Bull Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Play the Hand You're Dealt
Christine Orlando
at
.
Updated at
.
The TAC team had to play by a new set of rules in Bull Season 2 Episode 5 for a guy nobody liked but Jason Bull.
There's just something about old friends.
Maybe it's the nostalgia for what was, or the shared memories, but there are some friends that can call you decades later and you won't hesitate to answer.
That's the kind of friend Mack was to Jason Bull, but to the rest of the world, as Chunk pointed out in this Bull quote, he was a real jerk.
I don't doubt that he was a great roommate 20 some years ago, but apparently in present day, he's not a very good neighbor. He's the guy with noisy parties in the middle of the week. He's the jerk who curses at your kid on Halloween. He's the jackass at the community pool who rates everybody's wives and girlfriends. Borrows money, doesn't pay it back. Drinks too much, drives too fast, and his music only plays on loud. Everybody hates him.
Chunk
But all it took was one collect phone call from prison and Bull and the TAC team were doing their best to work within the Native American tribal law system to save Mack from being convicted of first-degree murder.
The differences between our regular court of law and the tribal system were intriguing and didn't help Mack's case at all.
Normally, the lack of a murder weapon could have led to a fair amount of reasonable doubt, but in a tribal court, they only had to find that the evidence more than likely pointed to Mack being the guilty party.
That was scary, especially when only seven of the thirteen jurors had to vote guilty to send him away for life.
When Jason turned on Mack during the trial, showing both his disappointment and displeasure with his friend's behavior, I almost couldn't blame Mack for deciding to make a run for it.
Almost. Bull did put up $100,000 of his own money to get Mack out on bail, and even for someone as wealthy as Jason Bull, that's still an awful lot of money.
Marissa: You're a good friend.
Bull: I'm a friend consumed by guilt. Good friends don't pony up this kind of money.
As much as I enjoyed the twist of a trial on reservation land, I still missed Bull and the TAC team working their magic during voir dire. That's always one of my favorite parts of every episode, and I wish they could have found a way to work a bit more of it in here.
The moment they showed that Jose Chaviz was laying concrete for new sidewalks outside of his auto body shop, I figured that's where they would find the murder weapon, although I hadn't quite put the puzzle pieces together about the stolen cars and the chop shop.
I did enjoy how we got little bits of insight into Jason Bull's past, like that he went to the University of Connecticut and ran that underground poker game.
I wonder how Bull would have turned out if he had been the person who got expelled from college if Mack hadn't taken the fall for them both.
Other than missing voir dire, my only real disappointment was Chunk still feeling un-Chunk-like. It feels as though anyone could be delivering his lines and wearing his suits.
What was great about Chunk in Bull Season 1 was that he was different and always had a unique perspective. I want that back.
The b-story of this installment was Marissa and her new boyfriend, Kyle.
Obviously, Jason Bull wasn't thrilled to be meeting Kyle in the first place if he had to give himself a pep talk walking in the front door of the restaurant.
You hope that you're going to like your friends' significant others, but it doesn't always work out that way.
I couldn't even blame Bull for his reaction to Marissa and Kyle because they made me equally ill.
Even if you could get past the constant googly eyes and fawning over one another, it was the touching that drove me mad.
Kyle didn't just hold Marissa's hand; he clutched it like he was holding her there. He didn't merely place his arm around her shoulders; he held her tightly up against him like he was afraid she would flee if he let her go.
But what bothered me the most was that Marissa didn't think for a second that she could have been played as a mark when he left his wallet on the bar for her to find.
Or that instead of handing the wallet over the bartender, or the manager, or the police, she went to a strange man's apartment by herself without considering the possible consequences.
Not only don't I like Kyle, but I also don't trust him.
You tell me, TV Fanatics, am I overreacting about Kyle? Did you like the twist of having a Native American tribal courtroom? And is the lack of the Chunk we know and love distracting you as much as it is me?
Check back for my review of Bull Season 2 Episode 6, and don't forget that you can watch Bull online anytime here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
