S03.E15: Security Fraud

[thewhiteowl]

Bull works with a legendary lawyer who asks for help bringing a suit against the US government.

[DrScottie]

This episode reminded me of Boston Legal. Brilliant lawyer, Denny Crane (played by William Shatner), is an absolute master in the courtroom but his memory is slipping away due to dementia / Alzheimer's, but can still hold it together most of the time. Incidentally, James Spader who was Alan Shore, Denny's protege, essentially reprised that character defining himself in a trial a few weeks ago on the Blacklist. 

[Bobbin]

They didn't present the balistics report to further tie the FBI agent to the shooting, just cell tower pings and conjecture. I wonder if the writers deliberately leave gaps and loose ends in the plot to give viewers something to talk about.

[SamBeckett]

Of course, on TV shows you never really know how much times passes in any episode. Here, it seems as though the trial was over and done in a few days, which we know is impossible. 

Which leads to my point: Bull was putting his firm and his own ass on the line by not stepping up and addressing the lawyer’s “issues.” Yes, within his firm he did. Yes, he moved Benny to the lawyer’s table. But here’s the thing — if they had lost, and the girl (or especially her mother) found out Bull knew (or even suspected) about the lawyer’s condition and didn’t act, Bull and his company would have been sued. And they no doubt would lose. Yes, this is TV, and yes that would have changed the plot dramatically. And, frankly, it would have required more time to tell that story. But to me this is a thing I can’t handwave away.

[LuvMyShows]

Aaarrgghhh...the whole Graves Act thing was written for max viewer impact, rather than verity.  I don't think the judge would have allowed mention of an Act she had never heard of, or at the least she might have said something about not being familiar with it.  Also, Walter's issue was forgetfulness, not making things up completely, so even though there was a reasonably similar act from the same century, his brain had not mixed that up with a made-up Act description and date.  And finally, when Bull asked him how he knew about the Graves Act, he was apparently lucid when he gave his answer, as opposed to how he was when he was actually in court talking about the Graves Act...so he would have registered some concern on his face that Bull was asking him about something (Graves Act of 1812) that he didn't recall saying.

8 hours ago, Bobbin said:

I wonder if the writers deliberately leave gaps and loose ends in the plot to give viewers something to talk about.

Maybe if this were some kind of high-budget, artsy HBO mini-series...but nah, I think that the writers think about viewer/ah-ha/twist impact (see above), and then forget about internal logic.

8 hours ago, Bobbin said:

They didn't present the balistics report to further tie the FBI agent to the shooting, just cell tower pings and conjecture. 

But it's worse than that, and better than that.   The worse than part, is that as they presented it, Walter came up with his whole theory about the FBI guy and Bull never even asked any of the details, but simply agreed to let Walter present it in court anyway...even though he had concerns about Walter's mental state and had just had an episode where Walter made something up!  And magically Walter had the cell tower ping info, which he certainly wouldn't have been able to pull on his own, which means someone on Bull's team had to get it for him, but yet Bull didn't know about any of the details?  Yeah, right.  So now to the better than part...in the bizarro-world where we're supposed to believe the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to Walter having the cell tower pings, I don't think there would have been time yet to get the ballistics report.  So that's one part I can write-off, but not all the rest.

[Dowel Jones]

I liked how Benny objected to the defense "testifying".  Yeah, Benny, you would know about that sort of thing, right?

[Morlock]

Anyone else find Benny/Freddy really annoying. Character very pompous and a bad actor as well?