Episode Report Card Kim: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Pilot
By Kim | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.27.2003
Fineman walks down a hall. He spots Grant and Ariel arguing behind a door. Grant walks out and Ariel follows shortly after, trying to pretend nothing happened. Fineman comments, "Consorting with Satan's spawn." Ariel curtly asks what he wants. Fineman has the file she requested, as well as some takeout. Ariel seems emotionally drained as she asks Fineman to leave her alone. She gets on the elevator. Does anyone think he's going to leave her alone? Yeah, me neither.
That night, Jack walks up to his brownstone (a word I can't say without thinking of General Hospital) and finds Riley sitting on the stoop. Riley says he got a phone call from a friend at Triple L saying that Christianson is definitely shutting down the clinic. Jack thinks Christianson is bluffing. Riley says he heard that Jack could have prevented it if he took the job of managing partner. Jack allows that it's true, but insists that it was a setup. A setup for what? Riley is pissed. Jack says that Triple L has no interest in having him manage anything, and that Christianson just wants to use him as "a face man while he mops up the Zero Tech debacle." Well, if you need a face man, you could do a lot worse than Rob Lowe. His face is pretty. Riley yells at Jack to stop thinking about himself for a minute, because they have cases pending and real people to consider. Jack starts to walk off, but Riley pushes him back and adds that he has a family to support. Jack thinks they'll be fine. Easy for you to say, trust-fund boy. Riley wants Jack to tell Christianson that he's changed his mind. Jack refuses. Riley says, "Then why don't you just go down to the county morgue and piss all over Dan Barrington's body! Because it amounts to the same damn thing!" So Jack turns and shoves Riley right into the garbage pile on the curb! Damn, Jack has been working out! Riley really went flying there. Riley gets up and shoves Jack back and yells that Barrington was like a brother to him (and that Jack is "a little trust-fund brat," which I totally called a few minutes earlier). They tussle some more, and Jack says that Barrington was like a father to him. Least effective fight ever, by the way. They're basically just holding each other by the lapels, and then they somehow both stumble and fall into the garbage. Also, who gets in a fistfight while sober past the age of, like, twenty? Jack and Riley both get up slowly, avoiding each other's eyes. Riley starts to walk off, and then stops as if to say something. He changes his mind and walks off, for real this time.