We’ve all asked the question when watching procedurals, or thought about it after reading the newspaper. No matter what the statistics tell us, every person has to wonder “Why would someone confess to a crime they didn’t commit?”
This is the question Bull asks too this week, in a solid episode about false confessions and class divisions. Although, as Bull advises Isaac, the hapless public defender, it’s best to focus on the former.
Our false confessor is Richard Fleer, a chef from the wrong side of the tracks who ended up affianced to the beautiful billionaire’s daughter Layla Everton. When Layla is found dead after a charity ball, Richard breaks down and confesses. Layla’s grieving parents think the case is closed. When Bull sees the confession, however, he offers his services to the defense.
While last week had Bull defending a figurative angel, this week gives him a few more shades of gray. No matter how morally dubious Richard’s confession was, it takes a pretty cold customer to announce, in front of grieving parents, that he is defending the man accused of murdering their daughter. I don’t blame them for their outrage.
But the case isn’t so much about Layla, her background, or her family as it is about the eleven-hour interrogation of Richard and the confession. The audience gets a crash course in interrogation techniques through a PowerPoint dreamed up by Bull. He gets Isaac to have the interrogator, Detective Murphy, admit to four different coercion techniques. But getting the good detective to admit to fermenting mental exhaustion, promising escape, offering reward, and forcing specific language isn’t enough if the jury isn’t susceptible.
And “susceptibility” is the theme of the day. Bull decides that they need to find jurors who would empathize with Richard being coerced. Marissa even installs a new “coercion coefficient” or “co-co” algorithm in the system. I don’t think they needed a fancy computer program to show that the guy that believes his car may have been towed would be a good juror for them.
The last facet of Bull’s plan is making sure Richard is relaxed enough in court. There’s a great scene where he brings fresh ingredients to Rikers for Richard. Being able to practice his craft gives Richard the confidence he needs to show the jury.
But Richard is only part of the defense. Isaac, the idealistic public defender, also has to be reined in. At first, Isaac seems just another in the long line of bad lawyers Bull has to put in their place. He’s more interested in Richard as a study in the failures of the system than an actual defendant and he wants to speak truth to power during the entire case. I thought for sure he would get fired at some point. Instead, Isaac gets his own little arc and shows hidden depths when he delivers a stirring closing speech about Richard’s circumstances. He’s just grateful he gets to defend an innocent man.
Before the conclusion, Bull once again veers back into morally gray territory. While I didn’t mind the fake tornado warning last week, trapping the jurors in an elevator seemed a bit cruel to me. It was enough, however, to convince the holdouts that being trapped can make a man do crazy things. Richard is acquitted and Danny tracks down the real killer, a sleazy friend of Richard’s who was working at the gala. The Evertons make their peace with Bull and the team celebrates with drinks (which seems a bit more organic than the weird office parties they’ve been having).
Once again, the supporting characters aren’t given much to do and this is becoming more frustrating as the weeks go on. Benny’s barely in the episode. Chunk and Cable only have a slight subplot about Chunk’s love life. Danny was given some actual screen-time this week, but wasn’t given a chance to shine. To compare Bull to another CBS show, Danny’s role is a lot like Kalinda’s in The Good Wife. She has to do a lot of the busy work while the rest of the team works together on the case. Because she has scenes away from the team, she needs to make viewers actually want to follow her. Kalinda was an immediate presence on the show and her mannerisms and wit made her so intriguing that people are still calling for a spinoff. With Danny, I wonder why we’re spending time with her when we could be spending time with more interesting characters.
The only supporting character that got a chance to show her personality was Marissa. Marissa’s role on the show seemed to solidify last week when she was so nonplussed by the move to Texas. She’s the nerd and she seems to embrace that this week with her enthusiastic endorsement of the new co-co algorithm. She’s the only character that I can see an arc develop around. I think Marissa will have to step away from the comfort of her statistics and screens to eventually learn to read people better. She gushes about the benefits of letting her now ex-boyfriend see everything on her phone, but she hasn’t realized that a technological footprint isn’t the only aspect of a person worth studying.
So once again, we’re given a great episode for the guest stars, a good episode for Weatherly, and little left for the others. I want to say it may change next week, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Juror of the Week: I’m introducing this new feature to congratulate Rocco the Gullible. His co-co score was abysmal, he thought his car was towed, and he’s been demoted twice. But he got to be the foreman! Good job!
What did you think of the episode? Do you think you could be coerced into giving a false confession? What do you think your co-co score would be? Let me know in the comments!
