'The Firm' Chapter 6 Recap

On Thursday's episode of The Firm, Mitch McDeere is pacing around a mirrored examining room asking for his phone call. In episode five Mitch was arrested for the murder of Martin Moxon, who had jumped to his own death several episodes before.

Then, we bounce back two weeks to the 'present' to see Mitch, his brother Ray and Ray's girlfriend Tammy in the McDeere kitchen talking about their client Sarah Holt's case. This is the hardest part for viewers to grasp. Jumping back and forth through the show's timeline increases the tension but can get confusing.

Three big things happened in this episode, which is finally starting to catch up with the flash-forwards viewers have been struggling with.

Mitch's daughter Claire takes on mom and dad lawyer-style, arguing for her first cell phone. On a class trip to a museum, Claire is three and a half minutes late meeting up with the group. Abby fears she has been kidnapped by mobster Joey Morolto, and caves in. Claire is clearly the happiest 10 year old on the planet even though her phone is "Just calls for now, we'll work up to texting." Why a 10 year old needs to text is a bit beyond me. Perhaps failing to mention the creepy Morolto thug chatting with her in the museum was part of Claire's plan to score her cell phone. Abby would be relieved to hear Joey Morolto telling his henchman to stand down and wait to take out the McDeere's, though maybe a jump back into witness protection would follow.

Meanwhile, Mitch is assigned yet another new case for a man accused of burning down a nightclub. With yet another judge, this time Walter Dominic played by Victor Garber, Mitch is talked into waiving a trial by jury. He accepts, and gets screwed when Dominic finds the man not guilty of arson or manslaughter but sends him to prison for eight years for assault. Team McDeere discover Dominic is padding his conviction statistics ahead of judicial elections since he's been sending boatloads of black men to prison and not many others. Mitch and Tammy provide well-timed distractions while Ray plants a bug on the judge's suit jacket and an unapologetic confession gets Dominic dragged off by the FBI.

But the big moment comes when Mitch finally meets Martin Moxon, a vice president at Noble Insurance. Working on client Sarah Holt's case, Tammy and Ray discover an IP address at the bottom of the shredded page, leading them to Noble's IT department. Word spreads of Mitch's impending visit, and he is greeted by two VPs instead of the IT technician he expected. Moxon and his colleague make it clear Mitch will not only be refused access to records of Sarah Holt's movements on the Noble network, but the company will be completely unhelpful. Until Moxon slips Mitch a list of numbers hidden inside a life insurance pamphlet.

As the episode ends and we return to the future where Mitch is in custody, it's definitely curious that Moxon is blowing the whistle on his own company quickly, quietly, and with little reserve. After all, he doesn't know Mitch and could just as easily have decided he isn't trustworthy.

There is clearly something fishy with Sarah Holt's case. She knows the old woman had gone through a stack of nurses and what their names were. She had been poking around lots of places she didn't belong (like life insurance patient files) and acquired an intense, neurotic neatness, the origin of which will hopefully be a key in her involvement with Kinross and Clark. Really I'm just curious what is so toxic that Martin kills himself to escape and why he practically frames Mitch in the process.

Maybe fans of the books will be a bit more clear with what's going on. The next episode airs February 11th, as The Firm is getting bumped to a Saturday night slot starting this week.