Would you confess to a crime you didn’t commit? What if you hadn’t slept? What if you hadn’t had anything to drink for half a day?  What would convince you to say your were guilty, even if you weren’t?

That’s what Bull Season 1 Episode 5 asked. Could you be coerced into a confession for something you didn’t do?

The answer was different for everyone and some people were obviously harder to break than others. What bothered me the most was when Detective Murphy insisted that every killer swears they’re innocent. 

Doesn’t every innocent person do that, too? 

The four techniques to coerce a confession were fascinating, and I could see how they could work. Given enough time and the right kind of leverage, I think we could all be bullied into saying something that wasn’t true, which begs the question, when does an interrogation turn into something far worse? 

Or as was pointed out in this Bull quote, are some people just so susceptible that it doesn’t take much pushing at all?

Poor guy would walk off a bridge if someone told him to.

Jason

• Permalink: Poor guy would walk off a bridge if someone told him to.

It must be a fine line, trying to get a confession. Most criminals are probably pretty good at lying, so how do you make it happen if not through coercion. The scary part is, what happens when you push so hard that you coerce a confession from a person who’s innocent? The answer: you destroy their life. 

Even when they know they're innocent, sixty percent of people will end up confessing if they're told there's overwhelming evidence against them.

Marisa

• Permalink: Even when they know they're innocent, sixty percent of people will end up confessing if...

If that statistic is true, it’s frightening. 

As much as the Everton’s dislike of Richard was annoying, I could understand why they pushed so hard to have him convicted. They honestly believed he had killed their daughter. 

Even Jason Bull seemed to understand why Gavin slugged him outside of the courthouse. 

Bull told Richard he was too emotionally raw to take the stand and he wasn’t kidding. Richard felt guilty for instigating the fight over Leila’s father’s words and then letting his distraught fiancee run out into the night alone. 

There was a time when I took cases for money and I never want to have to do that again.

Bull

• Permalink: There was a time when I took cases for money and I never want to have to do that again.

There’s obviously a story to go along with that quote, and I look forward to learning more about it.

The biggest let down was the side story where Chunk refused to do a social media search on his upcoming date. It felt like there was a lot of potential there to get to know more about his character but nothing ever came of it which was disappointing. Not only was it uninformative, it wasn't even really entertaining.

Although I didn’t dislike this episode, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as Bull Season 1 Episode 4, but then again, how can you compete with a pantless Dr. Bull and a cow? 

Check back next week for my review of Bull Season 1 Episode 6 and until then, you can watch Bull online here at TV Fanatic. 

Quotables for Week Ending October 21, 2016

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C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.