After three weeks establishing Bull’s premise with the mirror juries, the show completely throws it out of the window in a fun episode that shows the team's improvisational skills.
A lot of Bull’s aesthetic is wrapped up in the set design and art direction. The consultants work in New York City and are always surrounded with the coolest gadgets and advanced technology. Marissa’s entire job is analyzing mirror juror biometrics and tailoring the defense’s response. Now she has to deal with a chicken invading her workspace.
The team has relocated to the small town of Callisto, Texas. This isn’t just an opportunity for the actors to trot out some thick Texas accents. Callisto is a haven for patent law litigation. WindGen Pharmaceuticals, under their CEO, Windemere, has decided to use it as the location for a lawsuit against hero scientist Kerry Ketchum. Kerry’s sister suffered from hemophilia and she developed a drug to counteract the bleeding. Her actions made her a hero in New York City, but Windemere is suing her for violating his patent on a similar drug. Because no one in New York would vote against a savior, who wants to give away the drug for free to anyone who needs it, Windemere was forced to find a more forgiving jurisdiction. He settles on Callisto, which just happens to be Bull’s Waterloo. It is the location of the only case he ever lost, or, according to him, “just didn’t win”.
Fitting for a scientist the New York press calls an angel, the entire town of Callisto operates under the Halo Effect. The jury pool knows the judge, bailiff, and lawyers. They always just vote for the lawyer they like the most and the client, whether deserving or not, gets brightened by the shine of the lawyer’s halo.
And the lawyer with the brightest halo is the One Who Got Away, Diana Lindsay. Bull vividly remembers their first meeting in Callisto. She left him looking a bit like a fool and he’s eager to prove to her that he’s up for Round Two. But first the team has to get through their warm Callisto welcome.
Their space is given away, bags lost, and case sabotaged in the supposedly charming southern town. Bull had tried to prepare them for a war, but no one believed him until they experience the unbelievable bias in the town for themselves. Bull decides that they couldn’t win with Benny alone and enlists local hero and defense attorney Merle to help with their case. He’s also planted Danny as a spy in the local diner and has Cable working her magic back in New York.
Sparks fly for Diana and Bull both in court and out on the town. She once again attempts to get the best of him and steals his notes for the case, only to find that he had anticipated the move and confused her with allusions to different scientific experts.
Instead, as the team immediately realizes, it is going to be hard to try a scientifically technical case in a small town. The jury need to understand that even though Windemere had the components to make the drug, Kerry was the only one who could put them together in the right order. Benny, inspired by the delicious food at the diner, comes up with an analogy involving strudel. Two people can make completely different things with the same ingredients. When he runs it by elementary school children, his argument is a hit.
There’s still convincing the jury. In a court where the judge blindly selects jurors based on whether or not the trial will interfere with an upcoming fishing trip and the defense attorney has given one of the jurors an adorable calico cat, it’s hard to cut through the relationships already there. It might just take an act of God.
And Bull has one. He has Cable whip up a fake tornado warning and has Chunk persuade the bailiff to give Kerry and Windemere time together. Bull intends to show the jury Windemere admitting to Kerry that he couldn’t have come up with that combination, but something unexpected happens. Kerry appeals to Windemere’s better nature and he ends up dropping the case for the good of the world. It’s a win, but, as Bull gripes in the end, it’s a win with an asterisk. He still hasn’t triumphed over Callisto and the town, and Diana, will be waiting for him when he wants to try again.
What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments!
