Bull Review: Excessive Force (Season 3 Episode 3)

A very real issue is depicted in a not-so-real situation on Bull Season 3 Episode 3, “Excessive Force.”

For the most part, I strongly support TV shows addressing real-life issues. While certain groups urge those with fame or creative license to stay out of politics, they are some with the most power to get us to talk about important topics.

I also support having biases, including my own, challenged. Whether it’s a political controversy or just an argument with a friend, we need to think beyond ourselves to have fair and rational discussions.

However, if we are going to use creative mediums for these discussions, and to challenge ourselves, we do need to reflect true situations accurately through their fictional counterparts. This…doesn’t exactly do that.

To be fair, much of the sentiment of the political nature of the episode is created through the promo for it, and episode and promo are often created by completely different people. Still, any depiction of police brutality is, by nature, political.

I won’t go into detail about my stance here, important as the conversation is, and will try to address this creatively as much as possible. I mostly feel uncomfortable, but not for the intended reasons.

It’s not all bad. I can criticize one-dimensional depictions of certain characters, but also praise main characters being used to promote open and fair disapproval of a problematic situation. Then, though, there’s that ending.

Whatever your feelings, I don’t know of a single violence case where perpetrator and victim are actually in a helter-skelter-like plot to invoke revenge on a city government. If such a thing a thing exists, it’s exceedingly rare.

Besides the need to reflect real events in a somewhat real way, there’s the notion that an essential true topic was brought to creative opportunity—and then used for a typical TV plot twist.

In a different plot, I wouldn’t mind the twist, either. It does have good shock value and shows creative thinking. Unfortunately, this isn’t the place for it.

There are other major questions never addressed as well, like why a woman would be willing to be so destroyed in public, even for the greater good. Without the reveal, our cop would be reviled for exactly what she opposes.

Again, creatively, the episode is actually solid. The writing is good, save for those one-dimensional moments, and the acting is good, even accounting for the limitations the moments bring.

Should Bull stay away from social topics? Not at all. Discussions about mental health in particular (with a couple of exceptions) have shown that the show can use passion to great effect. This effort, though, doesn’t live up to that standard.

It doesn’t help that we also get no mention of Cable here, though we are certainly promised much more on that topic very soon. This episode is all about the case, which makes any issues stand out even more.

There are good intentions wrapped in this episode. With a few changes, they could be put into fruition. Yet when it comes to how they’re applied here, it’s an A for effort—but not such a good grade for execution.

 

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Bull airs Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.

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