Bull season 2 episode 7 review: A surprising verdict … and a happy ending?
At the center of the case tonight was a woman named Lacy Adams who was accused of helping one of her students cheat their way through a standardized test. In terms of the letter of the law, it’s hard to argue against the notion that what she did was wrong. Yet, there is a difference between the letter of the law and trying to do what was, (at least in her mind) the right thing. She wanted to help this kid (Tyler Young) get a good scholarship and have a better life — he was working hard, and she wanted to help him to be the first person in his family to go to college.
So, could she find herself in jail? It was something that Lacy was worried about. The same goes for some other teachers who were also accused of helping their students cheat. Eventually Bull did get an offer from prosecutors — turn over the other teachers, and she in turn could keep her credentials and have no charges filed against her. This was an enticing deal, but of course Lacy didn’t take it. This had to be the least surprising reveal of the entire episode. She’s not the sort of person who would turn over her fellow teachers; because she wouldn’t do this, she ended up losing her legal representation in the process. As it turns out, the teachers’ union didn’t want to waste a ton of time and money on a case when there could’ve been an easy out.
No matter what Bull did in the trial, (with or without a union lawyer) there was one key problem: Lacy did help the young man cheat. She wasn’t lying about that. The problem was trying to figure out a way to prove that she just wanted to help out a young man who was having a bad day. With that, Bull came up with a solution: Having the young man re-take the test in front of the judge to prove that he was more than capable of passing it. Tyler did that, and as a result of that showed that her “necessity defense” was valuable. He did that without a whole lot of time to study!
As a result of that, the verdict came in and she was … guilty? It’s not often that we see Bull lose and witnessing this time was pretty terrible given the circumstances. He did everything that he could, but that still couldn’t turn the tide of the jury. The only thing that he could do was look towards the Mayor in hopes of pardoning Lacy. That didn’t quite work out, but Bull did learn that Lacy was going to get another job elsewhere.
As for Tyler, Bull convinced the Mayor’s Office to find a way to get into a city college so, (regardless of the case) he could have a future. Bull didn’t win the case, but he did still ensure that all parties involved were able to move forward.
The Marissa story
Is her new boyfriend Kyle incredibly caring or incredibly creepy? We’re trying to figure that out based on what we saw on the show tonight. He went through a lot of her records and documents at her home — he wasn’t try to steal her identity or anything, and was instead just out to ensure that she had the architecture set up in order to have a better future.
CarterMatt Verdict
Bull season 2 episode 8 was a pretty powerful indictment on the problems with standardized tests — one bad test at the wrong time can ruin someones life and that’s awful. Cheating is not often the right answer, but the necessity defense this time around was … necessary? You can understand that argument.
Thanks to the final minutes of the episode, Bull did show that it can give Bull a loss without making the show depressing. He was still able to win in the end for the people who needed him most.
What lies ahead on Bull season 2 episode 8?
Take a look at the link here if you do want to preview what’s coming up on next week’s episode — one that will feature an appearance from Archie Panjabi!
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