- Title: Bull – Labor Days
- IMDb: link
Bull opens its Fourth Season with Bull (Michael Weatherly) and Benny (Freddy Rodríguez) on the outs, both suffering from working without the other, and Bull in need of an attorney to defend a bartender (Monique St. Cyr) from manslaughter charges after the man she served committed murder on New Year’s Eve. Of course, Benny comes back to chair the case, and he and Bull bury the hatchet (although it seems he may offer more legal opinions this time around). Legal-wise, things feel a tad too over-simplified here in a District Attorney (Amir Arison) perusing a very questionable case, Bull unable to find even a single capable lawyer to take the case, and both Bull and Benny willing to go against Bull’s expert advice on the jury to try Benny’s strategy.
The episode takes great lengths to show the bartender’s compassion (wanting to cut the man off but being ordered by her boss to continue serving him, following in a cab to make sure he made it home), and its a good thing it does in these early sequences as Benny’s strategy doesn’t including introducing any of this as evidence in trial. Given the show’s history, it could certainly have chosen a murkier case to split a jury. St. Cyr is one of the episode’s best aspects, although after the initial scene she’s relegated to sitting quietly at the defense table.
The joke of no good lawyers to be had seems a bit trite, but it does allow for a humorous guest-appearance by Brennan Brown as Benny’s unimpressive stand-in (a lawyer who will do whatever it takes to avoid seeing the inside of a courtroom). Benny’s earlier client fits in the same vein. In terms of ongoing themes, Bull and Benny are able to bury the hatchet and Bull looks forward to the birth of his son, but we see signs of the mastermind second-guessing himself on multiple turns over the course of the episode (and from next week’s preview, this trend appears to continue). What does this mean for his clients this season?