By this point I’ve watched every episode of this guilty pleasure TV show, and all I really want from an episode boils down to three simple things: random bikini cameos, unexpected (meaning it’s not obvious) plot twists, and nothing boring. And if can get something amusing from Reed Diamond’s Damien, that’s a plus. This episode is decent enough, I suppose; it hits a lot of those typical beats you’d expect. The summer associate throughline subplot was mostly useless, with a few amusing jokes here and there. But Bonnie (Shark’s Danielle Panabaker) didn’t quite provide anything funny or useful.
There wasn’t the typical multiple story setup most Franklin & Bash episodes have, and that means that the main plot needs to stand under the most scrutiny to be interesting. It mostly pulls that off. Sal as the “Thug with a Heart of Gold” was a classic archetype, here portrayed in a believable and entertaining fashion, although I never really felt sorry for him. Seemed too obvious he’d be just fine. The show seemed to be setting him to fall in love with Bonnie, but got a bit muddled with it.
What I did like especially were little tricks to get the opposing DA (Brian Howe) to do what F&B actually wanted. The first “classic twist” about the case not being self-defense was a good switcheroo that really seemed to be an actual challenge for the gang to overcome, which is a good thing — often it’s too easy for them. But the multiple trojan horse tricks were great, including Jared self-referencing the maneuver as “classic Franklin & Bash,” before being called out by Bonnie for referring to themselves in the third-person. That was funny, as was his earlier comment that “you can make a party out of anything”.
I found the Italian stereotypes to be a bit much at times, and there wasn’t nearly enough Damien. But this episode is better than some of the previous few, with its stunt-casting utilizing far less known character actors and therefore not overwhelming the story. Sometimes one legal plot is enough.
Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman 
on Jul 11, 2012 @ 02:26 EST5EDT
