A Good Samaritan trying to save her sister’s life. A pilot pressured to make a devastating decision in a split-second. A man broken by his fiancée’s death. Almost all of Bull’s clients have been sympathetic defendants. Even the heir in the first episode was more anxious and confused than actively arrogant.
Then we meet Dr. Terrence Robeson (he’s very insistent on the “Dr.” part).
Bull’s had to work against many different factors in the past, but we haven’t seen a client so intent on self-sabotage as the arrogant surgeon.
Bull himself takes a backseat in an episode mostly about Marissa and her relationship with this volatile client. Robeson was an ex-boyfriend. Marissa loved him, and when she left, she hoped he would ask her to stay. He didn’t. They still remained friends and when he’s accused of medical malpractice, she’s the person he calls for help.
Robeson is one of the best gynecological surgeons in his field and, along with the Atticus Surgical System, has become famous for fast and precise surgical maneuvers. While performing a routine fibroid removal, something goes wrong and Roberson is forced to perform a hysterectomy on the patient, Ms. Povary. Now, instead of removing the fibroids and allowing her to conceive a child, he took away her ability to have children at all.
We are already situated to feel sympathetic to Ms. Povary because the show forces us into her viewpoint. The first scene in the surgical theater is from her perspective. It’s easy to feel her mounting panic and fear.
Like us, the jurors are predisposed to feel sorry for the plaintiff. Unfortunately, that’s not the side Bull’s on. The challenge ahead becomes obvious when Robeson erupts on the witness stand in the mock trial with only minimal prodding by Benny. He tells the team that he did everything in his power and that he’s as close to God as they’re ever going to see. Never has the term “God Complex” been so literal.
So what does the team do?
Go find some more Gods.
Bull’s initial trial strategy of finding deep pragmatists (people who don’t care how nice someone is as long as they do their job) fails, so he goes for the Gods. The four jurors he manages to pick are labeled as Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and Dionysus. They are the top in their field. The gods love drama and they love being directly spoken to. They’re also arrogant enough to think that they are always being directly spoken to. They also don’t mind Robeson’s ego, but even they are having a hard time handling the cold way he blew off Ms. Povary after the surgery failed.
To counteract a sympathetic opponent, Bull also calls in a different lawyer. It’s great to see Liberty back and it’s easy to understand why Bull would want the nice, compassionate lawyer over the more confrontational Benny.
It also ties in with the first hiccup in the case. When Bull finds out that some of the mistakes in the operation were caused by Robeson’s colleagues instead of the good doctor, he confronts Robeson, insinuating that Robeson picked an anesthesiologist who could get him into a good country club and a nurse he was sleeping with. Instead, Robeson defends himself using the same reasoning as Bull. Sometimes a team member makes mistakes, but it’s better to take predictable over flawless. Some people work better in a certain situation than others and Robeson passionately defending his colleagues is the first time we see a human side to the self-proclaimed god.
In addition to gods and mere mortals, Bull also has to contend with robots. During the trial, Bull notices that Dionysus, the codename for a high-profile food critic, is more interested in what a fellow god’s watch costs than the stirring testimony of the plaintiff. When Danny finds out how Dionysus is spending his time and money, the team realizes that the company that owns the Atticus System is paying Dionysus to find Robeson not liable.
This is where Bull’s actual morals come through. He’s willing to do whatever it takes for his client, within reason. Even though Dionysus is being swayed to rule in his favor, Bull doesn’t win like that. Instead, he scares Dionysus off the jury and gets him replaced by a highly respected sex therapist, codename Aphrodite.
The bribe also tips the team off to check the Atticus system. With a little subterfuge, Danny and Cable sneak into the hospital and find out a flaw in Atticus’s programming is what ruined the surgery. They do a great demonstration of this in court where an Atticus engineer balks at getting operated on by the robot. The gods are interested. There’s nothing the gods of Greek mythology liked more than the prospect of bloodshed.
That’s still not enough to win the case. Bull has one last card to play and its Marissa.
This really has been Marissa’s episode and she gains some insight into her relationships as she struggles to help her old flame. Marissa finally reaches Robeson’s human side and gets him to show vulnerability on the stand. It’s enough to convince Aphrodite, which convinces the others. It also reveals to Marissa that Robeson was going to go after her, but didn’t know how.
This doesn’t open up a new chapter for her, however, but simply closes one. Marissa is wistful as she talks with Bull about the end of her relationship, but she also realizes that she is very happy where she is. As the team celebrates their win with a Greek-mythology inspired bacchanal, human emotion seems much more interesting than whatever the gods are up to.
Juror of the Week: I’ll got with Athena, the tireless coach of the Lady Jackals.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments!
