't been shown to do anything actually wrong-- she's abrasive, but they decided that wasn't enough and they padded her villainy with the affair.

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Yeah No

Yeah No

49 minutes ago, possibilities said:

The SHOW is majnipulating her characterization to make us hate her, is what I'm saying. I don't like affairs, either, and I don't like characters having them. That's the point, though: the show decided to write that into her character to make us hate her more than her actual professional behavior so far would justify. They want us to hate her, even though she's right that Matty is lying, and even though Shae's job is to judge people's character and see through their surface, the show wants us to hate her for that because it threatens Matty. So they decided to write her having an affair.

Yes, she has been annoying, but other than the affair she hasn't been shown to do anything actually wrong-- she's abrasive, but they decided that wasn't enough and they padded her villainy with the affair.

I don't agree with you about Shae. Whatever the show is doing, it's making her look unhinged, obsessive, stalkerish, nasty, mean and diabolical, not just "annoying". And I disagree with you about that not being "wrong". It is wrong. A well intended person wouldn't act that way. Having the affair kind of clues us in that she's not as good or honest as she wants us to believe she is. It just gives us one more reason to suspect her motives even beyond the crazy crap mentioned above.

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DearEvette

DearEvette

7 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Sarah isn't completely evil either but the show is sure playing her as potentially intending even greater evil. Her portrayal is a caricature, but one that is not pure comedy without serious and damaging consequences.

What damaging consequences?  What evil?  She hasn't in any way, shape or form damaged Matty's crusade.  The only thing she has done  is groused to Billy, told Maddy that 'Fie upon thee! Thine hath made a sworn enemy of me' and worked with Shae to look into Matty's background because both women suspect her of lying.  But in just this single episode that all got scuttled because of Matty's plot armor.  As we see in the end, they both backed off and Sarah is crying in Olympia's office. Like I said the only consequence to all of this was Sarah's relationship with Billy.

8 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I worked a long time in the business world and anyone who acted like Sarah would be reported and fired on the spot for her threats to Matty. Of course Matty would be fired for her deceptions and misrepresentations too once found out. Her crusade is flawed and she is convincing herself that the ends justify the means, and they don't. But she doesn't vow to crush people and ruin them either.

You can't apply real world reality to this.  That ship has sailed. In the real world, Matty would have been better vetted and not hired at all. And what is her whole conspiracy board crusade about if not about crushing someone or possibly ruining the business?  Seriously?  What is her end goal here?  Just to find out who did it and walk away?

8 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Shae thinks she's spotting evil and stamping it out or something but who DF does she think she is, judge, jury and executioner all in one? Her words and behavior don't strike me as all that altruistic and well intended. No one that acts that way based on so little but just a "hunch" is well intended in my opinion.

But that isn't what she is doing.  She thinks Matty is hiding something.  Whether her form of behavioral science is real of hooey, is up for debate, the fact of the matter is, it is what she is hired to do as an expert and Matty believes it enough to plan for it with her own lie detector machine.  But beyond that, Shae caught Matty in an actual lie.  Matty of course covered it up and then went on the offensive. 'I don't want people in the office knowing all about my business and I am sure you don't want people to knows yours.'  Shae hadn't made any sort of threat at all to Matty at the time, she merely questioned, like anyone would, a discrepancy in a story. But Matty racheted that up by implying she'd spread gossip about Shae sleeping with Julian. 

8 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Matty at least appears to have a conscience which I hope will kick in eventually, but the other two seem like people that would follow through on their threats no matter how evil.

Where is this conscience? I am asking this sincerely. Because her manipulation of Olympia is foul.  This is a woman she made trust her and call her friend, and as we saw Olympia doesn't trust or unbend easily. And she is using Olympia's confidences to poison her divorce proceedings with Julian.   She stole Olympia's computer. She's planted a listening device and is allowing Julian to take the fall for it. She manipulated Sarah into confiding something personal and painful, again knowing that is not Sarah's comfort zone, and because she needed to move Billy's attention away from her, she callously told Sarah she was not vulnerable enough.  And Matty opened up a false HR complaint about age discrimination against Shae.

Also I don't see any evil threats being followed through. Shae did not threaten Matty. On the contrary, Matty is the one who threatened Shae.  But Shae herself is doing the due diligence the firm should have done in the first place.  She simply asked about Matty's  prior firm.  And Sarah has done nothing.  Not a single act against Matty except look up something on the web.

And when Shae met with the (fake) employer, her line of inquiry about Matty's past  seemed to pan out so she shut it down with Sarah.

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Yeah No

Yeah No

On 2/18/2025 at 9:21 AM, DearEvette said:

What damaging consequences?  What evil?  She hasn't in any way, shape or form damaged Matty's crusade.  The only thing she has done  is groused to Billy, told Maddy that 'Fie upon thee! Thine hath made a sworn enemy of me' and worked with Shae to look into Matty's background because both women suspect her of lying.  But in just this single episode that all got scuttled because of Matty's plot armor.  As we see in the end, they both backed off and Sarah is crying in Olympia's office. Like I said the only consequence to all of this was Sarah's relationship with Billy.

I think just as Shae thinks she can smell something up with Matty I smell something up with her. Someone just doing a job doesn't act that over the top and personal about it. I think she's got something invested in it whether it's protecting her own neck or someone else's that she is invested in for some reason even if it's just that they're paying her large amounts of money to find dirt. And that's not necessarily someone good either and she may know that. And I just think they're making her into a menacing threat so we feel that Matty is in danger of being exposed. But they're making her look nuts in the process, like at any time she will find Matty out. At least that's the way she looks to me. She doesn't feel to me like a realistic character. She's too over the top and cartoonish, sorry, that's how I see her. If she were real I'd say she needs help, LOL.

On 2/18/2025 at 9:21 AM, DearEvette said:

Where is this conscience? I am asking this sincerely. Because her manipulation of Olympia is foul.  This is a woman she made trust her and call her friend, and as we saw Olympia doesn't trust or unbend easily. And she is using Olympia's confidences to poison her divorce proceedings with Julian.   She stole Olympia's computer. She's planted a listening device and is allowing Julian to take the fall for it. She manipulated Sarah into confiding something personal and painful, again knowing that is not Sarah's comfort zone, and because she needed to move Billy's attention away from her, she callously told Sarah she was not vulnerable enough.  And Matty opened up a false HR complaint about age discrimination against Shae.

Thanks to Kathy Bates' great acting, I can see her conscience on my screen. Her facial expressions show that she is feeling forced into doing things she feels uncomfortable with that are outside her own ethics. The force is coming from within her but it's all in the name of a greater good to make whoever she thinks is to blame for her daughter's death pay for it. Her ultimate goal is not a bad one. It's actually a good one - she is seeking justice for someone else. It's the way she's going about achieving it that's wrong. But I've already said that she's wrong for believing that the ends justify the means. I don't know that she really believes that deep down, though. Again, her facial expressions show me she is having second thoughts about that, but she's in too deep now to stop any time soon and has to keep covering her tracks.

I can't say that I believe that Shae's ultimate goal is a good one, though. I still think she's got something to gain from her particular crusade to find dirt on Matty, and it's not just a job to her. But we'll see.

On 2/18/2025 at 9:21 AM, DearEvette said:

Also I don't see any evil threats being followed through. Shae did not threaten Matty. On the contrary, Matty is the one who threatened Shae.  But Shae herself is doing the due diligence the firm should have done in the first place.  She simply asked about Matty's  prior firm.  And Sarah has done nothing.  Not a single act against Matty except look up something on the web.

And when Shae met with the (fake) employer, her line of inquiry about Matty's past  seemed to pan out so she shut it down with Sarah.

I never said Shae threatened Matty, at least not in the way Sarah did. But she's on her tail in a very public way. But Sarah's threat is bad enough and it's not "simple" by any means just because she hasn't followed through on it. That's not how it works.

And I don't know about you but if anyone at work, especially someone that's technically my subordinate threatened me that way for being taken off a job I would go straight to HR or even the managing partner and have them fired. Because that's what happens in the real world. And I don't see why that isn't considered evil in and of itself. I don't care how guilty Matty is of deception, Sarah's threats are not coming from a place of ethics so in my view they are evil. At least Matty has some kind of "greater good" in mind for all that she has done wrong trying to achieve it. Taking that job from Sarah was wrong and the motivation was wrong too. But as wrong as that was at least it was motivated by some greater good in seeking justice for her daughter. What's Sarah's greater good in threatening Matty? I do not see one, Sorry.

AnimeMania

AnimeMania

37 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I can't say that I believe that Shae's ultimate goal is a good one, though. I still think she's got something to gain from her particular crusade to find dirt on Matty, and it's not just a job to her. But we'll see.

You never know, Senior might have some reservations about Matty and asked Shae to do what she does. But it is nothing that a proper background check wouldn't have uncovered. Maybe Senior already knows that Matty is a fake and just wants to see where this goes.

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GHScorpiosRule

GHScorpiosRule

That's just it. Shae isn't the firm's private investigator-she's the jury consultant they use. Not at all the same thing.

If Senior has reservations about Matty (why'd he hire her, then?), all of a sudden, he needs to go and have the PI firm they use for investigations to dig out and get the information.

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

If Senior has reservations about Matty (why'd he hire her, then?), all of a sudden, he needs to go and have the PI firm they use for investigations to dig out and get the information.

At first Senior seemed intrigued by Matty, IIRC.
Kind of like: “I wonder what she'll bring to the table?”
But also, Senior would neither want it to get out that an unvetted person had gotten into the firm, nor that there was a case for age discrimination (by not officially hiring Mattie).
So Senior might have asked Shae to keep an eye on Mattie, but it doesn't seem like that. 
I imagine the age-discrimination plot points would be written slightly differently in the future due to real life stuff, but with Senior being of the same age, he would relate to her age-related status (or lack thereof) regardless.
 

Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

14 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I forgot I love Olympia going to Elijah for advice and getting it while they played Connect Four. That was so unexpected and fun watching them play.

It was cool to watch them have that apparent bond, but I kinda wish that they had played a more sophisticated game, like chess. Connect Four is so basic, and it would deepen my admiration of both to see that they loved a deeper game.

On 2/18/2025 at 6:58 AM, possibilities said:

The SHOW is majnipulating her characterization to make us hate her, is what I'm saying. I don't like affairs, either, and I don't like characters having them. That's the point, though: the show decided to write that into her character to make us hate her more than her actual professional behavior so far would justify. They want us to hate her, even though she's right that Matty is lying, and even though Shae's job is to judge people's character and see through their surface, the show wants us to hate her for that because it threatens Matty. So they decided to write her having an affair.

Yes, she has been annoying, but other than the affair she hasn't been shown to do anything actually wrong-- she's abrasive, but they decided that wasn't enough and they padded her villainy with the affair.

People's mileage will vary, but I think taken on its face and without consideration of her personal life, Shae's ongoing entitlement to get immediate answers to questions when she thinks someone is lying about things completely irrelevant to the job in her presence, her prying into Matty's personal life, her going out of her way to encourage Matty's co-worker to investigate Matty, her refusal to stop after Matty filed a HR complaint against her, her willingness to on her own dime fly down to Georgia to vet Matty's background when that has nothing to do with Shae's actual job responsibilities are plenty of "actual professional behavior" to look at her askew. All those things are wrong and at least some of them, as she found out, were potentially actionable.

Her job isn't to judge the character of people who work for the firm. It's to help the firm by identifying potential issues with jurors (and expanded, I guess, to witnesses). That's it.  

The affair, admittedly, is icing on top of that craptastic behavior.

2 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I never said Shae threatened Matty, at least not in the way Sarah did. But she's on her tail in a very public way. But Sarah's threat is bad enough and it's not "simple" by any means just because she hasn't followed through on it. That's not how it works.

And I don't know about you but if anyone at work, especially someone that's technically my subordinate threatened me that way for being taken off a job I would go straight to HR or even the managing partner and have them fired. Because that's what happens in the real world. And I don't see why that isn't considered evil in and of itself. I don't care how guilty Matty is of deception, Sarah's threats are not coming from a place of ethics so in my view they are evil. At least Matty has some kind of "greater good" in mind for all that she has done wrong trying to achieve it. Taking that job from Sarah was wrong and the motivation was wrong too. But as wrong as that was at least it was motivated by some greater good in seeking justice for her daughter. What's Sarah's greater good in threatening Matty? I do not see one, Sorry.

On 2/17/2025 at 11:53 PM, Yeah No said:

I worked a long time in the business world and anyone who acted like Sarah would be reported and fired on the spot for her threats to Matty. 

Call me cynical, but I can't see a corporation firing someone for simply saying, "You'll rue the day you made an enemy of me." Or what little was done in this episode by Sarah toward Matty, which was making mean girl snarky comments and staring at Matty at the bus stop. All that might result in a reprimand but before a firm would fire an employee it would likely need a lot more to avoid the possibility of a discrimination/wrongful termination suit. 

Sarah's theft of Billy's cologne would be something more substantial that could kick off the possibility of discipline, but I'm guessing even it wouldn't result in actual firing.

Yeah No

Yeah No

13 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Call me cynical, but I can't see a corporation firing someone for simply saying, "You'll rue the day you made an enemy of me." Or what little was done in this episode by Sarah toward Matty, which was making mean girl snarky comments and staring at Matty at the bus stop. All that might result in a reprimand but before a firm would fire an employee it would likely need a lot more to avoid the possibility of a discrimination/wrongful termination suit. 

Being privy to confidential HR information in my positions in the corporate world, I can attest to the fact that people get fired for such things, and a lot less too. If you feel that someone is verbally threatening you, that's taken very seriously. If someone has it in for you they rarely say it to your face so directly for that reason. But this is TV so of course they want to create maximum drama.

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possibilities

possibilities

I agree Shae is over-zealous-- flying to Florida for her investigation was over the top-- but then Matty is also, on her own dime, investigating and doing some seriously extreme things, like faking her identity.

Maybe it boils down to the greater good (Matty wants to uncover the malfeasance wrt opioids) vs personal good (Shae wants to defend the firm and her own job by exposing suspected fraud by Matty and what the motives for it might be).

I do think the actress who plays Shae plays her as cartoonish-- she was like that in her role on the other show I saw her in (Jane the Virgin) where the entire show was cartoonish and thus her character did not stand out so much.

If, in the end, both Julian and Shae are proved to actually be guilty in the Wellbrexa malfeasance, it will be kind of a way to exonerate Matty for everything-- she will actually have helped rather than hurt Olympia by getting her to look into the divorce more deeply, rather than having just blown up an amicable agreement to split.

And if the affair between Julian and Shae is written in because both of them are guilty in the cover up of Wellbrexa, and the affair turns out to hurt them both equally, by giving Matty a way to leverage Olympia's anger to get the financial info that would lead to exposing it, I might change my mind.

But so far, I think Julian is being played as a guy who was trying to do the right thing and come clean, and Shae is being played like someone who is a little high strung but she senses something is wrong that actually is, and she's being driven a little crazy by being gaslit about it.

I'm on Matty's side with respect to the opioid issue. I have been handwaving her fraudulant identity as civil disobedience for the greater good. But as she manipulates Olympia, and gaslights people who might be innocent, it gets harder to be okay with it. Real civil disobedience (vs wanton vigilante-ism) chooses its targets to have as little damage to innocent people as possible, and Matty is taking a very broad brush right now.

I watched another show with Jason Ritter playing (major spoiler for another show follows:

a seemingly nice guy who turns out to be a horrific villain

, so maybe he's doing the same thing here. He certainly is guilty in his marriage with Olympia, despite his protests over her challenging his integrity right now. 

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Yeah No

Yeah No

48 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I agree Shae is over-zealous-- flying to Florida for her investigation was over the top-- but then Matty is also, on her own dime, investigating and doing some seriously extreme things, like faking her identity.

<snip>

But so far, I think Julian is being played as a guy who was trying to do the right thing and come clean, and Shae is being played like someone who is a little high strung but she senses something is wrong that actually is, and she's being driven a little crazy by being gaslit about it.

I liked your post and some of your theorizing but I still think there's too much apologizing for Shae and Sarah in general on this thread. I'm glad I read opinions elsewhere because I'm seeing them widely referred to as "overacting", "obnoxious", "ridiculous", "rude", "psychotic", "mean girls", etc., etc.

andromeda331

andromeda331

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

Do people who hate Shae hate Julian also?

I hate that Julian had an affair and lied about it and he asked Matty to go behind Olympia's back. But that's it. I don't know if he's the big bad that Matty seems to think he is. She ruled out Senior because he was in Sydney, Olympia because Matty just decided she wasn't the one and that apparently just leaves Julian. Nothing really points to Julian.  

Nashville

Nashville

12 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Again, Shae is the firm's jury consultant, not its investigator. Her job is to go over who they should select for their jury trials.

That is Shae’s job title, to be sure - but insofar as TPTB have taken painstaking measures to demonstrate on multiple occasions, Shae’s actual job duties go far beyond just that.  Every use we’ve seen the firm make of Shae to date has been as human lie detector, and has been focused more in the meeting room than in the jury box.

Personally I suspect Shae’s true role in the firm is more “fixer” than jury consultant, regardless of how she’s listed on the org chart.

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Yeah No

Yeah No

10 hours ago, possibilities said:

Do people who hate Shae hate Julian also?

I don't "hate" him but they haven't made him as obnoxious as they've made Shae. Although I see a lot of people online theorizing that he and Shae are in cahoots and that he is the one responsible for covering up the documents. I can't say that I hate that theory. I don't trust either of them. I've already made my suspicions of Shae public but I don't trust him either.

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

6 hours ago, Nashville said:

That is Shae’s job title, to be sure - but insofar as TPTB have taken painstaking measures to demonstrate on multiple occasions, Shae’s actual job duties go far beyond just that.  Every use we’ve seen the firm make of Shae to date has been as human lie detector, and has been focused more in the meeting room than in the jury box.

Personally I suspect Shae’s true role in the firm is more “fixer” than jury consultant, regardless of how she’s listed on the org chart.

I think it's fair that even if Shae's duties are more expansive than "help pick the best jury possible," they end up with "help the firm win jury trials."

I can't remember a scene that supports the notion that Shae normally is given free reign to do whatever she thinks is in the firm's interests.

In her first appearance, she was purely in jury consultant mode, seeing that the jurors in the sexual harassment case didn't like Olympia and that they responded well to Matty.

In her second one, she was part of the holiday singing group with Sarah and IIRC didn't do any actual work. 

And in this later one, her role was expanded to help determine which of the employees might be the leak. But again

Nashville

Nashville

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

In her first appearance, she was purely in jury consultant mode

Correct - but other than that first “let’s meet Shae” intro episode for her character, how any of Shae’s subsequent appearances have so much as alluded to her participation in a jury evaluation/selection process?

Purely conjecture on my part, but I suspect (a) “jury consultant” was simply the shoehorn TPTB chose to insert the character of Shae to the law firm’s operational environment, and (b) Shae’s actual significance to the story line will unfold in areas well outside her proscribed professional role - which is what seems to be playing out.

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mostlylurking

mostlylurking

I’m sure this has been discussed but how are Matty and Edwin so loaded?  Edwin said he was an art history professor and obviously Matty was a lawyer and probably the main breadwinner but they seem to have A LOT of bread.  Was that ever discussed?

Also did their daughter die 10 years ago or did I make that up? So Alphie was only 2 when his mom died?

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mostlylurking

mostlylurking

On 2/18/2025 at 6:58 AM, possibilities said:

I don't like affairs, either, and I don't like characters having them. That's the point, though: the show decided to write that into her character to make us hate her more than her actual professional behavior so far would justify. They want us to hate her, even though she's right that Matty is lying, and even though Shae's job is to judge people's character and see through their surface, the show wants us to hate her for that because it threatens Matty. So they decided to write her having an affair.

Yes, she has been annoying, but other than the affair she hasn't been shown to do anything actually wrong-- she's abrasive, but they decided that wasn't enough and they padded her villainy with the affair.

I don’t like affairs and yes they are wrong but why is Shae getting most of the blame?  For me, the person who is in a relationship, the actual cheater, is the real wrong doer.  Whether it’s a man or woman.  The person who they cheat with isn’t exactly an innocent, but they are also not the one in a committed relationship.

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

42 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Correct - but other than that first “let’s meet Shae” intro episode for her character, how any of Shae’s subsequent appearances have so much as alluded to her participation in a jury evaluation/selection process?

Shae has been in the show thus far 5 times according to IMDB.

Her 1st appearance was in conjunction with the sexual harassment case in "A Guy Named Greg," and she was 100 percent a jury consultant in that one.

Her second appearance was in "The Belly of the Beast," and if memory serves, all she did was appear as a member of the singing group and push Sarah to woman up and ask Kira out. No actual professional responsibilities were performed by her that episode.

Her third appearance was in "No, No Monsters." I frankly don't remember her from that episode and perused a few recaps, none of which mentioned her. 

Her fourth episode was "Friends," and in tnat one she was purely working as a consultant I believe.

This episode, "A Traitor..." is the first and only time we see her doing anything outside the jury consultant/evaluation role. That was when she helped with the interviews Matty was doing of the client's firm.

I don't think we've seen anything to suggest that she has a greater role beyond that jury consulting.

Indeed, it does not seem that she actually works at Jacobson Moore herself (otherwise, her telling Olympia that Julian paid her fee out of his pocket that time would make no sense, as there would be no fee to be paid.) 

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

1 hour ago, mostlylurking said:

I’m sure this has been discussed but how are Matty and Edwin so loaded?  Edwin said he was an art history professor and obviously Matty was a lawyer and probably the main breadwinner but they seem to have A LOT of bread.  Was that ever discussed?

Also did their daughter die 10 years ago or did I make that up? So Alphie was only 2 when his mom died?

They haven't established how they got the level of wealth they apparently have. 

Some possibilities that occur to me:

1. Family money. Either Edwin or Matty could beneficiaries of family wealth.

2. Matty earned it. She really was an attorney previously, and given that she has made it rain in the under-a-year that she's been at Jacobson Moore, it's perfectly plausible that when she was in her prime she was doing just as well or better over the course of a 30-year career (depending on the law she was into).

3. They won it. They could have been literal lottery winners. But the thing I would be more intrigued by is if they got their riches suing someone in a wrongful death claim for Ellie's death. And it still left them thirsty for justice.

Yes, Ellie died approximately 10 years ago. Alfie is somewhere around 13ish now. I think they are acting like Alfie has memories of her, so maybe he's supposed to be older, or her death was slightly different from when we/I think it was supposed to be.

 

1 hour ago, mostlylurking said:

I don’t like affairs and yes they are wrong but why is Shae getting most of the blame?  For me, the person who is in a relationship, the actual cheater, is the real wrong doer.  Whether it’s a man or woman.  The person who they cheat with isn’t exactly an innocent, but they are also not the one in a committed relationship.

We don't know really many of the details about the affair other than it happened, and was apparently a one-night stand.

Imo, it takes two to tango, and both in the affair are by default equally guilty. The circumstances, though, could matter. Maybe details will come out that will make Shae or Julian extra culpable. Say Shae went out of her way to seduce Julian for some reason. Or Julian initiated things because Senior gave him a hard time or something.

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

Just now, Dowel Jones said:

Edwin the art history professor was a rather dashing archeologist/tomb robber with a snap brim fedora and a bullwhip (in his spare time).

I don't think Indy managed to get rich off of all his adventures, judging from where he was living in Dial of Destiny. To quote a song about another hero, "Fame and fortune, he's ignored. Action is his reward."

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seacliffsal

seacliffsal

Okay, unpopular opinion, but I like Shae.  I like that she's not fooled by Mattie's 'aw shucks' role playing.  Nobody else is challenging Mattie's undercover secret agent motivations, so bringing Shae in to try to create tension is good IMO.  Mattie can't have it too easy-this is supposed to be a well known law firm.  It still boggles my mind that apparently Shae is the first person to contact one of Mattie's (fake) references.  Where is the background check on Mattie?

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