Resistance is Futile (For Less)

Egads. Where do I start?

Are Oliver Stone and Michael Moore writing scripts for Law and Order now? Oh wait, they can't be. Their stuff, even when fully laden with bullshit, is still entertaining.

I don't think I've ever reacted to any LaO episode like this before, but last night's outing "Bottomless," SUCKED. Pure and simple.

The point of the story is ironically laid out by one of the top executives of a big, evil corporation, Savings-Mart (a thinly disguised send up of Wal-Mart) when he asks McCoy if the D.A's office trying to make a big splash by prosecuting "big, evil corporations."

The episode starts off loosely based on the real life event where a Judge sued a family dry-cleaning business for $67.3 million because they lost his pants. In the LaO version, the litigant in the case, aptly named Wiggins, only wants $20 million.

The defense attorney for the owner's of the cleaning store is found beaten to death. She happened to be holding onto a pair of pants that would be exculpatory for her clients. Those were stolen from the crime scene. So, initially, the detectives are looking at Wiggins as the chief suspect.

However, this parable of our litigious society quickly morphs into an indignant statement against corporate greed.

Because of a horrible mix-up, the pants, it turns out, weren't Wiggins' after all. Instead, they belonged to a male Savings-Mart executive, Derek Cahill, who was having a torrid affair with a co-worker at the retail giant, Rachel Monroe. The theory of the crime is that he killed the lawyer to get back the his pants out of fear that his dalliances with a fellow employee would get him fired from Savings-Mart. Whew, let me catch my breath.

We learn that Savings-Mart's Code of Conduct explicitly prohibits such fraternization and to uses a Kafkaesque network of private security people who engage in Gestapo-like tactics of observation and intimidation to enforce those rules. Savings-Mart also keeps biometric data in EVERY employee's file (sounds expensive). There's even a 1-800 "Integrity Hotline" that employees can call if they see co-workers violating company guidelines. Sort of like Sarbannes-Oxley meets George Orwell.

Enter former police Inspector Fuller. He was a mentor to Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) and has retired after thirty years on the force to become a field agent for Savings-Mart. Part of that role involves investigating moral infractions.

Fuller cracks the case when he goes into Cahill's apartment and finds the missing pants. Monroe sent them to the dry cleaners because they, ahem, had her lipstick on them (if only Monica Lewinsky was so fastidious). When Fuller turns the slacks over to detectives at the station, they still stained with the girlfriend's lipstick and the murdered defense lawyer's blood.

Of course, since there was no search warrant, we would expect the Cahill's attorney's to make a motion to have the slacks (no pun) removed from evidence. And, of course, they do.

What is surprising is McCoy's reaction. Instead of being mad at the judge for considering the motion (which he would be in any OTHER episode), he's mad at the Savings-Mart "police" because their "agents of a multinational corporation that makes up it's own laws."

AAAAAAGH

McCoy is LIVID throughout the episode and let's loose several emotional outbursts against the discount retailer that seem more at home on some lunatic's "Wal-Mart Sucks" blog than a LaO episode.

The story gets more complicated when it's revealed that Cahill, ever the bean counter, bought toothpaste from a Chinese company which it turns out happens to be laden with radiator fluid (also ripped from today's headlines). I wonder if the writers were giving each other "high fives" over the irony of having the episode start at a small, honest Chinese business (dry cleaners) and end at a giant, shady one. Okay, now I'm just being nasty.

Cahill makes a clandestine deal with the Savings-Mart honchos. If they help him get out of the murder charge, he'll keep quiet about the toothpaste which has now found it's way into nursing homes and children's daycare centers (twirling my handlebar moustache fiendishly).

Fuller lies on the stand about the circumstances under which he found the pants to get them thrown out as evidence.

"Savings Mart believes all murderers should be freed so they can shop?" cries McCoy whose demeanor suggests that he's going to be complaining about flouridated water next.

Certainly the issue of tainted Chinese products and Wal-Mart's questionable business practices has been the subject of a lot of news stories lately. But bails and bails of hay are used to construct the straw man of this episode. Had I wanted to watch that sort of law show, I'd tune into Boston Legal or rent reruns of LA Law.

In the last ten minutes, Savings-Mart's complicity with Cahill unravels. Fuller is called back to the stand. On his way up the courthouse steps, Van Buren shames Fuller into finally being more truthful.

In a courtroom climax that plays out more like a Perry Mason finale, Fuller does indeed redeems himself on the stand. All the while he stares down the socially irresponsible Savings-Mart executives who, for some unknown reason, have chosen to be in the gallery.

Oh, I know why they're there. If they weren't sitting in the gallery, Fuller couldn't glare at his evil employers when he utters the dramatic line "I quit."

Sigh. So do I.