The Spoon

Shark
episode on 10/12/06

For the life of me, I don't know a single character's name beyond James Woods' (it's Sebastian aka "Shark"). And really, I don't need to know because most of the action swirls around Shark and the latest episode continues that trend. When I do need to identify anyone, say his Assistant District Attorneys, then I refer to them with nicknames.

Assistant District Attorneys:
-The Hispanic Dude - Supposedly he's very well qualified but can't handle the real work environment too well. He seems to screw up about once an episode.

-Blonde Playboy - He's supposed to be a little on the dim side, but his wealthy father got him the position and he seems to do alright with his Playgirl good looks. Something about his face bothers me, though (his bottom lip bends funny, but I guess I'm critical like that).

-The Passionate Mother - This one is also a minority (I think she's African American) and she cares deeply about justice. And she has a small child. Yes, she's boring.

-The Ambitious Blonde - This is one of the more interesting characters and not just because she's good-looking. She's often willing to bend or break any rule to succeed and takes a lot after Shark. However, she's got a soft spot for the Blonde Playboy and signs of jealousy for him are surfacing.

Back to the Plot.

A woman calls in to 911 claiming that she's in danger. When the paramedics arrive they find the woman and a man both shot to death. Their bodies are found on the grounds of a notorious private investigator who has a reputation for dirty dealings.

Shark and his assistants quickly build a strong case against the dead woman's husband. Due to a legal boo-boo their entire case is nearly wiped out (is it just me or does this exact same thing happen in every episode? Just once I'd like to see them do everything right). As they try to regroup, they rely on the private investigator's testimony (who owned the place where the shooting went down).

The PI's testimony goes terribly, but Shark is able to bluff him into giving up the murder weapon's location (apparently he really was involved after all). The dead woman's husband goes to jail and Shark wins again!

Now if you're like me, there's at least one point in every Shark episode where you have to scratch your head and say, "huh?" It's a gimmie that something goes wrong, whether it's a bad legal decision, a witness buckling, or something else, and it usually happens so quickly that I'm spending the next ten minutes trying to figure out what the hell happened. Well, it happened again today. I'd like to tell you when it was, but it confused me so much I can't really say. Somewhere around when Shark realizes that the PI is holding back specific information about the murder. I'm probably not getting any smarter, so I hope future episodes make events a little more clear.

On the intriguing side of things, it comes out that Shark has had previous dealings with the shady PI. Turns out Shark even asked the PI to scare a witness in a previous case and said witness turned up dead. Fortunately for Shark this info doesn't really surface in the courtroom, but that's a heck of a secret to have.

In other news, Shark's daughter is getting friendly with a new boy at the cost of her schoolwork. It even looks like she's going to cheat on a paper to get ahead. I predict that she'll get caught and even though Shark will want to blackmail her teachers (what a cool dad), she'll tell him no, she needs to learn her lesson and so on and so forth. She's way too mature for her own good, although she is cheating.

See y'all next time. (I can't believe I just used "y'all.")