Bull: Season 1/ Episode 1 "The Necklace" [Series Premiere] – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

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Overview

Another show dealing with lawyers in and out of courtrooms and our protagonist using their eccentric team to get the verdict they want. Sounds like it could be boring right? Well, remix the situation with the protagonist being a psychologist and not a lawyer, and watch as even minor characters are analyzed and given personality. Leading to this feeling that no one was just suddenly made up but each character had a life before we met them, and will after they left the focus of the camera.

Main Storyline

Dr. Jason Bull (Michael Weatherly) helps lawyers and their clients analyze juries using both body language and by digging into their past both through legal and illegal methods. With that, he has seemingly created a lucrative business in guiding lawyers in what to do, what to say, even how to prep their clients, in order to get the results they want. But, in order to get the type of verdict he wants, sometimes he doesn’t have to rely on computations. For something in his past has led him to easily be able to hone on what someone is feeling, and that is the chink in the armor of a respected, confident, and sometimes pompous Dr. Bull.

Highlights

As noted in the overview, one of the main things which will likely draw you into the show is as good as everyone seems at their job, and how confident they seem, there is something in nearly everyone’s performance, from those we’ll see throughout the series to just the first episode, which seems they are hiding something. For Dr. Bull he is read, in slang terms, by a juror who sees in his eyes and notes in how he does his profession, he is good at what he does because of some childhood trauma. Then, when it comes to Dr. Bull’s support staff, even though they all have your usual eccentric personalities, odd connections to Dr. Bull, like one being his ex-brother in law, they don’t seem like they were screen tested, modified to be a certain way, and etc. Granted, we don’t learn much about most of them besides one or two’s former professions, but like with Dr. Bull something just draws you to them leading you to want more.

Which, also as noted, goes for those who take part in the episode as well. Be it through Dr. Bull’s team shifting through a juror’s or client’s lives through any means necessary, or through the jury speaking to Dr. Bull, at least in terms of what he thinks they are thinking, we are given insight into these people, they become more than a face, and it leads to some comical moments. Making it so, after the first episode, there is this feeling that anyone who spoke, they have to be reoccurring right? We aren’t just going to have them affect us and never see them again right?

Like, just for the first episode, Brandon Peters (Luke Slattery) comes off like this privileged kid who is made to love to hate. However, through Dr. Bull, and Slattery’s performance, you almost cry for the kid in the end. Even though there isn’t anything drastically jaw dropping about what he says.

Low Points

The main issue to find with this show, though mind you I’m speaking about the first episode when I say this, is some of the unnecessary dramatics. Of which, in the premiere, the dramatics come back to back. First, it is a character throwing a tablet at a lawyer because his question upset her, and then there is Brandon’s father getting shot. Which, pretty much after the commercial break, is slightly swept under the rug. At least in terms of all the energy generated from two moments which felt out of place with the tone the show had before they happened.