Frustrating and fascinating were the two words that came to mind during Bull Season 2 Episode 7, because it made clear that even intelligent, good-hearted people can make very stupid decisions. 

In this case, the folks making the choices were Marissa, Bull, and Lacey Adams.

Lacey was a good teacher. Heck, Lacey was a great teacher, but she used poor judgment on more than one occasion. 

First off, changing the answer on Tyler Young's test was wrong. Yes, it may have been doing the wrong thing for the right reason, but it's still the wrong thing. 

What would Lacey have done if she hadn't had access to that test? Petitioned for Tyler to take it over due to extenuating circumstances? Asked Hudson College to allow him to try again for the following semester? 

I know that this was a kid desperate to make his life better, but if that makes it okay to cheat, then where do we draw the line?

The part of Bull's strategy that I enjoyed was the Machievelian test. I'm tempted to look it up online and see if I can take one myself. 

I also appreciated that Gwen claimed to have scored in the 30s but actually got a 91. I can't imagine there is a working attorney who  believes that honesty is the best policy no matter what the circumstance; they simply wouldn't be very successful at their job. 

I also like how Bull pegged the first of the two reasons that the mayor asked him to take the case...

There are far more teachers who vote in elections than district attorneys.

Bull

• Permalink: There are far more teachers who vote in elections than district attorneys.

And the teachers' union, especially in New York, wields a great deal of power. 

What annoyed me more than anything was the giant unanswered question. 

Lacey may have changed one answer on a test to help one kid, but why were the other five teachers changing the answers on 800 tests?

Most likely because their job performance and raises were tied to those test scores, so they were cheating for their own benefit, not the students. 

And yet, Lacey refused to testify against them.

In my opinion, Lacey was a fool.

The District Attorney offered to drop all charges after she'd already confessed, give her back her teaching credentials, and make sure that Tyler got into Hudson College. 

That wasn't just a win for Lacey, but for Tyler as well, and yet Lacey turned it down because she felt bad about testifying against her colleagues. 

These were the same colleagues who had no problem letting her take the fall for them. 

I completely understood Gwen's frustration and why she withdrew from the case in this Bull quote...

Gwen: I'm withdrawing from the case.
Lacey: You're what?
Gwen: Our Union is happy to come to the aid of our members when they've been wrongly accused of a crime. We're even happy to help when they've admitted to a crime, when we think there are extenuating circumstances that will impact the lives of working teachers. I am not about to spend our very limited time and resources on what I now realize is a suicide mission.

• Permalink: Our Union is happy to come to the aid of our members when they've been wrongly accused of a...

That's exactly what this was because they had no hope of winning from the start. I couldn't understand why Bull didn't see that, especially when Lacey was gambling with ten years of her life.

Lacey did the wrong thing, she even admitted to it, and that's why the jury found her guilty. 

But Lacey got lucky. The judge was incredibly lenient, and whether she knows it or not, her rich father was pulling strings to give her the best possible outcome. 

Tyler was lucky as well because he had Bull strong-arming the mayor's office to help get him into college. I only hope that Tyler's family issues don't keep him from his college classes the same way they kept him from that extremely important test. 

What is it about what we do that makes it so hard to trust people?

Marissa

• Permalink: What is it about what we do that makes it so hard to trust people?

The most confounding part of this entire episode was Marissa. 

Kyle is a smarmy conman. 

I think most of the audience realized that right from the start, yet Marissa, an otherwise intelligent woman, couldn't see it. 

For a while, that was okay. Kyle was attentive, and affectionate, in a cloying sort of way, and Marissa was all wrapped up in her new lover because there was no obvious reason to question his attention. 

But finding the guy going through her personal financial papers in the middle of the night wasn't just a red flag, it was practically a blaring alarm with flashing lights. 

Even if his story about looking out for Marissa because he's "a money guy" were true, it would still be horribly condescending and a violation of her boundaries and privacy. 

But we all know that's not why he was going through her papers. He was trying to figure out exactly how much he could take her for with his real estate scheme. 

I guess that he may have thought that Marissa was worth more and that's why he's put the time into this relationship, but now that he's realized he can only get 75 grand out of her, it's time to cash out and move on to the next mark. 

Is Marissa that lonely that she's willing to let herself be taken in by this lowlife, or is she indeed that gullible? 

Either way, it made me ill to think that she was headed off to apologize to Kyle and thank him for his help. 

We all know, this won't end well. 

What do you think TV Fanatics? 

Were you surprised that Bull didn't encourage Lacey to take the deal? Would you have taken it in her place? 

If you were on the jury would you have found her guilty?

And is Marissa headed for heartbreak and financial disaster?

Check back next week for my review of Bull Season 2 Episode 8, and until then, you can watch Bull online here at TV Fanatic.

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