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S03.E14: Leave It All Behind


thewhiteowl
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I feel like I should know the actor who played Bull's friend, but I don't have a single thing.  He looks generically familiar, as in straight from Central Casting for "middle aged, but handsome, rich guy, cheaper than Rob Lowe, but that country club/sailboat type."

This was your bog standard episode of Bull: 

  1. Someone Bull knows is in trouble, accused of a crime they did not commit
  2. Circumstances look bad
  3. Benny is awesome and nearly wins over the jury
  4. The prosecution pulls out some bullshit piece of evidence that wasn't shared with the defense
  5. Bull doubts his friend
  6. Bull's team finds the real killer
  7. Real killer turns out to be someone we saw earlier in the episode totally telegraphing their guilt
  8. Benny is awesome again
  9. Charges against Bull's friend get dismissed
  10. Episode ends with a poignant scene featuring a contemplative Bull

Yeah, formulaic, but still fun. 

There were two potential killers:  the boyfriend/driver and the assistant.  The writers, or maybe the actor, did a good job making the driver coming to pick up the victim for her ComicCon appearance seem really menacing, then once the husband explained that she wasn't there, and that he hadn't heard from her in days, the look on his face suddenly transitioned into total open concern and worry.  It was a good scene between the husband and the boyfriend.  Each knew who each was, and resented each other, but then they had that moment of united worry when each realized neither knew where the wife/girlfriend was when each assumed she was with the other.  Good scene.

I thought they were going to go with more of the personal betrayal plot with the assistant, especially when the word "intimate" kept getting emphasized as a descriptor of their relationship.  Maybe that was a plot point that got shaved off, but I thought they were going to go there.  Instead they left it that her assistant killed her because her boss thought her book was too horrible to send on to her publisher and lied about it.  You know.  To let her down easy...

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The bodyguard/driver was an obvious Scarlet Fish.  

Blonde!Assistant was obviously guilty from the instant she appeared at 14:50.  

The stupid part of this show is when they accept/decline jurors on the basis of whether they prefer petunias to poppys, or enjoy Saturday Night Live more than Saturday Night Fever.    Also, how does Marissa get to say what the sequestered jury is feeling/thinking?  Does she get to stick electrodes up their ass?   Or are we supposed to assume that TAC is still using the highly improbable "Mirror Jury", filled with people who are identical in every way to the real jury?  Right down to their physical appearance and choice in pizza toppings?

And perhaps I am way out of touch, but how is Bull allowed to be in contact with his people outside the courthouse while the court is in session?  Around here at least, no electronic gubbins are allowed in the court with the possible exception of laptops / tablets used by the legal team.  Certainly no earpieces & quiet whispering into wrist-mics would be allowed.

Funny how these shows end.  Everything looks grim for our guy, until at the 59th minute of the 11th hour, Benny pulls a rabbit from a hat, with no previous hint that rabbits indeed part of the defense, far less were possibly forthcoming.  A rabbit in the form of a video showing the murderer killing the victim with a Korean Krossbow and hiding the body in a 55 gal. drum of fat-free mayonaise. Plus an e-mail dump of their GMail account where they told the victim "I will kill you and hide your body in a 55 gal. drum of fat-free mayonaise".  And years of FecesBook posts saying "I hate them with the power of 1,000 burning nuns and will kill then by shooting them with a Korean Krossbow..."

Edited by Netfoot
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Did anyone else notice the homage to the Leopold and Loeb case?

Second thing- can CBS hire someone who has taken even a high school class in Constitutional Law?

They have done this before: put their Plan-B suspect on the stand and gotten a confession. 

NO, not in real life. The suspect has rights-putting them on the stand and tricking a confession out of them without first giving Miranda could screw the whole case and let a murderer go free. 

Remember when Tom Cruise stopped questioning Col Jessup and said "The witness has rights"? 

If you don't learn it in school, at least learn it in the movies. 

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I did like Bull's pseudo-rant that "Can't a man wallow in self pity without some assistant barging in and throwing him shreds of hope?" And I liked Chunk actually standing up and presenting an argument that they could try out.

I was also waiting for the assistant to blurt out that she had been sleeping with the husband, and he talked her into it, and faked the text messages.

Is there a reason to have witnesses when the attorneys spend so much time testifying?

14 hours ago, Netfoot said:

And perhaps I am way out of touch, but how is Bull allowed to be in contact with his people outside the courthouse while the court is in session?  

When his team routinely hacks various databases, illegally obtains jury pool information, etc., what's a little violation of courthouse rules going to do?

Why was there any DNA on the knife after being submerged in water for several days?

Good catch, CessnaDriver172.  I had to go to the Wiki page about the crime to get your reference about the glasses.

Edited by Dowel Jones
Leopold and Loeb
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What I can't get over (and this is not the first time at all for this show) is that a situation like this would actually go to trial when there is literally no SHRED of evidence linking the husband to the murder until halfway through the trial. I keep thinking of Blue Bloods when Danny (detective) goes to Erin (ADA) asking for a warrant based on a hunch and she's like, you're crazy. Unless I blacked out somewhere in the first act, there was nothing, NOTHING implicating the husband other than convenience, and I can't believe that The People would go all the way to prosecute based on "Well, he's got to be guilty because he's the husband and look how shifty he seems". ADA Erin Reagan does not approve. Also, shouldn't the investigators have already seized phone records, seen those texts, and interviewed the assistant and the bodyguard?

I've said it before (and yet I still enjoy the show) that the show is way stronger when we're not intended to question the guilt of the defendant, but rather what outcome the trial should have. I thought that pregnant lady who shot her abusive asshole husband while he was asleep was a good example of this. These shows where the investigators do nothing other than arrest the most convenient suspect and the DA takes it straight to trial even though there wasn't even enough evidence to grant a warrant, and thank goodness that Bull's people know how to investigate... 

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On 2/12/2019 at 12:46 PM, HurricaneVal said:

I feel like I should know the actor who played Bull's friend, but I don't have a single thing.  He looks generically familiar, as in straight from Central Casting for "middle aged, but handsome, rich guy, cheaper than Rob Lowe, but that country club/sailboat type."

Fantastic description...and I thought the same thing!

On 2/12/2019 at 12:46 PM, HurricaneVal said:

I thought they were going to go with more of the personal betrayal plot with the assistant, especially when the word "intimate" kept getting emphasized as a descriptor of their relationship.  Maybe that was a plot point that got shaved off, but I thought they were going to go there.  Instead they left it that her assistant killed her because her boss thought her book was too horrible to send on to her publisher and lied about it.  You know.  To let her down easy...

But what was weird, was that when she was on the stand, they never mentioned any of that.  They did all the stuff about where she was seen and what she did, but without the jury knowing the why, there would be no reason for them to be so immediately persuaded by the what and how.

16 hours ago, Jelly Ree said:

Why no assistant DNA on the knife?

Good point!  I guess she wore gloves, but then that would have been pretty easy to suggest as a mitigating factor when they were reviewing the supposedly damning evidence that his were the only fingerprints found.

12 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

And I liked Chunk actually standing up and presenting an argument that they could try out.

I had a real problem with this...not that Chunk said it, but that it was so freaking basic of a suggestion/ avenue, that there is no way the team wouldn't have thought of it and already discussed it.

4 hours ago, JessDVD said:

What I can't get over (and this is not the first time at all for this show) is that a situation like this would actually go to trial when there is literally no SHRED of evidence linking the husband to the murder until halfway through the trial.

Not only that, there was no evidence to indicate the wife was actually dead!  The blood results hadn't come back yet, and there hadn't been enough time to see if credit card usage showed up (or phone records, if they didn't find her phone).

Last thing I had a problem with -- something was discussed near the end, and Bull said that's a nice theory but the jury needs proof, even though earlier he had taken the exact opposite position when he said that all they have to do is create doubt.

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On February 12, 2019 at 12:46 PM, HurricaneVal said:

I feel like I should know the actor who played Bull's friend, but I don't have a single thing.  He looks generically familiar, as in straight from Central Casting for "middle aged, but handsome, rich guy, cheaper than Rob Lowe, but that country club/sailboat type."

Initially, he reminded me a little of Robert Sean Leonard with darker hair.

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On February 13, 2019 at 2:15 AM, Dowel Jones said:

I was also waiting for the assistant to blurt out that she had been sleeping with the husband, and he talked her into it, and faked the text messages.

That's way better than what they came up with. I thought the assistant was super obvious, especially when Dani (Dani! Who had interviewed her!) said that the killer had trouble dragging a 109-pound body. Obviously a woman, come on, FBI lady.

I have been enjoying how nuCable plays the audience's avatar in asking the legalese questions. Why wouldn't a jury want to be sequestered? Sounds good to her!

Why is is office not modeled on the Scandal OPA offices again? What's the point of having all those background employees if they never seem to do anything?

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On 2/13/2019 at 10:22 AM, JessDVD said:

I keep thinking of Blue Bloods when Danny (detective) goes to Erin (ADA) asking for a warrant based on a hunch and she's like, you're crazy.

I know this probably won't happen, but I would love to see a Bull and Blue Bloods crossover episode. Erin needs TAC's help with a super important and difficult case, or TAC is  using Danny or Jamie (recently promtoed sergeant) as an expert witness and we get to see Chunk or Benny do witness prep. 

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