The Judge

[llywela]

And what an isolated figure the Judge cut in this week's episode.

With John estranged from Jo, it occurred to me just how much he relies on having her in his life. Whether they are together as a couple or not, she is his closest friend and confidante, and he just doesn't have her in either capacity at the moment, and is suffering badly as a result.

On the John-Jo dynamic, I have to say that as much as I wanted her to go off with the other bloke last week, just to shake them out of that rut they were in, I wasn't expecting her to do it behind John's back! Which, in effect, she was - she told John that she wanted some space to sort out how she felt. That was her main reason for turning down the case that Charlie ended up taking on, to avoid John. And then while she was taking her space from John, she was blatantly seeing Marc. Bad form.

Charlie was kinda caught in the middle there, once she found out.

Speaking of...Charlie got herself into a right pickle taking on that case, allowing the client to talk her into taking on the role of full barrister without the experience to do the job. A defendent who is an animal rights activist? This is Charlie, and that has always been one of her pet crusades - of course she was going to get emotionally involved! It was almost painful at times, watching her struggling with the case, with no one to really advise her, letting her own feelings about animal rights get the better of her and resulting in inappropriate behaviour in court. And John was way hard on her, suffering as he was from his own emotional isolation and taking professional objectivity a bit too far. A daughter really should not be able to plead a case in front of her own father, and the impact on their relationship demonstrated here is one of the reasons why.

Badness all around, in fact.

This new judge, Morag, is well dodgy, and John is vulnerable at the moment. Whatever Jo's doubts about him - well founded, John being John, but still - he has been completely faithful to her since they got back together, and finding out that she had been with Marc while separated from him hurt him badly. He wanted to marry her...

And even Coop was shirty with him. In the end he had Ian Rochester, of all people, offering him advice about not estranging Charlie. Alterior motives much? But Charlie seemed to come up with the goods in the end, so winning her case was on sound legal ground, surely? There are bound to be repurcussions, though. There always are.


Speaking of the Judge, am a bit cross because the DVD I'd recorded the first episode onto wasn't finalised, and won't play on the new machine. Darn.