We often think of Bull’s T.A.C. team as a well-run machine, every role fulfilled by a member best suited for it, all of it clicking away merrily with Bull directing their energies towards cases and clients of integrity, or at least of interest.

But, ultimately, T.A.C. is a family and families are messy. Throw in a new player who doesn’t buy into their raison d’etre (like attorney J.P. Nunnelly) who holds a secret debt over our bold leader’s head and life becomes interesting.

This episode begins on with a strangely ominous scene of a man watching the clock on his phone while in the bath, expecting an explosion and then submerging himself in some sort of cross between baptism and suicide before heading to work where he checks an account that rights itself substantially suddenly.
Cut to Bull apartment shopping. Apparently, he’s not as into wall-climbing as the one visit we’ve made to his residence led us to believe. He describes a distinctly rustic and un-“New York” sort of idea to his real estate agent and then takes a call from J.P. (I love how the writers for the show are able to reference Thoreau in one breath and Batman in the next.)
The call serves as exposition for the explosion which happened close to the T.A.C. offices. There’s a loaded moment of mood music as J.P. and Bull share serious contemplation of the state of the world. J.P. also uses it to lure Bull out for dinner where she throws her client’s file into his lap.

HepTex is the world largest computer cloud service and J.P. is defending them against the F.B.I. who want access to the servers to find the people they believe bombed the hotel. J.P. wants to fight for the individual’s right to privacy while Bull advises her to tell her client to give the F.B.I. access for the greater good.
J.P. rejects his advice and reminds him he owes her three cases. “You don’t get to pick the cases” she points out and orders him to meet her at her office the next day to confer with the HepTech C.E.O., Garrett Tilden (Peter Jacobsen, The Americans).
The dynamic between Bull and J.P. is central to this episode. It’s about power and Bull enjoys yanking her chain, duct-taping his mouth shut before the meeting with Tilden and his right hand man, Harry Kemp (Luke Kirby, Rectify) who, it turns out, is also our mystery bathtub man.

The meeting reveals that HepTex had already handed over the servers but, because they were encrypted, the government wasn’t going to be able to access the information without the key. Bull perks up a little at the absurdity that these men feel that going to trial with the government is great publicity in the light of the tragedy that just happened.
Tilden is upfront with Bull and states that he wants to go to trial and defend his clients’ right to privacy. J.P. stand with him and sends Bull back to T.A.C. to let the team know they have been hired. He is greeted by a less-than-enthusiastic response and this is where the episode starts to feel like a very different show from the rest of the season. In fact, from this point in, Bull seems like a very different character from the man we’ve gotten to know.

He’s still calm, composed, and articulate but he’s a little off-balance without the team’s support. The team voices their concerns but Bull, er, “bulldozes” them and sets them on their assignments. Then Cable refuses her assignment for the case and heads home for the day and he loses his cool and threatens to fire her. (Really?)

Despite their misgivings, the team pulls out the stops to work the case. Danny shadows bathtub guy, um, Harry and discovers he has late night meetings in an ultra-secure suite of an organization called The Foresight Foundry. (I found the music pretty heavy-handed again here. Not sure what’s going on with the show’s scoring but, honestly, they could pull back.)

Benny calls in a favour from a buddy at Homeland Security to get a hold of the HepTex servers. Chunk is Danny’s master of disguise and equipment as she heads out again to figure out what Kemp is up to. Marissa is the glue that holds it all together, even getting Cable to step back in to help with the decrypting.

Voir dire strategy and the courtroom case is very wordy and again pits Bull against J.P. in debating worldview and jury approach. Her speeches start to border on preachy when discussing the constitution and it really demonstrates how out of touch she can be when she asks,”What’s more personal that the Constitution? The Bill of Rights?” Bull, rightly and referencing the episode title, points out everyone has secrets and nowadays those secrets are stored on servers like HepTex.

After a cozy end-of-day taxi ride with J.P., Bull finds Marissa back at the T.A.C. office and peppers her with a variety of flippant questions about the lateness of the hour before realizing she’s working on the decrypted server. And this is another instance of the departing from the norm. Any other case, Bull would be the first person informed that the database was accessible. He’s out of the loop here.
He also spends a lot of time in this episode apologizing. Once to J.P. about expressing himself too passionately and then, more importantly, to Cable.  This scene with Cable is probably the most powerful of the episode (followed closely behind by the exchange with Marissa while she’s working the server. TBH, they will always be T.A.C.’s “Mom and Dad” in my mind.)

Cable is so compelling in her musing about whether the world needs the permanence of information that the Internet affords (like the fact Dr. Jason Bull, renowned hater of lawyers, failed the Bar Exam in Texas… twice) that Bull even steals her speech to jump-start J.P.’s closing statement. The jury finds HepTex not guilty and Bull calls the team off of their investigation of the HepTex servers. Taking J.P. back to the offices to celebrate they find the whole team gathered around the computer screen. Once again, Dr. Bull has no idea what’s going down on his own turf.

The reveal is sort of absurd, and tragic, in the grand scheme of things. Bathtub Harry was in deep debt due to an addiction to “extreme betting” and sold information from the HepTex server to the people who set the bomb to get back in the black. It, unfortunately, reminded me of the 2001 comedy Rat Race which seriously undercut the gravitas of the moment.
The episode closes on another Bull and J.P. moment where he realizes that she lives in his ideal house with his ideal dog, pond and all. When he mutters,”You have no idea how much trouble you’re in” in J.P.’s direction, we are left feeling that either he’s going to commit murder over New York City real estate (joking!) or, far more likely. he’s looking to pursue something long-term with her (in order to secure his dream home). Either way, J.P. is embodying some hurricane-level winds of change in this corner of the world.
Bull returns on Sept. 26th on CBS.
Diana Keng
Related posts
1 Comment
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Classics
Scott McCord and Elizabeth Saunders Talk the From Season 2 finale
[Warning: Spoilers for the season finale.] How’s everyone doing after that finale? While we wait and wonder and hope for a third season announcement, soon, here’s what Scott McCord and Elizabeth Saunders had to say about their parts of the finale, and where they hope they get to go next….
Scott McCord and Elizabeth Saunders Talk From Season 2 + A Season Finale Preview
[Warning: General spoilers ahead.] It all comes down this, #FROMily. As Sunday’s episode wraps up Season 2, we begin with the aftermath of the terrifying onset of seemingly simultaneous attacks on Julie, Marielle, and Randall, which accelerate the “We gotta get out of this place” of it all. Sara comes…
Alison Sweeney Talks About What’s Next for Hannah and Mike After Carrot Cake Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery
[Warning: Spoilers for Carrot Cake Murder.] Everybody OK after that Hannah Swensen Mystery twist? Thankfully, our favorite crime-solving couple is still on speaking term, even if they’re on a break (hopefully not that kind of break). Most importantly, we already know this isn’t the last film in the series. No…
Counting Down to From Season 2
[Warning: General spoilers ahead.] We’re just shy of two weeks away from Season 2 of last spring’s obsession, From, which premieres at 9 pm/8c, Sunday, April 23rd, on MGM+ (formerly EPIX). If you never picked it up last year, now’s your chance, and you can do it for free, catching…
Thank Me Later: Will Trent
[Warning: spoilers ahead.] I’m on record as loving and losing shows over at ABC so I’m usually very reticent to pick something up on the network until it’s been renewed, and I seriously hope I’m not jinxing it, but I took a chance on the deeply odd and very sweet…
Dennis Heaton Talks The Imperfects
Longtime readers at TV Goodness will know that Motive is one of my ride-or-die series, and as such, I am fiercely loyal to its creator, Dennis Heaton. He followed up that fantastic reverse procedural with Netflix’s The Order and is back on our streaming screens with The Imperfects, which dropped…
Kelly McCormack Talks Favorite Moments in A League of Their Own
[Warning: Mild spoilers for season 1.] Now that you’ve had a chance to watch A League of Their Own, here’s the rest of my chat with Kelly McCormack about her favorite moments of the season. Seeing the iconic Peaches uniforms for the first time wasn’t just a goosebump moment for…
John Griffin and Harold Perrineau Talk From Season 1 Finale
[Warning: General spoilers ahead.] How are we doing, #FROMily? In case you missed it this morning, the very good news is that that cliffhanger will be followed by a second season, which was gifted this morning ahead of the linear broadcast of the finale. I always legitimately appreciate when we…
Elizabeth Saunders Talks From
[Warning: General spoilers ahead.] One of the things that makes EPIX’s From such a fun ride is the abundance of Canadian cast members. Elizabeth Saunders, who plays Donna, is a favorite from her turn on the third season of Mary Kills People [streaming on Global TV in Canada and Roku…
Corteon Moore Talks From “Broken Windows, Open Doors”
[Warning: Spoilers for tonight’s episode.] Tonight’s episode of From had us all in our feels as we learned through flashbacks about the Sophie’s Choice Boyd had to make to save his son, and back in the present as Boyd said his piece with Ellis before heading into the woods with…
What They Said: Three Revealing Conversations from Survivor’s Remorse “Closure”
WARNING: Spoilers for Survivor’s Remorse “Closure” The latest episode of Starz’s Survivor’s Remorse featured conversations that showed characters really digging deep into their thoughts, emotions and motivations.
Two Takes: The Catch “The Knock-Off”
Who can you trust? If this episode of The Catch was any indication, the answer is just about nobody. Betrayal was running rampant as Felicity (Shivani Ghai) arose from the dead to seduce-con Margot, Gretchen (Maria Thayer, Gotham, The Mindy Project) played gold-hearted Alice 2.0 before swindling Ethan, Tessa jumped…
What They Said: Top 3 Quotable Moments from Preacher “El Valero”
Both Quincannon and Jesse refuse to give up on what they each think is rightfully theirs. While Jesse is struggling to face the consequences of his actions, Quincannon has laid his past demons to rest and is hellbent on moving forward and putting Annville on the map again. Despite a…
What They Said: Favorite Quotes from Supergirl “Worlds Finest”
Oh, Supergirl. That ending was cold. But I can’t hate on you because the latest episode has quickly become one of my favorites.
What They Said: Top 4 Quotable Moments from Black Sails “XXIII”
The dialogue in “XXIII” is phenomenal. It’s always a fun ride when Black Sails carries its viewers along without giving them the chance to catch their breath. When an episode moves at this unforgiving pace, there is no chance for a breather nor is there a respite from the information…
What Lucifer Said: Favorite quotes from Supernatural “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Supernatural episodes are almost always funny but thanks to the dialogue and a certain man speaking said dialogue, I laughed a lot during “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” You know, when I wasn’t busy fearing for Sam’s life or wondering what in the world was going on with Dean and…
What They Said: The Flash, “Legends Of Today” and Arrow, “Legends Of Yesterday”
Two nights of Arrow + The Flash = what more could we ask for?! I don’t know what it is about blending these shows, but I can’t help but feel that every time they come together, they somehow become greater than the sum of their parts. And that’s saying a lot…
What they Said: Top 4 Quotable Moments from Graceland “Little Bo Bleep”
Shoot outs. Fake outs. And long-awaited revelations. “Little Bo Bleep” was a jam-packed episode that wrapped up some loose ends and totally frayed others. Â It finally gave us one Sarkissian in jail and pulled back the curtain on Briggs’ master plan, but it also set up Jakes for a world…
What They Said: Favorite Quotes from Poldark “Part 4”
“What have I told you, I don’t require my wife to crochet and sip tea, but I do require her to remember she’s not a beast of burden.†No, I’m not talking about The Rolling Stones! I have to admit though, just for a second, the lyrics popped into my…
3 Moments of Goodness from Brooklyn Nine-Nine “Johnny and Dora”
The most satisfying part of this season’s finale has to the Jake and Amy kiss. Well, they kiss three times but the last one is the best one — and it means something. The Charles and Rosa dynamic was also great. I love how she’s convinced he doesn’t know anything…
Love this….your take is spot on. I’m really hoping the differences in the end of S1 were due to creating JP and not some great change in the canon of the show to come in S2 thanks to the new show runner.