E: Hurray! Are you as thrilled as I am to see the best show on tv back on tv? While not the most jaw dropping episode ever, this week’s effort was smart, well constructed, and featured family drama, courtroom drama, backroom political dealing and some nasty inter-office politics. As usual, the title has multiple levels of meaning; a building goes boom, and more than one relationship. Not to mention the return of Jackie, with a serious conversation that explains quite a bit about Peter.
The episode begins with a scratching pen, and ink curving over paper. Lines curve and intersect. Then there’s a face, hiding behind a counter. The scene quickly shifts to the conference room at Stern, Lockhart & Gardener, where Julius, Alicia and Cary representing a newspaper under suit. The plaintiff is a widow whose husband, Jeffrey Sanborn, died when the newsroom was bombed after the paper ran a cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed being searched at the airport. Boom number one! Julius proffers the insurance company’s pay out – $350,000. The widow, Mrs. Sanborn, says she just found the novel her husband had been writing. It’s beautiful, and all they want to give her is $350,000? Alicia gently interjects that no amount of money can compensate for the loss of a loved one, but money is what they deal in at law offices, and this is the best they can do.
Not so, thinks Mrs. Sanborn. They say you should wait 6 months before making life changes after a significant death. Well, today is six months. She fires her attorneys. And off the elevator comes her new attorneys – a phalanx lead by one swaggering Jonas Stern.
