Even as NBC phases out the “Law & Order” franchise, it’s adding “The Firm” (premiered Sunday, continues at 9 p.m. Central Thursdays), a franchise that picks up from the John Grisham novel/movie.
Although I prefer the straight-shooting, headline-ripping “Law & Order” standalones, I don’t flat-out dislike this more serialized show. The opening scene is totally Hollywood, with Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas, taking over for Tom Cruise) running from bad guys while they all wear suits and dress shoes. But once the two-hour pilot episode starts flowing, it begins to reflect the real world of law practice more so than most shows, and it develops a comfortable — if not dramatically satisfying (yet) — vibe.
Mitch — who runs his own law firm with a secretary (Juliette Lewis), his private investigator brother (Callum Keith Rennie from “The Killing”) and welcome input from his wife (Molly Parker from “Swingtown”) — is juggling three distinct cases. Contrasting with the opening scene, “The Firm” settles into a slow burn, spending time on each thread: Mitch is defending a boy who allegedly stabbed his classmate (and almost certainly did), defending a woman who allegedly killed an elderly woman (and almost certainly didn’t) and representing a woman whose mom got a faulty stent installed in her heart.
Also, he attaches his small team to a larger firm so he’ll have the muscle to win the stent case against the big medical company. But that firm wants him as a partner for some other, vaguely nefarious reason (the lead partners, led by Tricia Helfer’s Alex Clark, intimate that they’ll all go to prison if the truth of their motives comes out). Oh, and the McDeeres — who had been in witness protection because Mitch got a Chicago mob boss convicted 10 years ago — are probably being targeted by the mob boss’s son.
It’s almost too much to take in, and I’m not at all a fan of “mob targeting good-hearted lawyer” yarns. Hopefully there will be a twist of some kind there (maybe Mitch and the mob boss’s son will turn out to be great friends or something), but for now I’d argue that “The Firm” doesn’t need that overarching plot element. I suppose it’s too soon to judge the scheming law firm plot, but I’m not crazy about that either.
Aside from the two big plots, the thing that sets “The Firm” apart is that it operates more in the real world than, say, “Law & Order,” where it’s very clear whodunit, and “The Practice,” where the person on trial is almost certainly innocent. As such, Mitch deals with everyday lawyer struggles — he defends the teenage killer zealously, as is his job. But by doing that, he essentially slanders the dead kid in court, which is morally shady. And by upsetting the dead kid’s dad, he inspires the dad to put out a contract on the kid who killed his son. Because he learns about the contract, Mitch must report it, lest he be disbarred. But he thinks the dad is, at heart, a good person who doesn’t deserve to go to prison. What to do?
Mitch’s juggling act between what’s legally right and what’s morally right is something I respect the writers for, yet it’s still kind of bland compared to the bigger-picture, richer thematic drama of “L&O.” But I admit this is a matter of taste.
“The Firm” is boosted a lot by its impeccable casting. There are no cartoonish characters or situations like in a David E. Kelley show, and a fair amount of time is spent on the McDeere family (for example, 10-year-old daughter Claire loves the fact that she is finally making friends; she dreads the idea of having to move again). At the same time, we don’t get the juicy law conundrums and dramatic payoffs like in a Dick Wolf show.
Visually, “The Firm” doesn’t stand out at all. It’s just concrete and nice houses and nice law offices and nicer law offices. I get a vague sense that it takes place in L.A., but I don’t know for sure. If the city is mentioned in the pilot, I didn’t catch it; probably it doesn’t matter.
Overall, “The Firm” isn’t flat-out boring, but it also isn’t particularly exciting, either via twisty plots or rich themes. The probably-innocent-woman plot has a potentially compelling “Murder One” vibe, but the mob-boss and evil-firm stuff feels stale on arrival. And the whole school-ground murder plot comes off as intelligent and realistic yet unsurprising and kind of dull. The fact that it’s so many law shows rolled into one makes it tough — and possibly unfair — to review “The Firm” after just two hours.
For now, this is no water-cooler show, and it probably won’t turn out to be a must-see for me. But for people who love the law genre and Grisham’s work in particular, “The Firm” is a rock-solid entry, and definitely one to keep on your schedule as it figures out what type of show it wants to be.