There isn’t much to say about The Firm this week. While an improvement over last week’s episode, the biggest thing about it was that we are now only two weeks (or episodes) away from catching up to those pesky flash-forwards. I’m really interested to see how the show will change at that point. Certainly being able to tell stories past a fixed point will free up the writers. Or will we just get another set of flash-forwards? I hope not.
The episode was pretty much stolen by Victor Garber as a politically-minded judge looking to pad his statistics for re-election. Garber just has that deep voice that commands attention even if he’s ordering at a McDonald’s drive thru. He was my favorite part of Alias and great in Eli Stone, so it was fun to see him push all of Mitch’s buttons.
I didn’t even realize that we hadn’t seen Tricia Helfer until Garber’s character mentioned her. That’s not a good sign if she’s supposed to be the show’s primary antagonist (is she?). Both her and Shaun Majumder took this week off so that we could spend some time with the mob story, but I’m still figuring out the mobsters, too. One minute baby mob boss Joey Morolto is talking about how his father is dead and so are the guy’s ways of doing business … the next he’s making an ominous statement about Mitch. Sometimes I think he might be a sympathetic villain, other times I think he’s a chip off the old block. I certainly hope that he’s not a one-dimensional villain. I’ve said it since the pilot, but The Firm‘s got to get its bad guys in a row.
Then there was the subplot this week of daughter Claire being tardy while on a school field trip and presumed kidnapped for a few minutes. This kind of irked me. Claire’s ten years old, which means she was born as her parents were entering witness protection. Yet she starts talking to the random mobster who shows up asking her questions and later, doesn’t tell her mom about the random guy who approached her. Did Mitch and Abby not tell her what was going on around them and she thinks her life’s been normal all these years? Otherwise, I’d think she’d be wary enough to have at least told her mother about the slightly creepy stranger who started asking her questions.
I’m a fan of The Firm without a doubt, but I’m seeing the cracks start to show up. It’s getting obvious the show’s a bit hamstrung by its flash-forwards and stylistic devices. Let’s ditch the glimpses ahead and the odd camera angles and such, and just get back to telling a great legal thriller with some interesting characters. That’s how this show will succeed.
Clacked by Brittany Frederick 
on Feb 03, 2012 @ 13:31 EST5EDT
