The Necklace
Bull focuses on Dr. Jason Bull, though in this episode he's called Dr. Bill a few times as a fun reference to Dr. Phill, since this show is based on his own early career as a legal consultant. Bull has a PhD in psychology and runs a legal consulting firm with Marissa Morgan, who used to work for Homeland Security. The rest of the crew consists of Cable McCrory, Danielle James, Chunk who's a fashion consultant from Vogue, and Benny Colon who's Bull's ex brother in-law.
The cast is not particularly well known with the exception of Michael Weatherly (Bull) who's been on beloved shows like Dark Angel and NCIS. Geneva Carr (Marissa) has been in a few movies as well as a few episodes of Law & Order, Annabelle Attanasio (Cable) has appeared on The Knick, Chris Jackson (Chunk) has appeared in a few movies as well as in the British show Oz, Jamie Lee Kirchner (Danielle) has been a part of Mercy, The Mob Doctor and Just Legal, all series that didn't make it past their first season, and Freddy Rodriguez (Benny) has a long résumé in which his role on Six Feet Under is the shiniest star.
The episode starts with a montage of random people giving their opinion on the legal system, which is a big part of the premise since what they do as a firm is take advantage of people's subjective views on the system and life itself to get the results they need. As they show when they choose one jury member to turn who they think will be able to convince the rest in their closed chambers debate.
Right of the bat we get in action as they show a victim appearing on the beach and by minute three Marissa appears to take us to Bull. In the presentation it's interesting how they use social media appearing on the screen to pain a picture of who the victim was, even though that's only what they show to the world and many secrets are bound to be discovered, and also they show what the media's perception of the crime and the accused. In this case Brandon Peters, son of tech billionaire Pete Peters. From the begging they state that both of them and even their lawyer are considered by the people to be rich douche-bags who can get away with anything which doesn't bode well for the kids' innocence no matter what the evidence says, so the main interest is to turn that image around, there's where Chunk comes in to give him a better image, one that doesn't scream rich brat.
After that it's all about wins and loses on the case, the episode is a bit rushed but that is to be expected since these pilots are usually forced to give some background of the characters as well as build a case of the week, and not getting enough time for both they end up falling a little bit flat, which is what happens with some of the twists and turns of the case, though there were two unrelated shocking moments in a matter of seconds that surprised me quite a bit, even if they don't play out in the overall importance of the case. Also there is a conversation at the end of the Pilot that tries to give some background to Bull but seems out of place and even a bit confusing.
Overall this is another procedural with a twist and the truth is that no matter how tired one can get of reading that description they tend to work more often than other shows, if you like legal and/or psychology drama you will enjoy this. The world and the characters look like they have much to offer and explore and it is definitely an entertaining watch.
Tune in tonight at 9 on CBS to see for yourself.
