Have you ever completely forgotten that you’d programmed a certain show for a series recording, only to have a new episode show up on your DVR, seemingly from out of the blue? I had that experience on Friday with the season premiere of USA Network’s ‘Fairly Legal’. Honestly, I didn’t even realize that the show was already coming back for another season.
As you may recall, the series stars Sarah Shahi (‘Life’) as spunky legal mediator Kate Reed. She’s not a lawyer; she’s the person who tries to negotiate between lawyers and clients so that cases don’t have to go to trial. When her father died, Kate took a position in his law firm under the direction of her ice-queen stepmother Lauren, who is the same age as Kate. They had a rocky relationship, and the season ended with Kate getting fired.
The Season Two premiere ‘Satisfaction’ picks up a month later. Kate doesn’t accept being fired, so she shows up at the office one day and worms her way into mediating a new case. When Lauren confronts her, Kate reveals that she’s acquired enough company stock that Lauren can’t oust her. Thus, the previous status quo is conveniently restored.
The firm is struggling. In these tough economic times, many of its biggest clients have gone bankrupt. In what could be a hugely important case, a big company has retained the firm to defend it from a class action lawsuit. If all goes well, another powerhouse law firm with ties to the company may partner up with Reed & Reed and provide some much-needed capital. I think that’s the gist, anyway. The exact details were a little confusing to me.
Of course, rather than help sweep the class action case under the rug, Kate sympathizes with one of the plaintiffs, an old man whose cancer may have been the result of the company knowingly exposing its employees to carcinogenic chemicals. For some reason, she also gets flirty-flirty with the plaintiff’s annoying attorney, named Ben Grogan (Ryan Johnson, ‘Ghost Rider’).
Long story short: Kate helps reveal that the company’s CEO really did know about the chemicals, and blows the settlement deal, thus also destroying the potential partnership with the other law firm. However, douchebag Grogan, who is apparently a super-successful ambulance chaser, falls for her and steps in save the day. He’s going to be her new partner and a series regular.
In a side story, Kate’s ex-husband and occasional boyfriend Justin (Michael Trucco) decides to run for District Attorney against his own boss (Esai Morales), which I suppose gives him an excuse to continue being on the show even though Kate now has a new romantic interest.
In all, ‘Satisfaction’ is a pretty typical episode of the show. It’s light and breezy, and reasonably entertaining, but it’s not really compelling enough that I would normally keep a series recording going. However, Mrs. Z likes it, so I guess that I’ll continue to record.
