(Season 6, Episodes 16-17)
I threw a party when Richard Bay left. And while I was excited when Ron Livingston’s Alan Lowe joined the show at the beginning of this season, he quickly came to fill the void that Richard had left, in every way. So how dare the show go and slip his departure in without so much as a tickle-me-bum? No fiery ending? No mysterious disappearance leading to his severed head turning up in Bobby’s desk drawer? I’m insulted.
6.16 “Manifest Necessity”
At times, lawyers can walk a fine line between justice and intimidation. Take, for instance, the case in this episode. Charles Rossi (Nick Offerman), witness for the prosecution, recanted his earlier identification of a man on trial for murder. The guy happened to be a mob boss who’d escaped the District Attorney’s clutches in the past, so Helen and Ken Walsh (Bill Smitrovich) leaned on Rossi hard, threatening him with all manner of things.
Let me put a “suppose” out there. Suppose Rossi was telling the truth, that once he saw a picture of the defendant he knew he’d fingered the wrong guy. So if he were to tell the truth and not finger an innocent man for a murder he didn’t commit, he’d be on his way to prison. If he were to lie and finger the innocent man, he’d be committing perjury, and worse yet would probably have signed his own death warrant. So how can the DA so blatantly threaten someone just because the prosecutors think they’re right? Where’s the justice in that?
But I’m not sure that that’s more egregious than the “favor bank” that these lawyers always bandy about. Lindsay’s client was guilty as sin on a robbery, and he was a repeat offender, yet she had the audacity to ask the prosecutor to “do her a solid” and plea it down? Lindsay has longed lived on a planet known as incompetence, but this was a new low (or high, depending on how you look at it).
I enjoyed the showdown between Walsh and Judge Wilcox (Richard McGonagle), but it wasn’t until after-the-fact that I understood the context. Stay tuned to next week’s very special installment of my virgin diary to better understand what I mean. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the situation completely blowing up in Walsh’s face. He’s always been a bit too unpleasant for me.
And nice move by Helen finally finding some backbone by testifying against him.
6.17 “Fire Proof”
After scoring with it time and again, this episode — same as the last — failed to interest me from a legal perspective. While a continuation of the Walsh spiral is probably meant to help set something up for the long-term, that didn’t do anything for me here.
Both sides of the case against Ronald D’Ambrosio (Mark Margolis), Jimmy’s father’s former boss, was lame. Walsh’s blind determination to serve justice makes him overlook the possibility that there are innocent people out there — his decision to pursue D’Ambrosio was largely based on his assumption that if the guy legally sold furniture to two mobsters, he must have been laundering money for them as well … naturally.
On the other hand, Jimmy’s realization that people aren’t the saintly pictures you drew of them when you were a naive kid was yawn-worthy. What happens next week? He learns that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real?
And when there’s a “B” story, there’s usually a chance that at least one plot will do well. But Lucy and Skip (Matt Czuchry), the high school kid who had a crush on her and proposed to her, was also dumb. The only good thing about it was that the actor currently plays Cary on The Good Wife. Wow was he crazy.
You win some, you lose some. This weekend is another off one for FX, but next week I’ll have a special edition of my diary, as Chris was kind enough to share the episode I missed at the beginning of the season with me. Thanks again Chris!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on May 06, 2010 @ 14:30 EST5EDT
