S03.E17: Parental Guidance

[thewhiteowl]

The team represents a teenager who was raised in isolation by his survivalist father after the teen is involved in a deadly shootout.

[Bobbin]

Marissa's over the top paranoia and self-doubt about having kids is classic analysis paralysis. I think her "mother ship" has sailed and she should move on.

Trials are not all adversarial with "gotcha!" surprise witnesses and withheld evidence. I would think the ADA would have disclosed all his evidence pre-trial to persuade Benny that Lucas should accept a plea, even though I'm sure he believed conviction was a no-brainer even with a typically unpredictable jury. I'm surprised that Bull didn't react to Lucas saying that he had seen men dressed up in church. "When were you in church??"

Lot's of legal jargon. When this series ends, do we each get a paralegal certificate?

[LuvMyShows]

One thing I'll say is that I did not see that ending coming, so good for the writers, I guess.  That being said, yeah, Bull not asking about when the boy went to church was so lazy.  But more than that, uh, what was the entire defense strategy built around?  Admitting the boy did what he was accused of, but providing an explanation.  Hmmm...sound familiar?  As in, the exact thing they slammed Chunk for planning to do in the last episode and demanded that he find another defense strategy!!!  Also, unless everyone else in the world is hard-hearted and callous, and single-mindedly black and white thinkers, I thought it would have been a no-brainer that the jury would feel sympathy for this kid's situation, like I did, but they were approaching it from the exact opposite perspective.  Also, doesn't an attempted suicide mean that another mental-health evaluation would have been in play?  And finally, I thought there was something that gets evaluated about a defendant, not just about knowing right from wrong, but also something about their intelligence.  I know that the kid possesses some kind of 'smarts', but in terms of an IQ test, he would flunk it big-time, and I thought that would have been relevant in some sort of legal capacity.

[Babalooie]

13 hours ago, Bobbin said:

I'm surprised that Bull didn't react to Lucas saying that he had seen men dressed up in church. "When were you in church??"

He said he went to church once and saw some men in ties there.

[Dowel Jones]

First off, who hired Bull's team to work on this case?  Dr. Stratton? Did she get a friend discount, or what?  It doesn't seem likely that someone would go to the expense of jury psychology for a case that could be won with good lawyering. 

Secondly, yes, it's a good old Hallmark Movie end in that the kid goes to live with the nice church lady until he's 18.  Except that he's had nothing but brainwashing for 13 years about society and lethal force.  Nobody thinks that there might be some residual anger and dangerous tendencies there, perhaps warranting a more structured environment.  He is, after all, an expert marksman with a volatile temperament.

Whose land were they squatting on?  There was never an issue with the land owner, or manager if company or public land?

[Moxie Cat]

As someone in her '40s with no kids, and close friends who had fertility or divorce issues and don't have kids (and no funds to preserve healthy eggs), I'm hoping that this ends in Marissa simply deciding that kids aren't for her - even just right now - and that she's happy reconnecting with her formerly-ex husband. Kids aren't for everyone.

A long-time TV trope has been that successful women aren't complete unless they have kids. Heck, they didn't have to go there with Leslie Knope. But even Ally McBeal (name dropped in this ep) had to have a long-lost daughter. We don't see a plotline about Bull or Benny wondering about kids for a whole episode. Chunk has a daughter but, wow, when was she last in an episode? 

So I really hope they explicitly show Marissa making a decision to not explore this now, even if she continues to pay for the egg storage. I just don't feel that we saw any evidence in this episode that she wanted to go in that direction (and less from the husband) aside from the Central Casting "bye!!!" toddler. And that was cute, but what the mom said was far more in line with what my mom friends would say.

[Emma9]

Did they explain why the nurse the kid lived with for three weeks was dodging the defense's calls and showed up to testify for the prosecution? Since he ended up going to live with her, clearly they were trying to portray her as having his best interests at heart, which really doesn't tally with how she was involved in the trial.

Also, I don't know if they were clear on the timeline - how long had he been back with his dad before CPS showed up? Why didn't the nurse call them sooner (like, the second day he was living with her and she found out how isolated he'd been) and prevent him from going back in the first place?

Edited March 20, 2019 by Emma9

[Welcome5431]

The Court represents an ultimate social and public setting, in contrast with the prior life off the grid.

Even if the single sermon is the only one he's heard, i don't think one sample sermon guarantees that he has internalized the moral of the lesson .