(Season 5, Episodes 21-22)
I don’t want to ruin your enjoyment of the reveal here, so I’m not going to spill what gift I’m referring to prematurely, but I’ll just say that I couldn’t have been happier with the way these last two episodes of season five went. For those of you who know what I’m referring to and find me cold and callous … too bad. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and I can’t lie about the excitement I felt when I saw it happen. It was awesome!
5.21 “Poor Richard’s Almanac”
It was another big murder trial for Donnell and Associates, and yet another one where their animosity toward their client was spilling from their pores. If that’s the life of a criminal attorney, that’s just really sad. On the other hand, if it’s just the mechanism employed by the show to ensure that we can still empathize with and relate to the stars … maybe it’s even sadder?
I had a pretty easy time getting onboard with Doug Hutchison (playing Jackie Cahill) as a psychopathic, murdering drug dealer. Out of everything that he’s done, he’s best known to me as Horace Goodspeed from this past season of Lost. What didn’t so much make sense was why he didn’t put a big, fat target on Bobby’s back too.
Here’s how things went down. First Jackie alluded to the prosecution’s key witness’ life being in danger. Bobby warned Richard (attorney/client privilege much?), and the guy got police protection. Then Bobby had one of his crazy moments after Jackie revealed his suddenly remembered alibi. And then Bobby went and lost the trial. With all of the threats that Jackie was flinging around, I’m amazed that the attorney who didn’t get him acquitted wasn’t thrown in the mix somewhere.
Nevertheless, the key moment revolved around Richard Bay. Bobby and Ellenor repeatedly stressed to Jackie how good Richard was (besides the characters repeating this mantra throughout his time on the show, nothing has proven that out, including Richard’s win/loss record and how badly he’s gotten burned during trials), and how competitive he could be in court. It got to the point where Jackie imagined that his only way out was to take care of Richard. So he sent a guy to scare Richard. Didn’t work. Richard closed the case, and got the win.
At which point he imagined himself safe. To which I said “No sir!” And in a hail of bullets, shot through the window of one car into the body of Richard’s car, his unbelievably irritating reign on The Practice ended. The excitement that flowed through my veins was indescribable. However, and I’m going to be gory here, I just wish it had been done up close and personal. A nice bloody slit of the throat. But other than critiquing the method, this plot point was all good for me. Yay!
5.22 “Public Servants”
But unfortunately for me, everyone “loved” Richard (even though they most certainly did not), so the finale of season five was full of grief, revenge, and memorials. Helen signed a deal with Jackie to get the names of the people who murdered Richard in exchange for knocking his life sentences down to twenty years, and then pulled the deal after having the cops gun down the shooter, claiming he’d withheld information.
At which point Jackie couldn’t help but threaten Helen. So while a judge found Helen to have been deceitful (I say she’s a slimy dirt bag, and that’s not based solely on this), he also took threatening the life of a prosecutor into account during his deliberations. As a result, Jackie got 130 years added to his sentence. Feel good about yourself, Helen?
The most ironic thing was that, in her eulogy, Helen paid tribute to Richard’s sense of fairness and justice. In the previous episode, Bobby and Ellenor had let Jackie know that “even if you were innocent, he’d (Richard) want you to get life.” Sounds like justice to me.
Meanwhile, Rebecca and Jimmy took on a murder trial of their own, only to discover that their client Wendell (Henri Lubatti from Sleeper Cell) had been killing for years under a different name. And when they asked him about his being found guilty at the age of 14 of murdering two young girls, you know what he said? “Those were juvie.” Oh! Sorry about that! Go right this way to freedom.
And that’s season five. Unfortunately we’re going to have to take another two week break here; FX isn’t airing any new episodes this weekend, but will come back next weekend with the start of season six. And I’m psyched for the addition of Ron Livingston as the new ADA … even if I didn’t like him, anyone’s better than Richard Bay. See you then!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 18, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
