S03.E09: Separation

[thewhiteowl]

Dani needs help when her boyfriend is arrested and threatened with deportation. Also, Bull helps a German national when he is sued over possession of a valuable painting.

[HurricaneVal]

Finally!  A new episode....

I found this to be an interesting episode with the A and B plots evenly distributed.  The immigrant seeking asylum plot was a bit heavy-handed, but this is the world we live in.  The juxtaposition between how the "good" European foreigner contrasted with the "bad" foreigner--who was actually good--were treated in court was subtly done.  Even though the German guy was perceived to be a greedy money-snatcher out to scam a $50M painting away from a museum, he was still treated well.  Gabriel, on the other hand, actually saved someone's life and by all accounts is a good guy--though in the country illegally--was treated like garbage.  Bull arranging Gabriel's extraction to Germany at the conclusion of the other case was completely unexpected until Michael Weatherly got that inspired speculative gleam in his eyes when the German guy told him he owed Bull one.

One thing kept bothering me though.  OK.  Two things.  The first was how expensive Gabriel's wardrobe looked to be.  Yes, I know, those were his court clothes, and they were trying to make him look like a surgeon rather than a dishwasher.  A nice looking suit for court is one thing, but a very expensive overcoat is another.  The other thing was when Gabriel got on the private plane, he just tossed his bag to the floor and didn't secure it for takeoff.  For some reason that really bothered me.  The whole time he's having that dawning hope conversation with the German guy, all I can think of is how that unsecured bag is going to become a missile during takeoff and climbout.

[Trey]

1 hour ago, HurricaneVal said:

The first was how expensive Gabriel's wardrobe looked to be

Maybe he was able to bring some of his clothing with him. 

I don't know why Gabriel didn't apply for asylum when he arrived. Since his lawyer had screwed him over he had to take matters into his own hands and he did not.

Also wondered why Dani didn't think of marrying him sooner.

I liked they way Bull pulled the two cases together to save Gabriel.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode.

[Moxie Cat]

Good episode. Though I was glad when Gabriel noted that green card marriages are not a slam dunk. I know a few completely legitimate American-European married couples who will tell you it's ridiculously hard for the foreigner to get a green card. The requirements get harder every year. Some couples don't even admit they're married at the airport because customs can give the foreign half of the couple a really hard time (apparently married foreigners are more likely to stay in the country indefinitely, illegally).

We even got some voir dire in this episode! Even though it was another example of "tell the lawyer what he doesn't want to hear if you want out of jury duty." Not even different examples!

[Dowel Jones]

Why didn't Gabriel apply for asylum in Canada?  It seems like it would be much easier to obtain, and a lot closer to Dani.

The art case actually has a sort of parallel in the real world.  I was recently  reading of a battle over a painting called "The Farm", by Impressionist Joan Miro'.  He sold it to Ernest Hemingway in the 20's, IIRC, before either of them were word famous (naturally).  Hemingway gave the painting to his first wife on their divorce, but then she loaned it to a gallery for display.  When it was returned, it went to his Havana estate (for reasons unclear).  Thirty or so years later, they smuggled it out of Cuba and New York's MOMA began a tedious restoration.  Hemingway killed himself, as everyone knows, and his will was not as specific as everyone hoped.  The museum wanted it, his first wife wanted it, his fourth wife wanted it, and the whole mess ended up in court.  The eventual decision was that his first wife was paid off, and his fourth wife got the painting.  She eventually donated the painting to a completely different museum.  Helluva story.

[mythoughtis]

I felt like we missed part of the story  with Danny and Gabriel. I felt they had a casual relationship. All of a sudden they seem very serious. 

[brgjoe]

I liked this one too.  And it was kinda nice how both cases tied into one another at the end.  Still, don't know why Bull didn't tell Dani what he was going to do.

And in the courtroom, when the lawyer (and later the judge) was trying to get her to say Gabriel knew he was doing something illegal, I was yelling at my screen, "Just say this man gave every red cent he had to a lawyer who he assumed WOULD get everything taken care of so he could seek asylum in the US!" 

Wonder if we'll ever hear about Gabriel again now that he's in Germany. 

[Sarah 103]

On 12/4/2018 at 3:28 PM, HurricaneVal said:

One thing kept bothering me though.  OK.  Two things.  The first was how expensive Gabriel's wardrobe looked to be.  Yes, I know, those were his court clothes, and they were trying to make him look like a surgeon rather than a dishwasher.  A nice looking suit for court is one thing, but a very expensive overcoat is another.  

My guess is that the entire outfit was courtesy of Chunk and TAC. They were trying to create an image and a cheap/shabby coat would not have worked with what they were going for.

22 hours ago, Trey said:

I don't know why Gabriel didn't apply for asylum when he arrived. Since his lawyer had screwed him over he had to take matters into his own hands and he did not.

Since it's pretty clear his lawyer was a scam/con artist, Gabriel probably didn't know he had that option. His lawyer probably never mentioned it. 

[LuvMyShows]

On 12/4/2018 at 5:08 PM, Trey said:

I don't know why Gabriel didn't apply for asylum when he arrived. Since his lawyer had screwed him over he had to take matters into his own hands and he did not.

3 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

Since it's pretty clear his lawyer was a scam/con artist, Gabriel probably didn't know he had that option. His lawyer probably never mentioned it. 

But Gabriel is clearly extremely intelligent, and even unintelligent people can figure out about applying for asylum.  It also makes no sense that at no time since Gabriel's problem was discovered, did anyone else from TAC think about the asylum option.

On 12/4/2018 at 5:08 PM, Trey said:

Also wondered why Dani didn't think of marrying him sooner.

And again, I also wonder why no one else at TAC thought of it.

Obviously, plot-wise, no one from TAC thought of those options because then we wouldn't have had the surprise ending!

18 hours ago, brgjoe said:

And in the courtroom, when the lawyer (and later the judge) was trying to get her to say Gabriel knew he was doing something illegal, I was yelling at my screen, "Just say this man gave every red cent he had to a lawyer who he assumed WOULD get everything taken care of so he could seek asylum in the US!" 

What I kept wondering, was why Benny didn't take a line of reasoning like "If everyone who ever did anything illegal (which includes jaywalking) was precluded from citizenship, we'd have an empty country" or "Yes he did do something illegal, out of fear for his life, just like we allow people to do when we let them get away with murder if it's in self-defense."

[JessDVD]

I know I've got to stop coming here saying "Well, that would have been a lot better if _____" and yet here we are again.... That would have been a lot better if they could possibly have squeezed some nuance out of the immigration issue. Like having a judge who was sympathetic to the situation but felt stuck in that he is expected to uphold the law and it's difficult for him to decide how to rule in these cases because everyone seeking asylum has a sympathetic situation. Or having Gabriel have a criminal history since arriving in the US but having cleaned it up since then. Or having him come completely illegally, because I would maintain in this situation that he didn't *intend* to enter illegally, he *thought* that he would have everything correct, but was hosed by the lawyer. If they were intending to cast some sort of statement about immigration, I assume it was for us to sympathize with Gabriel/actual people in lousy situations trying to seek asylum in the US but it was harder to do so because it didn't seem like he made choices in line with the character they were showing him to be. I agree with the previous posts that an educated man like himself, should have known to pursue other options when he realized lawyer was a scumbag.

Just once I'd like someone on this show to have a romantic interest who is NOT part of a case.