S01.E20: Make Me

[MyAimIsTrue]

Bull aims to prove temporary insanity at a murder trial for his client, Troy Dickerson, a young man he believes was brainwashed by a cult-like spiritual learning center to kill his father. Also, Danny and Chunk go undercover at the learning center to find the perpetrator responsible for their client’s reprogramming.

[dttruman]

Once again Bull shows no realism when it comes to the courtroom portion of the episode When

Spoiler

Dickerson is triggered by the cellphone ring tone and tries to kill Bull,

Spoiler

 

the prosecution should have objected Big Time and claim that it way staged. The writers are sloppy and show only a narrow skewed view that makes the defense seem authentic.

 

[JackONeill]

So, and again, his team "stole" computer files. Look, I can wink-wink away a lot of things, like if someon's life is in jeoporday and you have to do something you otherwise wouldn't, but that was cold-blooded and deliberately decided theft. All they would have had to do was get a warrant. There was no rush or deadline and no Kane's life was jeoporday.

Not only do I wonder where the producers are, but where are the Network honchos? This is wrong and very illegal.

Edited May 3, 2017 by JackONeill

[Netfoot]

47 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

So, and again, his team "stole" computer files. Look, I can wink-wink away a lot of things, like if someon's life is in jeoporday and you have to do something you otherwise wouldn't, but that was cold-blooded and deliberately decided theft.

Virtually every TV show these days has it's ⋃b3r-#4x0r who routinely rummages through the personal information of whoever they like, and often cruises in and out of government systems too, like IRS, military records, etc.  It's as common as muck.  Even the police dramas have a member of the team who practices these techniques, and at the end of the episode gets a slap on the back instead of a jail term, for their actions.  

Makes you wonder if the authorities are really invading your privacy on a routine basis.....

[Bobbin]

The driving range has cameras all over the place. But not covering the office area to capture the theft? The courtroom demonstration was the same idea as in the movie "Primal Fear," and had the same lack of preparedness while deliberately triggering the defendent's acting out in murderous rage. This was probably the weakest episode in the series, not at all convincing, no dramatic, satisfying reveal. The well is running dry?

[shrewd.buddha]

My faint praise for this episode was that at least this week's client wasn't completely innocent.
So, now they have a case where swaying/manipulating the jury makes sense ... but guess what? They spend almost no time whatsoever focusing on the jury or their precious mirror jury. They barely identified the members of the jury or worried about who was its main opinion leader. WtF?  

It felt as if most the episode was spent on Bull's team members playing detectives or spies -- while the actual trial was going on. And, again, the murder and the trial seemed to be only a week or so apart. 

The elaborate wrap parties with a theme at the end of the cases are also weird. (This one had the 'red' theme.)  Since Bull is taking a lot of these cases pro bono, who is paying for this stuff? Are they celebrating some kind of financial windfall?
And this week's client was found not guilty by reason of insanity ... but he still killed his Dad. Was he there partying, too? 

A couple of episodes back, there was a lot of time spent on Bull calling and phone-sexing some lawyer lady in Texas ... but why? It seems as if that entire story and relationship went nowhere. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by shrewd.buddha

[JessDVD]

When they realized that the kid wasn't supposed to be with his dad that night, I immediately turned to Mr. DVD and said, "Either the daughter is trying to kill the dad or the other way around... No, that's too obvious". Well, nope, not too obvious after all.

The dramatic scene with the red light in the floating water thing, would have held more drama had it gone anywhere. Cult guy: Why are you here, we know TAC hired you? Chunk: I lied about why I came here initially but nothing else! Cult guy: Get out of here!  .... and then nothing. Also, was it ever concluded if they actually a cult, or just slightly weird?

I'm not familiar with hypnosis beyond the parlor tricks of teenagers, but I feel like "You will now kill the nearest person" is a somewhat vague directive for a hypnotist to use on a teenager. What if cult guy had stepped out for a moment and the nearest person was the receptionist? And it had to have been that vague, for him to instead kill his dad, and be going after Bull in the courtroom (which again, would absolutely have been called by the prosecution to be staged... but I can see the defense arguing that it puts reasonable doubt for the teen's insanity plea.

[Sarah 103]

On May 3, 2017 at 0:13 PM, shrewd.buddha said:

The elaborate wrap parties with a theme at the end of the cases are also weird. (This one had the 'red' theme.)  Since Bull is taking a lot of these cases pro bono, who is paying for this stuff? Are they celebrating some kind of financial windfall?

I like the parties at the end, but I'm a big fan of co-workers as surrogate family so that may have something to do with it. This is my theory regarding who pays for the parties: There are cases that earn Bull and TAC tons of money (we saw the end of one involving a rock star,) but we don't always see them. A more speculative theory is that there are smaller, lower profile cases that we don't see which also bring in money. This last theory is a total cop-out; it's a version of Friends rent control.     

[hoopznyo]

So was/is the Dr. Amy in this episode the same Amy Bull called at the end of the automatic driving car episode?

[sinkwriter]

I'm really glad that Benny finally talked with Bull about what he did. That was probably my favorite scene in the episode.