S01.E12: Stockholm Syndrome

[MyAimIsTrue]

The wife of a man who Danny helped imprison for manslaughter detonates a bomb at the TAC offices and takes the team hostage in order to force Bull to prove her husband’s innocence.

[JackONeill]

Did you hear that noise? That was the bottom of the barrel being hit.

[sinkwriter]

Wow, Bull... I was hoping Danny wouldn't let him off the hook so easily in the end, maybe ask him to back off and give her some time and space. 

On the one hand, yes, he proved that with the right questions her testimony wasn't wrong, and I was glad that he pointed out her strengths and abilities and how he saw that but the FBI didn't. On the other hand, he arrogantly thinks he can "help" her make peace with her past and fix everything by pushing and pushing the line of their friendship, and he shows no sign of worrying that she might say, "You know what? I'm done here. I quit. I don't have to work for someone who treats me like this. You went too far, Bull."

Sure, you could say he just has that much faith in their friendship, her trust in him, and his ability to get to the truth. But what if his pushing had shown that maybe she really had been a little bit compromised that night and couldn't be 100% sure of what she'd seen? He would have not only destroyed the case against that guy, causing Danny to doubt herself, but also he would have destroyed a friendship. Does he not give a shit about that? I'm sure he probably does, but I'd like to SEE that he gives a shit about that.

His colleagues (Benny, Marissa) kept warning him to tread lightly and not push so hard, that he was jeopardizing his relationship with Danny, but Bull pushed on anyway. That's fine, because he's obviously good at what he does, but on the other hand I'd still like to see that crack in his armor, just the tiniest crack that shows he's not indestructible. That he actually has some fucking feelings, that he gets scared or shook up once in a while, and cares about his friends more than he cares about being right. Something to show his humanity.

ARGH!

Random side note: I appreciated Bull's explanatory comment that one high-profile, expensive case pays for them to help out on at least 12 of the cases where usually the people involved can't afford their services.

Edited January 25, 2017 by sinkwriter

[Dowel Jones]

5 hours ago, sinkwriter said:

Random side note:

I was wondering if the producers were getting flak from sources about how unrealistic Bull's business plan was. 

When the "judge" said "This is where I hit the gavel", did anyone else think Perd! (tap tap tap)?

The folks over at Conviction were probably thinking "Damn, that was going to be our storyline."

[hoopznyo]

Quote

Random side note: I appreciated Bull's explanatory comment that one high-profile, expensive case pays for them to help out on at least 12 of the cases where usually the people involved can't afford their services.

7 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

I was wondering if the producers were getting flak from sources about how unrealistic Bull's business plan was

 

I kept thinking maybe the episode was out of order and was meant to be shown earlier. Or maybe they read this forum.

[hoopznyo]

I re-watched this because I missed the hostage taker ducking before the bomb went off. I thought they added psychic to Bull's many abilities.

If anyone can tell me what Marisa actually does that couldn't be done by someone else at TAC let me know. Neurolinguistics and biometrics and related computer programming seem miles apart -- but maybe that's just me. 

I think I continue watching so I can torture myself with questions like that.

[JessDVD]

That was NOT where I thought that was going... the lady's husband and the glasses in the prison. Phew. I guess that's the way they get a case that doesn't have a happy ending, by it not actually being a case that Bull is defending, so it's not considered a 'loss'.

Thanks for the throwaway line about high profile cases, show.

Primary pulls continue to be Michael Weatherly, Chris Jackson, NYC scenery (we went there this past summer for our 10th anniversary and it was amazing and I want to go back and we think we saw a bit of NYC that we went to in this ep), and Chris Jackson's wardrobe. I can keep on as long as those remain.

[sinkwriter]

Quote

I re-watched this because I missed the hostage taker ducking before the bomb went off. I thought they added psychic to Bull's many abilities.

Thankfully no psychic Bull. *GRIN* They'd been watching her a bit more closely because they noticed her heart rate was going up pretty dramatically in contrast to the other mock jurors (by that point, they were all wearing their monitor watches), so I think Bull was already watching her and wondering what was up. But then she plugged her ears and ducked, so he figured it had to be a bomb or something.

[cherenkov]

On 1/26/2017 at 8:19 PM, hoopznyo said:

If anyone can tell me what Marisa actually does that couldn't be done by someone else at TAC let me know. Neurolinguistics and biometrics and related computer programming seem miles apart -- but maybe that's just me. 

I thought her job was walking around and smugly explaining things to people.

i kind of like Cable, but for once can we have a show that doesn't feature the unrealistic god-mode female hacker who can do anything technical in a second? Off the top of my head there's Abby Scuito, Penelope Garcia, Cable, Riley (MacGyver), and Angela Montenegro. I get that they're trying to buck the male hacker stereotype, but being a software engineer and female, it's annoying to see it so unrealistically portrayed.nobody is that magic, and I get roughly as many technical butt kicking as I dish out.