Bull Season 1 Episode 22 Review: Dirty Little Secrets
Christine Orlando
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Is there such a thing as knowing too much about someone? Bull Season 1 Episode 22 asked whether anything was truly private anymore.
The plot began by questioning whether a company had the right to keep its client’s information private from the government, even while it investigated a terrorist attack, but it quickly made the case more personal.
Eliza Dushku returned as J.P. Nunnelly expecting to cash in on Jason Bull’s debt…
Funny, I don't recall asking for your opinion. I do recall you owing me three cases.
J.P.
But Bull always has an opinion.
The terrorist attack in question was a bomb at a local hotel where two people were killed and 11 more injured.
I’m not sure which was more disturbing, the seeming randomness of the explosion or how quickly life went on for those who were lucky enough to not be caught up in it.
The building shook, the phones kept ringing and the work kept getting done, like nothing happened. It's kind of amazing what we've become.
Bull
I’m not sure if that reaction is due to human resilience, our ability to compartmentalize, or that we’ve just become numb to the ever present threat of violence.
While everyone else got back to work, Cable just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t so surprising that she was angry at Bull, but it was a bit of a shock when Bull, in turn, became angry with her, and even went so far as to imply he’d fire her.
As he later explained in this Bull quote, it even disappointed him…
I'm a psychologist by trade which implies that I know something about human behavior, which makes it all the more embarrassing when I have no control over my own. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry I threatened your job.
Bull
This episode both worked, and didn’t work, on multiple levels.
First off, even if Cable’s friend was able to crack the deep encryption, we’d be talking about such a huge amount of information that it would take a team of people weeks to go through it.
It appeared that Cable was curious about her boss, and uncovered that Jason Bull had failed his bar exam twice, which led to one of the highlights of the show.
At first I thought this case was going to be about people trying to hide their porn searches, but in the end I enjoyed the way the characters debated how much privacy we can expect, how much we’ve given up, and what losing it means.
Bull: I think the world must have been an easier place to navigate when everything we did, every secret we had, every thing we looked up, wondered about, dreamt about, tried to accomplish, failed to accomplish, give up on, or succeed wasn’t stored forever in one place where someone, maybe even our government can see it and judge it and then use it against us without our permission. Cause you know what happens in a country like that?
J.P.: People stop looking things up. People stop wondering and people stop dreaming. They don't fail. They just don't do anything because when their right to privacy is taken away, their ability to move forward, to reinvent themselves, to imagine something better is taken away too.
Once again, I found Bull and J.P.’s wordplay enticing. They are both opinionated, intelligent, and passionate. It’s obvious they relish the challenge they find in one another.
These two even bring out the fun in the rest of the TAC crew, as seen when Benny quipped about hating when mom and dad fight.
Unfortunately, there was one story issue that bothered me.
Bull said that since he wasn’t an attorney, he couldn’t be held to attorney / client privilege. I’m no expert, but it’s my understanding that if he was working on the case for said attorney, then privilege still applies.
And if Cable’s friend was able to break the encryption, I’m sure the FBI would be able to do the same, and therefore have the same information as Bull’s team.
The other oddity of the case came at the end when Bull said that J.P. was in trouble because her apartment was, in essence, his idea of the perfect home.
Did that mean he wanted to date her, or that he planned to somehow get her to sell it to him?
I like Jason Bull but he can be a little strange sometimes, leaving me to believe that it could be either scenario.
Check back next week for my review of Bull Season 1 Episode 23, the first season finale!
And if you missed anything, you can always watch Bull online here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
