Spy or whistleblower? This is the question that concerns the latest client of the week in a new episode of Bull. In the world of jury consultants, your label is more important than your actual crime. There’s no denying that Army Lt. Tamsin Dale leaked a classified document to a Wikileaks-esque website, GlobeSpill. What matters is why she did it.
The team is on the case because Dale managed to impress Bull at the initial client meeting. Although she’s being charged with violating the Espionage Act, she claims that she leaked the document because she loves her country, not because she wanted to destroy it. Dale is someone who believes the spirit of the law is more important than the actual details. She’s a rebel who stands by every decision. No wonder Bull likes her.
Benny, on the other hand, takes a while to warm up to the data analyst. Unlike Bull, he isn’t impressed with Dale’s integrity and is hung up on the consequences of her actions. Dale leaked the document to show the hypocrisy of a war-crazed colonel. It successfully ousted him, but it also revealed a secret Army Ranger operation. Three soldiers were killed. Benny doesn’t believe anything was worth those men’s lives.
But Benny isn’t the boss. Bull immediately volunteers “a very good lawyer” for Dale and Benny begrudgingly goes along with the plan. Now that they are in military court, the rules are very different. There’s no potential for a hung jury and only ¾ of the jury needs to find Dale guilty. Benny is also hustled off to a black site for motions. The Army takes their secrets seriously.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team has to adjust too. Marissa is paranoid about being hacked by the military. She decides that the whole team, even Cable, is going analogue. It will be fun. Like camping.
Cable treats the pad of paper Marissa hands her like a ticking time bomb. Screens are replaced with clear boards and pictures of the officers in the jury pool. Because the military only allows Benny to protest one juror in voir dire, the team has to find a nuclear juror. They can’t sneakily stack the jury. Instead, they have to get rid of the most toxic candidate. Bull tells Dale that the team is looking for Jeffersonians – jurors that adhere to the letter of the law and have too many bumper stickers. Although Marissa advises him to strike a certain officer based on her profile, Bull chooses another based on body language.
It was a good call. Marissa soon discovers that despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep the hackers out. All the profiles have been tampered with. Cable suspects Chinese hackers affiliated with GlobeSpill.
Benny freaks out when he hears the GlobeSpill may be behind the attack. He’s been stressed ever since he was shown a classified document at the black site. Bull picks up on Benny’s dis-ease and gets into a fight with him. Benny hints that the document could save Tamsin, but he refuses to tell Bull the truth. Bull decides to use himself as a human lie detector to find out the secret and deduces that Dale redacted the document before she leaked it to GlobeSpill. The media outlet filled in the blanks themselves. Dale didn’t kill the Rangers, GlobeSpill did. Benny, however, can’t argue it in court. The Army only cares about the actual leak, not the fallout. They want to set a precedent.
Benny is frustrated. Ever since he discovered the secret of the memo, he’s been empathizing with Dale. He knows what it’s like to sacrifice your career for the truth. When Dale begins leaking classified information in court, Benny stops her by blurting it out himself. He is arrested on the spot by the FBI.
Bull and Danny call in some favors to see Benny in custody. Bull is furious. He instructed Dale to reveal the information in an effort to sway the jury and Benny screwed it up by falling on the sword. Benny is upset as well. If Bull had trusted him enough to share the strategy, he wouldn’t be in an interrogation room.
With Benny down for the count, Bull instructs Dale to deliver the closing argument herself. First, she tries to recite the incident like an accident report. Bull gets her to open up about the death of her high school friend. It gives her argument the emotional heft it needs and it looks like she’s getting through to the jurors.
Unfortunately, Bull read the jury wrong. They find Dale guilty on one of the counts and Bull believes she’ll get 10-20 years in sentencing. He turns to some light reading for answers to this new dilemma.
Bull asks the court for the convening authority to weigh in. The convening authority, Dale’s mentor, condemns Dale for her selfishness but makes the case that the Army needs to learn from its mistakes and not punish those who expose them. He changes the sentence to one year, which Dale seems at peace with.
Bull also makes a deal with the FBI to trade the hacker’s code for Benny. The FBI now has all they need to go after GlobeSpill and Benny’s a free man. Benny’s still upset at Bull for keeping the secret and Bull tells him a story from his past. He once told a secret and got his half-sister “punished,” which sounds like it involves something more than mere grounding. Benny understands his friend a little better and forgives him. It looks like we’re done with the episode, until Benny is served papers from a Corruption Unit. I think Benny’s past issues with the DA’s office may be coming back to haunt him…
Juror of the Week: That Army officer who just wanted to go home and watch Westworld. #relatable
What did you think of the episode? Let me know in the comments!
