He was in the episode "Chapter 6" of The Firm and I'm sorry for the delay in posting this, but my life was kind of a mess for a couple of weeks and I didn't have the time to do proper justice to Victor.
Chapter 6:
After the opening reminders of all things past that are important to this episode, we see a man outside Mitch's interrogation room in the future climax time frame. Turns out that it's Mr. Sniffles' boss talking to the detective about Mitch and his association to Mr. Sniffles.
We then jump back to "2 weeks before" and find Tammy and Ray reviewing the shredder puzzle with our hero Mitch.
Note: it is in this scene that I see Victor's name on the bottom of my screen and I practically bounce on my couch.
The Case of the Week is introduced in the courtroom. It's a pretrial hearing for a man accused of burning down a nightclub after getting into a fight while on a date with his wife. The most incriminating evidence is a fingerprint on a can of paint thinner in the men's bathroom.
The witness is Chief Arson Investigator and a forensic analyst. He launches into the details on the fingerprint. Mitch starts trying to poke holes in the print evidence. Partial (not a full print) Latent (invisible and needed to be found with scientific technique) Fingerprint. Matched to the accused with 7 points of comparison (you need much more in many places in the world including Italy). Mitch implicates that the investigator found comparison points because he already had a suspect and that he found what he expected to find. It's not impartial or objective.
The judge (our darling Victor) calls council to his chambers since the court is becoming a little chaotic in this line of argument. He then asks if Mitch has thought of waiving a jury. After the remainder of the conversation Mitch has the strongest feeling (as did I) that Victor was going to let the charges drop because the evidence isn't as solid as it could be. Juries all think the world is CSI and a print is gold, why not let your fate rest in the hands of a Judge who knows the technical aspects and the flaws of the system? Something to think about.
Mitch convinces his client that he's got the thumbs up from Victor and everything will be ok. Client signs waiver and the lawyers go into closing statements. Mitch finishes his statement and Victor is ready to pronounce judgement without deliberation. "Fast is good" says Mitch.
Victor rules as follows:
1st charge - Attempted murder: Not Guilty (yes!!!)
2nd charge - Arson in the first degree: Not Guilty (Woot!!!)
on the "lesser included charge of Assault": Guilty - 8 years in prison (OMG!! WTF!!)
What the hell happened to the "trust Victor" plan? The client is not happy and when Mitch says he'll appeal and fix it, he gets fired. Mitch then goes to see Victor, who says he did not "wink" as Mitch puts it and that his client should be thankful as a trial jury would have convicted of charges 1 and 2.
Mitch thinks there is more to this than meets the eye (no he's not a transformer). He gets Ray to help him look into the situation. Tammy obtains 2 boxes of files from the courthouse and starts going through them to find out what's up with Victor's convictions. Is there a pattern? Ray decides to take the easy route and go visit Victor's opponent in the upcoming election (Victor wants to stay a judge). The opponent tells Ray that Victor has a record for convicting blacks three times more than whites and for longer sentences. This makes no sense though, Mitch's client is white (dun dun dun...).
When Mitch hears this, he has Tammy pull mug shots from all the files for the last 6 months and separate by conviction. The result is that he's skewing his numbers to balance. He's purposefully convicting whites to offset this historical record.
Mitch needs to get him to admit his wrong doing and get justice for his client. This, of course, involves a complex plan.
- Tammy distracts Victor's secretary while waiting for her fiance to arrive so the judge can marry them
- Mitch distracts Victor
- Ray, once Mitch gives him the signal, slips into Victor's office to plant a bug
- Mitch and Tammy continue to distract so that Ray doesn't get caught
- Ray says something stupid to the secretary so that Tammy gets mad and they leave without meeting Victor officially or getting married.
- Mitch confronts Victor again, with the stats and the attitude to back it all up. Victor only incriminates himself after Mitch says that he's not wearing a wire and Victor pats him down. Then Mitch confesses that he wasn't wearing a wire, but Victor himself was! and then the FBI come and arrest him (woot!)
- Mitch is then waiting at the court when his client is released from custody. "I thought I fired you." says the client with a smile.
Family Drama - the 10 year-old wants a cell phone:
Claire is presenting her case to her mother about why she should get a cell phone.
Point 1: she's responsible. Not being argued or debated by mother, but counter argument is that she's still only 10.
Point 2: everyone she knows has one. Counter argument "if everyone jumped off a building?", rebuttal "I wouldn't because if you return to point 1!"
Mitch calls an end to the proceedings and informs Claire that it isn't going to happen.
Abby and Claire have a field trip to the
When time comes for check in, Abby takes roll call and Claire is not present. She freaks out and approaches a security guard for help. Claire was in one of the exhibit rooms. What Abby doesn't find out is that Claire was approached by a mob guy while there and they had a little chat.
Abby decides a cell isn't that bad of an idea now. She runs out early the next morning and picks one up. I have to ask, from where? School hasn't started yet, it's obviously early, what store is going to be open to sell her a pink phone for her daughter? and set it up on a plan? and install a phone book of contacts? *eye roll*
Claire is super happy about it though.
Conspiracy Case:
Ray and Tammy talk to Mitch about the shredder puzzle, they try to figure out how/why Sarah Holt had that list. Tammy then realizes that the puzzle isn't finished. The paper doesn't match the 8.5x11 dimensions so there must be some pieces missing. She gets them from Ray while he's calling the military to find out if Sarah served her country anywhere.
Once finished, she finds an ISP# on the paper and does a reverse look-up to find that the info came from Nobel Insurance which is a parent company to Holt's workplace. Turns out the Nobel mainframe was accessed by Holt's laptop and they had some of the browser history in the tiny bit of hard drive that was saved. She then sets up a meet for Mitch with their IT department to find out how the information got out. The group is now thinking that Sarah may not be innocent after all but they need to know.
At Nobel, Mitch is supposed to meet and IT department head but ends up in a conference room with 2 VPs. Mr Sniffles and his boss from the opening sequence. They are not very helpful. They don't know what's up or how this could have happened. They don't have record of any security issues and thank you for coming.
As Mitch is leaving, Mr Sniffles gives him a brochure with a paper inside (family McDeere calls it "the document") with numbers on it. While trying to decipher the document, Abby calls the insurance company claiming the rest of the group are paranoid. Mr Sniffles flips out on the phone and hangs up. Maybe not so paranoid after all.
We then jump forward to the interrogation room again and Mitch has a flash history moment and what I assume are key moments flash by before the episode end.
Next week: we get Chapter 7 which would be 1 week prior to climax. As we get closer I really want to see what they do. Will they drag it out? or will they hit climax and resolve nothing? I can't wait to find out.
Victor my darling: You played a jerk and a crook, but I loved the way you did it. See you next time you guest on one of my faves!!!
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