Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Up in Smoke
By Tippi Blevins | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.28.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The common theme this week is fire. Addy is so excited when she signs new clients that she forgets to ask exactly what business they're in. Turns out they're one of those L.A. medical marijuana dispensaries. When the legality of their business is investigated, Addy spends most of her plot trying to put out the figurative fire she started. Things are complicated when the clients send several pounds of pot to the firm and Hart, good guy that he is, pretends it's his. With Malcolm's help, Addy finds the clients' patients, who tell the judge the pot is theirs, so that's one fire smothered. Beth's fire is more literal: she works with Cliff on a class action suit alleging a company's furnaces burned and/or killed 160 people. When her father turns out to be the lawyer on the other side, Beth becomes so rattled that she almost smokes the case. Luckily, she fixes things just in time to win a widow a very fair settlement and pull her own ass out of the fire. Unfortunately, in the process she learns her dad isn't just a scummy father but a scummy lawyer.
In the "flaming loins" category, we have Dylan and Katie's newly flickering romance, which is quickly snuffed when Cliff confesses to his wife Susan that Katie was his mistress. Susan, seemingly more pissed at the embarrassment than the infidelity, has Katie shipped off to work in some Montana office. In the week's silly subplot, Addy accidentally kisses Liam, which somehow leads to him confessing his first kiss didn't happen till he was 18. He's been comparing every kiss with a woman to that first magical kiss ever since. Addy thinks this is romantic and blabs to the whole firm about it, which leads to every woman going up to Liam and planting one on him, trying to see if they can measure up to his first love. Lucky for Liam, every woman at the firm is gorgeous, even if they don't light his fire quite like his first. The last woman to give it a shot is Beth, and although Liam tells her she didn't quite set his heart ablaze, his private expression says otherwise.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!This show isn't canceled yet, so welcome to another week of cute lawyers and no meaningful central character with whom the audience can identify or follow along. We pick up where we left off last week, with Dylan and Katie in a post-coital snuggle in front of the fire, and Cliff Huddle ringing the doorbell. Matt Long and his slightly fuzzy chest are adorable. He's like what would happen if humans and chipmunks were to crossbreed. Cliff, ignored by the lovers inside, starts knocking on the door and calling for Katie. Dylan recognizes his boss's voice and freaks. He's all, "Your ex-boyfriend is our boss, who's married to our other boss?!" He hides while Katie tells Cliff and his bouquet of stargazer lilies to hit the road. Katie's apartment and furnishings are really fabulous. What the hell kind of money do paralegals make? Probably not as much as paralegal mistresses make. Dylan is upset that she didn't tell him, so Katie sends him on his way, too. So much for the afterglow.
The next morning, Cliff and Susan ride up in the elevator, all sly smiles. He's apparently given her the bouquet of stargazers meant for Katie. At least he recycles. They think they're alone on the elevator aside from an oblivious guy with headphones, so they talk suggestively about all the sex they had the night before. Naturally, Dylan is cowering behind the headphones guy, trying to become invisible. He fails, and Susan and Cliff notice him. He nervously promises he didn't hear anything. Cliff presses about him why he seems so nervous. Dude, because he overheard your sex talk! We're meant to be scared for Dylan and think maybe Cliff knows he was at Katie's the night before, but Cliff just wants Dylan to tell Beth to meet him in his office. Dylan is so jumpy that when he gets to his floor, he spills his coffee all over Beth's blouse the instant he darts out of the elevator. Hope her bra was insulated.
In his office, Cliff is meeting with a woman named Anne about a potential class action suit regarding a faulty furnace that's killed or injured 160 people. Beth walks into the meeting covered in coffee. Cliff catches her up on the case: Anne's husband was killed when the furnace malfunctioned and set their house on fire. Beth is going to be second chair with just two hours to prepare for the first suit hearing. Beth has the good grace to wait until she's away from Anne to express her excitement over the case, but Cliff is less than enthused about her "dish rag" of a shirt and tells her to change.