Fairly Legal season 2 finale

Cafe Society
1

This question regards Fairly Legal, the TV show on USA network.

For the finale, something is bugging me.

The story starts with Kate mediating a case between two reporters who were fired from their network, and the network exec/lawyer. The stated reason - the two reporters were lesbian coworkers. The claim was it was because there was a case of one being nominally the other’s supervisor, the two women claimed it was bias against them for being lesbians, affecting the network’s image. Oh, and the two women had broken up.

So there’s a quick exchange, and one lady gets her job back, the other doesn’t want her job but wants her work product, which the exec mostly retrieves except for one story she was working on.

So Kate is on the trail to get the records and whatnot for the lady’s last story. And she pokes around in the company’s IT department and finds out they were scanning company accounts, which is why they found out about the sexual relationship. But the real cause of the whole kerfluffle was to bury the story about corruption, and the city government covering up some big money deal.

So here’s what bugged me. The story starts with Kate going off to find the information or whatever in order to make her client happy, but in digging into the story, she ends up dredging up enough secrets that show the current District Attorney (and her ex’s boss) is the culprit behind it. So she uses the material to … well, blackmail is probably strong, but pressure is certainly valid - pressure the DA into dropping out of the current election cycle, which means her ex- is now the only candidate. Thus ensuring victory.

Except, wasn’t the whole point to get info to give to the original client? That seems to have been magically brushed under the rug. Like halfway through the episode, they pulled a misdirection fast one, hoping we’d get so caught up in the shenanigans with Lauren and the billionaire we’d forget there was a redhead who didn’t have her story that she spent a year researching.

Anybody else notice this?
Is this thing on?

2

I’m sure Kate got around to her original client as well. If they didn’t feel the need to show it actually happening, that’s fine with me.

3

Right -

Original client wanted ‘all’ her work back - one story was left out - the order to kill that story came from the DA (couldnt be conclusively proven, due to weasal words, but the evidence was umkay enough) - Kate challenged the DA with a ‘took you down before, watch me do it again’ and that was enough for the DA to step aside.

Since the story did its job - I’m guessing org client was satisfied and likely had the notes as well.

was really a conflicting episode - I liked the ‘wicked witch’ showing she is questionable - there was an ep earlier in this season where she got caught as well - I still don’t know where that is going -

I’m glad this isn’t entirely formula - but I hope they dont have too many arcs and over complicate it.

4

But the whole premise is that Kate is about the win-win. Her client wanted the story notes and info back so she could publish the story. Now Kate might have gotten the DA to resign from the race and thus effectively resign, but that is a far cry from satisfying the reporter. First off, the reporter doesn’t get the story, thus the credit for her year of hard work. She can’t turn that into a Pulitzer, or a resume credit. Second, the DA may have quit, but nobody went to jail. Now I suppose you can say that the billionaire guy took a big hit financially, but what about the folks in that media company? What about public awareness?

Somewhere in this “win-win” Kate lost sight of her client, who seems to have missed out on some “winning”.

This is a TV show - if they didn’t show it, it didn’t happen.

“He’s changed”. They’re just doing that “love is more important than the past” plot. At some point perhaps she’ll learn “no it isn’t”.

I like that they’ve softened the relationship between Kate and Lauren.

I’m rather annoyed by the romantic storylines involving Kate. Her continual on-again, off-again thing with Justin is tiring. The burgeoning thing with Ben is actively off-putting. You know, sometimes people you work with are just jerks, and aren’t going to secretly have a heart of gold that just needs the right touch to bring out, or whatever. Grrr. I’m debating my continued watching of the show.

5

I don’t think that any show in the history of television has ever operated on this principle. A show does its very best to give us all the relevant information that it can in the time it has, but it simply has to leave out a whole lot of stuff. Are you really telling me that, for instance, if two scantily clad characters happily prance toward the bedroom, they didn’t actually have sex if you didn’t get to witness the act in progress? You expect too much.

6

USA hasn’t announced whether this will be back for a third season. If it comes back I’ll watch it, but I don’t think I’d miss it much if it didn’t.

7

I just came in here to say that Sarah Shahi is the hottest TV lawyer ever! :smiley:

8

I was kind of fascinated by the office building housing the law firm in this show. It looks like a neo-classsical or Beaux-Arts building (although i am not an architect) to which they added walls.

9

I realize my statement was a bit too rigid. Certainly things can be suggested or hinted out without being formally shown.

But the point of a TV show is to present to the audience. Assuming things happen off camera is not a standard expectation. If there’s a plot development, it is shown or at a minimum mentioned. Letting something disappear without comment is opening the question, “what about this?” That’s what I’m doing, asking “what about this?”

The whole plot started because poor little miss reporter was getting screwed. At the end of the episode, little miss reporter is still getting screwed. Sure, Kate found out who was doing the screwing, and she used that info to her own (and Justin’s) advantage, but the reporter chick is still screwed.

Unless you expect Kate to hand over all the information she collected, and then Little Miss Reporter to go write her expose, and find a different media agency to come out and expose the DA and the billionaire. I suppose it could happen, but kinda leaves Kate double dealing on her negotiations with both the baddies. Mr. Billionaire shitcanned a whole company and a useful fake ID in order to court Kate’s stepmother. Having all that come out is going to make him a might testy with Kate, don’t you think? Now Mr DA might have a bit harder time, given that the corruption charges could actually lead to criminal investigation of him, but the whole undercurrent of her approaching him and handing him the flash drive was the “I could just go public with all this, but instead I’m giving you a chance”. He complied with her expectations, turning around and dropping the dime on him is … well, I’m not sure exactly how he could go about using it against her, but he would certainly be more motivated.

So it leaves me scratching my head.

10

OK, Irishman, you’ve made a good case. The show probably should have included a quick scene where Kate charms the reporter into letting her use the information as private blackmail material instead of publishing it. (A reporter on a grittier show would laugh uproariously at the thought, of course, but this is a breezy USA series, where the rules are different.) Sure, this doesn’t really fit in with the “win-win” Kate the show started out with, but even a breezy USA series can stand a little character development.