Summer sleuthing: The Firm season 1, episode 2 rewatch

The Firm was NBC’s imperfect crime drama, but the John Grisham adaptation starring Josh Lucas is worth a summer watch. Return to The Firm episode 2.

With TV crime dramas winding down their seasons, what should genre fans watch over the summer? In our Summer Sleuthing series we’re going back to old favorites, starting with one you probably missed the first time: NBC‘s The Firm.

The Firm was largely ignored when it premiered in 2012. It was a follow-up to the John Grisham movie of the same name, with Josh Lucas assuming the role of lawyer Mitch McDeere. But it was not a lawyer show; it was a crime thriller with strong performances and a few plot twists.

Every week we’ll revisit an episode from The Firm‘s first (and only) season. You can rewatch the entire series on Hulu. This week, we start from the beginning with Episode 2.

The Firm season 1, episode 2: “Chapter Two” (originally aired Jan. 8, 2012)

The second episode of The Firm opens on a rocky note, as Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas) is trying and failing to convince his wife—and the audience—why he’d think about working for another law firm after the last one tried to kill him. Ironically, this show struggles the most when it gets into conspiracy elements similar to those that drove the book and the Tom Cruise movie.

But “Chapter Two” shoves all that aside quickly, in an almost film noir-esque way. Mitch is called back to his tiny office on Larson Avenue, because his client Donnell Heywood is now the target of a murder-for-hire plot. The father of the young man Donnell is accused of murdering just offered one of his construction employees $10,000 if he took out Donnell in revenge. But the man won’t do it, and has come to Mitch to tip him off.

It’s very close to an episode of Oxygen‘s true crime series Murder For Hire, which is what makes it so eerie and so compelling: stories like this do happen.

Mitch wants his brother Ray to pose as a hitman (“Because I’m the only one here with a manslaughter conviction and prison time, you automatically think of me”) in hopes of dissuading Dad, or getting evidence against him. So The Firm sets up its own sting operation with Mitch in the role of the cop. But rather than go to the authorities, Mitch stews in his moral conflict, not wanting to destroy the man’s life because he’s making poor decisions out of guilt.

This is where The Firm shines. It sets up difficult choices for its characters, where there are no clear right answers, and the audience isn’t sure what they’ll do or if they agree with them. There’s a heartbreaking scene where Mitch confronts Dad and the two lay everything on the table; both have valid points, and it’s uncomfortable all the way round.

This episode is a story about families—the defendant’s, the victim’s, Mitch’s—and the way the criminal justice system can grind them down. What is the price of justice, not just for the people directly involved, but the people they love the most?

At least “Chapter Two” eventually comes up with a plausible reason why Mitch McDeere would let history repeat itself. With his back to the wall, intellectually and financially, he makes a deal from Kinross & Clark—in the form of the enigmatic Alex Clark (Tricia Helfer, before Suits and doing great work with not a lot on the page)—in order to access their resources. One of the last scenes proves they’re shady and fills in some gaps from the flash-forward in the pilot, but it’s nowhere near as interesting as the human drama that precedes it.

Next. What happened in Episode 1 of The Firm?. dark

The Firm is available on Hulu, iTunes and Amazon Video.

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