S03.E20: The Good One

[thewhiteowl]

Bull represents the seemingly innocent young heir of an infamous crime family on trial for murder.

[MerBearHou]

I thought this episode was a “Good One” - yes, pun intended.  It wasn’t as balanced with TAC team involvement but the emphasis on the crime family and the animosity of the courthouse team were all interesting to me.  I liked the final outcome and totally called it on who ordered the hit.

[HurricaneVal]

Once again, whoever does the casting on this show hit it out of the park again with the actors picked for the crime family.  Just perfect.  And the judge as well--even though we only saw him on screen for a little bit, you could see what a pleasant man he was, so you could really understand why everyone at the courthouse was so hostile about the case.

I figured the case was going to go one of two ways: either the way it did, or that we'd learn the mom was looking to have the good son go down.  I figured we'd get some security camera footage showing that the window was so blacked out on the driver's side of the "getaway car" that there was no way the eyewitness could have seen who was driving, or anything in the car, so she must have been paid off.  But it didn't go that way, and the way it went was better.

Still really liking new!Cable, but for the life of me I can never remember her name...

One thing I really like about this show is that whenever they have footage in the car, Bull and any passenger (Benny this time) are always wearing their seatbelts--ostentatiously so.  They wear them high and tight and oh so very properly positioned.  You don't see a lot of that on TV, I think the directors think it gets in the way of the aesthetics of the scene or something.

[Dowel Jones]

9 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

They wear them high and tight and oh so very properly positioned. 

On the other hand, I have driven vehicles with that style of shoulder belt, and it is exceedingly uncomfortable, to the point where I slid it down to my shoulder.  But that's just me.

I don't understand the mother's reasoning.  She hoped to get a mistrial, but in all likelihood, any new trial would be just as damning to her husband as this one, even if it were moved out of venue.  Plus, now she's on someone's hook for the murder of her son.  That inmate who killed him can provide evidence that she ordered the hit, and he can possibly extort her for all kinds of favors.  Never, ever assume an inmate won't throw you under the bus for their own benefit.  Plus, she's lost her younger son, too.  No doubt he will figure out that she ordered the older one to plead guilty and testify against him, and he would have to be a complete jellyfish to hold on to that "this family sticks together" crap.  Change your name, find another medical school, and never look back.

At least Bull got paid for a change.

[rhys]

I was trying to find the dad's eyebrows on imdb. Those were something!

[Bobbin]

12 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

Once again, whoever does the casting on this show hit it out of the park again with the actors picked for the crime family.

Agreed. But still, do the "good ones" always have to have angelic, babyfaces? Certainly not in real life. Are directors afraid we won't root for the character unless he looks innocent? Casting a toad in that role and having him have to convince the audience to believe in him would make the director and actor earn their salaries. 

With a small cast of characters to choose from, it seemed likely in the end that Mom put the hit on the brother. I never bought her innocent wife act, married for 30 years to a ruthless mom boss.

Bennie continuing to argue with the judge was out of character. He has enough experience to see where that confrontation was going from the start. 

Ah, the cliched, "The jury will disregard...." Sure they will.

3 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

At least Bull got paid for a change

Is Bull sure he wants to be paid in mob money? And be forever beholden to that "force of nature"? I wonder what activities her restauraht is a front for?

Good show. Nice, credible plot twists, good guest cast. And another unlikely client. How will they top this?

[Dowel Jones]

9 minutes ago, Bobbin said:

a ruthless mom boss.

The most dangerous kind!  They tell you what to do every day, and complain to high heaven about how you don't call them, and lord help you if you go out with a girl without their approval. 🙂

[LuvMyShows]

I had so many problems with this episode!

The good brother said something that I initially thought was going to be the direction the trial went in.  He told Bull that his brother wouldn't hurt him.  But since the whole claim of his innocence was that he was forced to be the getaway driver by the bad brother with the gun to his head, then his belief that his brother wouldn't hurt him negates the innocence claim, because of negating the fear motivation of the gun to his head.

There was a lot of hinky-ness with the timeline.  The original hiring was for TAC to represent good bro only.  So the plan was for them to go to court to make a motion for separate trials.  The prosecution seemed surprised by the motion, so then what were they going to court for that day?  You would not make a motion like that at the start of the first day of a trial, so it couldn't have been that.  They did make the motion, the judge said no, and refused to even hear Benny's argument, giving something that sounded very opinion-based not fact-based as the reason.  I didn't buy that, because the judge would not have wanted to risk a later misconduct charge and have a possible guilty verdict overturned on that sort of thing.  Once the judge disallowed the motion, no way would the trial have been the next day; again, the judge would have opened herself up to a later misconduct charge for not providing the defense with adequate time to prepare for trial.  Plus, unless I missed it, was that other lawyer guy who represented the father, also representing the bad bro?  It didn't seem like it, and if not, then either bad bro had no legal representation, or TAC was also representing him, which is not something Bull would have done. 

Also, it made no sense that Bull refused to put the mom on the stand because the jury might not be swayed by her truth.  Huh?  Since when?  And then to follow that up with putting the mob boss dad on the stand and want the jury to be swayed by his truth?  And when the dad did testify, it looked like he kept going on and on intentionally, to try to get the testimony thrown out.  But if so, then why testify at all?  And if not, then I don't buy that this man with ice in his veins would have allowed himself to become so overcome with emotion, especially since he was undoubtedly very familiar with legal proceedings and knew what he was risking by going on and on.

16 hours ago, Bobbin said:

With a small cast of characters to choose from, it seemed likely in the end that Mom put the hit on the brother. 

It annoyed me how Bull figuring that out was portrayed on the show as some kind of big deal at the end.  From a purely plot perspective, that would be the first person Bull would have suspected, given how his interactions with the mom had already gone regarding how much of a lost cause she felt the bad bro was, and how good bro needed to throw bad bro under the bus to save his own skin.

On 4/30/2019 at 11:21 AM, HurricaneVal said:

I figured we'd get some security camera footage showing that the window was so blacked out on the driver's side of the "getaway car" that there was no way the eyewitness could have seen who was driving, or anything in the car

I thought the same thing because of how the mock jury didn't care at all about the delivery guy's statement.  It was just weird to me that that bombshell brought no change in the mock jury, and in fact turned them more against the good bro.  The courtroom also didn't react to that at all, but they made a point of showing how the courtroom did have a strong reaction when the dad made the not-at-all-surprising revelation that he basically ordered the hit on the judge.

20 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

I don't understand the mother's reasoning.  She hoped to get a mistrial, but in all likelihood, any new trial would be just as damning to her husband as this one, even if it were moved out of venue.  

I was confused by this.  At the opening conversation with the dad's lawyer, it looked like she was doing everything she could to help him be found not guilty or at least get a more lenient judge.  But in her conversation with Bull, I thought she said that the dad going away for life would be the best thing that could happen to her.

16 hours ago, Bobbin said:

Is Bull sure he wants to be paid in mob money? And be forever beholden to that "force of nature"? 

Absolutely.  That seems like something that someone as supposedly savvy as Bull would have thoroughly considered beforehand.

[mythoughtis]

On 4/30/2019 at 8:20 PM, Dowel Jones said:

On the other hand, I have driven vehicles with that style of shoulder belt, and it is exceedingly uncomfortable, to the point where I slid it down to my shoulder.  But that's just me.

I don't understand the mother's reasoning.  She hoped to get a mistrial, but in all likelihood, any new trial would be just as damning to her husband as this one, even if it were moved out of venue.  Plus, now she's on someone's hook for the murder of her son.  That inmate who killed him can provide evidence that she ordered the hit, and he can possibly extort her for all kinds of favors.  Never, ever assume an inmate won't throw you under the bus for their own benefit.  Plus, she's lost her younger son, too.  No doubt he will figure out that she ordered the older one to plead guilty and testify against him, and he would have to be a complete jellyfish to hold on to that "this family sticks together" crap.  Change your name, find another medical school, and never look back.

At least Bull got paid for a change.

I don’t understand your point about the mistrial.  She was ‘supportive’ of her husband and hoped his lawyer could get him a light sentence but the lawyer said no. The judge was killed after the conviction. And just before the sentencing phase.   Later she confessed she was more than okay with him going to prison and therefore, out of her hair. 

She did not order the older brother to plead guilty and testify against the younger one. She wanted the younger( innocent one) to testify against the one who actually did the shooting. The older one chose to plead guilty and throw the younger one under the bus in ordervto save himself. 

I do agree she ordered the hit on her older son though.  

I had trouble reconciling this strong  woman with a woman who would stay with that husband for all these years. She obviously didn’t love him.  

Edited May 2, 2019 by mythoughtis

[Dowel Jones]

As long as we're all confused, why hasn't Bull ever been called out on his tactic of underhandedly obtaining the jury lists before the trial.  Isn't that illegal?  His staff made the point that, at least on this case, they couldn't get the lists ahead of time.  It's not like TAC's strategy is any great secret; people would likely be aware of it by now.  So why hasn't a DA ever spoken up?