Ep 40: Blast From The Past - Part 1

When repo men take furniture from Wyeth & Associates’ office, Joni is forced to go to Adie for a loan to keep the practice afloat. Adie reluctantly agrees, provided David and Joni reduce overheads by cutting staff. Joni tells David he has to fire Matt, but finding the right moment proves difficult, when Matt’s car is blown up – luckily without Matt in it.

Matt says he has no idea who did it, but James is suspicious, senses Matt’s hiding the car-bomber’s identity from the police.

Maddy is given the cold shoulder by David. He makes other excuses, but Maddy’s no fool and senses that the real reason is David’s unresolved feelings for Joni.

Joni, desperate to make her marriage to Kees work, tells David that what happened between them at the end of the previous episode was just a supportive hug between colleagues. David tries to respect her wishes, even though he thinks Kees was having an affair with Sadie before she was killed. David says nothing to Joni, but questions Kees as to whether the affair clouded Sadie’s judgement on the day she was killed. Kees is freaked – thinks David will tell Joni about Sadie. He decides to show her the video of he and Sadie in bed. Joni is furious, but eventually believes Kees that nothing happened.

Kees and David are meantime both trying to pressure Matt into telling them what he knows of the car-bomber. Matt knows it’s a vengeful Charlie Clark, an old-style criminal just out of jail. Matt feels protective of Charlie because he became part of Charlie’s family, yet still had to testify against Charlie and put him away….And there was another complication. Matt fell for Charlie’s beautiful daughter, Linda, who is still in jail.

When Matt visits Linda in jail to implore her to tell Charlie to back off, he finds that Linda has become a junkie while inside. And she blames him. Matt is consumed with guilt, as he finally realises why Charlie is after him.

Ep 41: Blast From The Past Pt 2

(Continuing story from Ep 40)

Joni lies to Adie that they’ve fired Matt, but David can’t bring himself to sack Matt when Matt is under so much stress. Instead, he tries to pressure Matt to tell the cops what he knows about the car-bomber – and Matt seems to agree.

Meanwhile. the District Commissioner offers Kees a promotion to a desk job, but while Kees isn’t sure, Joni sees the regular hours as the salvation of their marriage.

Instead of going to the cops, Matt confronts Charlie, tries to make peace. Charlie is scathing, tells Matt that jail broke Linda, turned her into a junkie. Matt offers to help, but Charlie rejects him as a traitor.

Matt looks for Linda finds her in heroin overdose and rescues her, but she later takes more and dies. Charlie is distraught at his daughter’s death and kills the dealer who sold to her.  Matt realises what’s happened, tells David he’s worried now that Linda’s dead, Charlie has nothing to live for – he won’t be just trying to scare Matt anymore, he’ll be out to kill him for destroying Linda. David gets angry, and finally persuades Matt to tell the police about Charlie… But he still can’t fire Matt, to Joni’s chagrin.

Joni is having better luck with Kees, persuading him that the promotion to Inspector and a desk job would be a good idea.

Meanwhile, Matt gets tired of being baby-sat by the police and asks to see the District Commissioner, his old boss. Matt puts a plan to the District Commissioner, and –

That night goes to Linda’s fresh grave to pay his respects…And is followed by an armed Charlie Clark.

 

Episode 42: Blast From The Past Pt 3

(Continuing story from Ep 41)

Matt has put Charlie Clark back inside – and when David finally gets around to firing him, Matt resigns first, telling David he’s been offered his old job back at the police.

Joni’s new client is Wendy, a gossip columnist facing a libel suit for writing that Rory Melville was a sexual harassser. David warns Joni it could get dirty, has she got the balls for a case like this?  Rory persuades Maddy, who resigned when Rory harrassed her, to represent him. Maddy is disgusted, but is down on her luck and agrees – for a big fee.

Joni  struggles through the court case, keeping her newly-discovered pregnancy a secret and battling morning sickness. It does get dirty. Wendy confesses she had an affair with Rory years ago when she was his client, but refuses to let Joni use that information against Rory, because she doesn’t want her present husband to find out.

Joni gets home to Kees and breaks down in tears. Kees’ promotion has become even more important, now she thinks she might be pregnant. She’s about to tell Kees, when he tells her the looming inquiry into Sadie’s death on duty is likely to scupper any promotion, if he’s found to be culpable.

Joni is fearful that Kees’ sense of honour will see him take the blame and tells David that if Kees does that and ruins his chance of promotion, she fears for her marriage. Instead of taking advantage, David does the noble thing, and blames himself for Sadie’s death when he gives evidence to the inquiry. Kees is exonerated, but…

Kees is shattered when the District Commissioner tells him the promotion has gone to none other than Matt Urlich. Joni is also upset when she hears the news just as she’s about to step back into the libel case at a critical juncture – and decides, what the hell, she’s going to take her own client to the wire, even if it means they crash and burn.

 

Episode 43: Juice Pt 1

Joni, determined to prove she has balls, puts Wendy on the stand as a hostile witness and forces her to reveal her past relationship with Rory Melville. But when Maddy challenges her, Wendy’s emotional outburst destroys her credibility, and Joni’s case looks to be ruined.

Conflict escalates between Kees and Matt, when Kees, feeling sidelined, questions Matt’s strategy and is sent on surveillance outside a known drug venue, the Endorphin Club.

At a low ebb, Joni tells David that Maddy is acting for Rory. David tells her he’s surprised, considering Maddy told him Rory had sexually harrassed her. Joni, acting on Adie’s advice, introduces this as new evidence, putting Maddy on the stand. Maddy, furious with both Joni and David, has no option but to try to protect Rory, especially when he offers her a profit share if they win.

Meanwhile, rugby league stars with the Troopers team, Alby and his brother Tomas, are arrested for fighting in the Endorphin Club and blood tests reveal Alby takes anabolic steroids. David maintains that’s not illegal and accuses Kees of blackmail when he’s told it will still go on Alby’s record and will finish his career.

When another Troopers player has a heart attack caused by steroids and methamphetamine use, Kees concludes that Alby is dealing speed as well as steroids and organises a raid on his house – and traces of methamphetamine are found. David and James make a connection between the Team Coach and the steroid Alby was found to have taken – the particular steroid is used on horses… and the Team Coach has a stud farm.

Battling her morning sickness, Joni cross-examines Maddy about her messy relationship with Rory and does enough to convince the Judge that Rory is a sleazebag who deserves one dollar in damages. Wendy is delighted and so is Joni – she’s toughed it out and won. She and David share a moment of triumph.

 

Episode 44: Juice Pt 2

(Continuing story from Ep 43)

Joni is worried that she has no clients and all of David’s – as usual - seem to be non-payers. She gives Adie, who has lent the firm money, an optimistic cashflow projection. Adie’s drinking too much and can’t understand why Joni won’t join her.

At the stake-out of the Endorphin Club, Kees spots the blonde woman again with Alby, the league star. Concluding she’s a drug dealer, he catches up with her at the gym and arranges to buy speed. Then finds out she’s an undercover cop. Kees is furious at Matt for not telling him, and when Joni, concerned about having a child while Kees is in the front line, pushes him to appeal Matt’s promotion, Kees agrees.

Meanwhile, David’s client, league player Tomas, Alby’s brother, has tested positive for steroids, but denies he’s taken any. David and James suspect the Coach at the Troopers club is spiking the player’s drinks, but the Team Doctor won’t give evidence against his employer. David takes his steroid spiking theory to Kees, but the police aren’t interested in steroids, unless they’re connected to the speed ring they suspect Alby is involved in.  But David gets Tomas off, when the Team Doctor makes a surprising U turn and agrees to give evidence on Tomas’ behalf that steroids can occur naturally in some people.

Under pressure from Kees, Matt has introduced him to the blonde undercover cop – Ange Watson. Ange tells them the big speed deal is going down that night at the Endorphin Club. That night in the surveillance van, Kees sees Ange come into the club with Alby. Kees mis-reads the situation and tries to warn the cops, but in doing so blows their cover. One of the cops is shot, and Ange and Alby take off. When Matt bawls Kees out for blowing the operation, Kees is livid and accuses Matt of being so paranoid that he’s put Ange’s life in danger – she’s out there with the criminals and her cover’s blown. Matt punches Kees, who tells Matt he’ll keep.

Meanwhile, Ange tries to comfort Alby in a motel. Alby’s distraught that a cop’s been shot, when all he’s been trying to do is protect his little brother Tomas. Just as they kiss, there’s a knock on the door.

Episode 45: Juice Pt 3

(Continuing story from Ep 44)

The knock at the motel door signals the arrival of the mysterious speed ring Mr Big. He tells Alby the bust at the Endorphin Club was set up by an undercover  cop. Ange, hiding in the bathroom, hears Mr Big, but doesn’t see him, as Alby takes him outside..

Alby refuses to believe that Ange is a cop and she allays any doubts by seducing him. But in the early morning he takes off. As soon as he’s gone, Ange calls for help and escapes just in time as one of Mr Big’s henchmen arrives to take her out.

Alby way-lays David on the street and tells him the whole club is on drugs and pleads with David to save Tomas. When David asks Alby if he gave Tomas drugs, Alby attacks him and warns him to keep out of it – “these people are dangerous” – before disappearing. Alby’s advice seems to be confirmed when another Trooper player dies in hospital after a heart attack and the post-mortem finds huge quantities of performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals.

When Alby hears on the radio that his brother Tomas is playing in the big game despite his injured shoulder, Alby knows that Tomas is being given the needle and storms into the Troopers club to save his brother. Alby catches the Team Doctor in the act and is about to kill him, when Kees and David intervene. Alby and the Team Doctor admit the link at the Troopers between speed and performance-enhancing drugs, but neither will reveal the identity of the Mr Big. When Ange goes back that night to Alby’s cell to  persuade him to give her a name, she makes a shocking discovery.

Joni, meanwhile, convinced that Kees will get promotion off the front-line, buys some baby’s booties on the way to meet Adie for a drink.  But Kees decides present satisfaction is worth more than future promotion , and punches Matt out.

Ange is driving home, reeling from shock, when she sees a car crossing the centre-line in front of her. She pulls the car over and interviews the driver – Adie, drunk and.abusive.

Episode 46: OFFICER DOWN PART 1

Adie, stopped by Ange Watson for drunk driving, tries to use her position as a judge to get off the charge. But Ange doesn’t buy it and lodges a complaint. Joni tells Adie she has a drinking problem, but she denies it. Joni refuses to represent her and recommends David, who is already representing a young man on a hit and run charge.

Joni calls Kees, wanting a heart-to-heart and he promises to go straight home. But tragedy intervenes and Kees doesn’t make it home. Joni sees a news report about a police officer dead and rushes to police station, distraught, thinking it’s Kees.

Maddy, furious, blames David for losing her first case.  He admits he told Joni what Maddy had told him about Rory harrassing her. David tells Joni even though she dropped him in it with Maddy, he approves of her new ruthlessness. It’s good for business.

A businessman, Barry Roberts, reports his car stolen. It’s the one driven by the gang members who shot Mike Butterworth and was later found to contain traces of methamphetamine. Kees, determined to find who killed Mike, senses something suspicious about Roberts and vows to get him.

Roberts calls Joni to be his lawyer but when she finds out his connection to the cop killing, she’s uneasy. David tells her they need the money, so they work out a strategy.

Kees and Joni finally talk. He says he’d like kids but not now, so she doesn’t tell him she’s pregnant.

David defends the hit and run case and is surprised to be followed by a TV crew. Then he finds out that the victim has died.

Episode 47: OFFICER DOWN PART 2

(Continuing story from Ep 46)

Kees pleads with Joni not to represent Barry Roberts, who he believes is the cop killer. “Of all the lawyers in the city, why you?” This is the question Joni is forced to face when she realises that Roberts has been ordered to have her as his lawyer. But by whom?

David asks Matt and Kees who’s tipping off the media in his hit and run case. Seems odd.

After running from an AA meeting, Adie drinks and drives again. This time she hits something and is thrown into panic when she hears on the news that a homeless man has been injured and she sees blood on her car.

Joni makes a major decision, realising that if she does defend Roberts, Kees will feel betrayed and their marriage will be over. David believes that as defence lawyers they can’t pick and choose the types of criminals they represent and he agrees to take over the case. But Roberts doesn’t want David.

Kees is severely beaten when he tries to arrest the two men who killed Mike Butterworth. When he tries to extract his revenge on them, Ange is horrified and intervenes.

With help from Maddy, David finally gets Matt and Kees to drop the charges in the hit and run case. Matt putting his career on the line, makes a television statement about it.

Kees is delighted to learn that Joni is not defending Roberts and realises she’s made a big sacrifice for him. Tipped off by Ange that perhaps Joni’s talk of babies is more than just talk and feeling loving and buoyant, he buys flowers, only to arrive home to news that absolutely devastates him - Joni has terminated her pregnancy.

Episode 48: OFFICER DOWN PART 3

(Continuing story from Ep 47)

When Kees asks Ange to turn a blind eye to his beating up Billy, the young prisoner, she refuses and orders him to go home. She is furious. Then Billy confesses to her that he shot Mike Butterworth.

David receives a call from someone saying he’s Billy’s uncle, asking him to be his defence lawyer. Billy won’t tell David who beat him, but when he is clearly afraid Kees might return, David realises the awful truth and files a complaint against Kees.

When David tells Adie about a procedural oversight which may get her off the drink-drive charge, she leaps at the opportunity, in spite of David’s warnings of consequences. Later, David discovers that Adie hasn’t been entirely honest with him and that Ange has filed a complaint against her for threatening Ange’s job when she was stopped.

David and Joni realise that as a firm they have serious conflict of interest problems and that one of them has to walk away from a client – David from Billy or Joni from Barry Roberts. But which one? Roberts extends his trap around Joni so that she cannot drop him without major repercussions. Meanwhile, David gets in further with Billy after Rory Melville deviously gets bail for Billy, releasing him into the clutches of the Fists gang, who have their reasons for wanting Billy dead.

Kees, investigating Robert’s import/export business, sees the Fists of Freedom gang on his client list, which connects Roberts to the methamphetamine ring. Is he Mr Big?

Billy’s girlfriend Donna has rather unorthodox photographic proof of Billy’s alibi and David persuades her to get Billy to do a deal with the police. They go looking for Billy, only to be followed by Fists members, who threaten David with a Luger pistol – the weapon which killed Mike Butterworth.

A horrified Joni witnesses the stand-off in which a vindicated Kees kills the Fist who killed his off-sider. Joni realises that she cannot live with his job. “It’s over, Kees.”

Episode 49: DEVIL IN DISGUISE

Kees and Ange are trying to find the Mr Big behind the methamphetamine ring, while David and Joni are wondering who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes and getting them clients like Roberts and Billy, who both seem to have connections to the ring.

To Ange, Joni’s client Barry Roberts feels more like middle management, not someone the Fists of Freedom gang would take orders from. So she and Kees release Roberts to see where he’ll lead them. Roberts goes straight to Rory Melville.

David tries to do a deal with Kees to protect Billy from the Fists, but Billy’s information on the speed labs is already out of date. All David can do is tell Billy and Donna to hide. Billy and Donna have a short-lived spending spree before the Fists catch up with them. David and Kees are both angry about their helplessness to protect these kids.

At Melville’s office, now under police surveillance, Maddy meets the nameless man we have seen before, the real Mr Big, who introduces himself as Don Finch. Maddy finds him powerfully attractive – even more so when Rory warns her to keep away from him.

David gets Adie an adjournment of her drink driving charge – the first step in their strategy to expose a procedural flaw in the charge. But the Judge involved, Crowe, calls Adie into his chambers and tells her he’s rumbled her little scheme. When Adie asks what he wants, Judge Crowe persuades her to have a drink with him, then suggests dinner….

Roberts, thinking he’s about to be killed, gives Joni an envelope and instructions to open it if he dies. He says it will reveal all. He gives her a large cash payment. She manages to extract from him the name of the person who sent him to her: Rory Melville.

The police have bugged Melville’s office, and they hear Maddy making love with Finch. Ange, listening to the tape, almost crashes the car when she recognises the voice of the man from the motel, the man who led Alby to kill himself.

Episode 50: A GIRL LIKE ALICE

Ange needs to put a face to the voice she’s heard on the surveillance tape and pulls Finch’s car over. Ange stares at the man she knows killed Alby, the man who might be behind the speed ring…and can do nothing other than ask for his licence. Donald Finch.

Joni’s still struggling to come to terms with her separation from Kees and gets some home truths from David. Against David’s advice, Joni takes on a sensitive and confusing rape case involving identical twins, Alice and Kelly, in a saga of layers of truth and mystery. James helps Joni with the case and they become close, socially.

Adie is being harassed by Judge Crowe, who has rumbled David’s strategy to get her off the drink-driving charge. Feeling the pressure, she drinks and drives again. Appalled, she decides to remove temptation and sell her car, only to meet another form of temptation in the person of an attractive car dealer, Daniel Kent.

The police bug picks up Barry Roberts telling Rory Melville about the envelope of secrets held by his lawyer, Joni, and making threats against Finch. Now Kees and Ange know that Finch is the Mr Big they are after. But his papers appear legitimate, until word comes from UK Interpol that Donald Finch doesn’t exist.

Meanwhile, warned by Melville that David and Joni are holding a document from Roberts which incriminates him, Finch offers David a huge ongoing retainer to act for him. David is suspicious and wants to be a free agent, but Joni argues that they’re running a business and Finch’s retainer will be their economic salvation. David banks the cheque.

Adie uses Daniel Kent to back Judge Crowe off, but Crowe recognises Kent and threatens Adie with conduct unbecoming if she consorts with a criminal – and Adie is trapped again.

As are David and Joni, when Barry Roberts is found murdered and they open his document and find that the man who is documented there as Mr Big is none other than their new client, Donald Finch.

Episode 51: A FINCH IN THE HAND
(Continuing story from Episode 50)

David and Joni realise that Finch came to them because he knew Barry Roberts was going to die. How did Finch know that if he didn’t kill Roberts himself? They decide to give the retainer back to Finch and cancel the deal. But Finch won’t let them off the hook and instead offers David a pile of cash for the Roberts document they’re holding. David and Joni consider their options. Joni wants to give the Roberts document to Finch, David wants to give it to the cops. Joni says if Finch finds out they’ve done that, they’re dead.

A war, sparked by Barry Roberts’ death, breaks out between Finch and the Fists of Freedom. When an unsuspecting Maddy is seen by the Fists on Finch’s gin palace, Rory is warned by Fists leader Manuel Sala that Maddy could be a useful means of getting at Finch.

Joni’s rape case gets more mysterious when both twins declare their hatred for each other. One twin provides an alibi for the alleged rapist, but the semen DNA analysis taken from the other matches the suspect to the act. When Joni and James pay a visit to Alice’s house and discover that Kelly doesn’t live there, the tragic solution is found.

Kees is taken aback when Joni gives him a cheque for his half share of their chattels as a full and final settlement of their matrimonial property. Kees and Ange are still trying to untangle Finch’s true identity, with the help of Interpol.

After Adie tells David she now wants to plead guilty, he is surprised by the vindictive fine Judge Crowe imposes. When Adie realises Judge Crowe has leaked her case to the media, she makes a big decision about her future, forcing him to help her, under threat of sexual harassment charges.

Rory tries desperately to warn Maddy off her romantic entanglement with Finch, as Kees takes Joni aside to tell her he knows she and David are acting for Finch and that he’s the closest thing in this country to a Godfather.

Episode 52: LOYAL
 

While David wants to give the Roberts document with the goods on Finch to the police, Joni forbids him to do it and warns him that both their lives are at stake.

Rory Melville suspects the Fists are going to use Maddy to get to Finch and pleads with Maddy to keep away from Finch. She ignores him. In desperation, Rory turns to David, but Maddy also rejects David’s advice. However, she still goes to Finch to ask him what’s going on. He tells her he loves her, deflecting her concerns.

Meanwhile, a distraught Yalena asks David for help. She’s being sued for repayment of a loan to buy a gift of intimate jewellery she has made to a lover she believes is Kurt Cobain. When David’s legal remedies fail, Yalena reveals other surprising resources.

Adie forces Judge Crowe to give her dispensation to practice as a barrister again, and she tries to woo Joni away from the grim reality of criminal law to her new practice.

Kees and Ange find out Finch’s true identity through Interpol, and Kees approaches David for the Roberts document, offering to conceal the source

Joni, furious with David for endangering her life without consultation, issues an ultimatum: if he gives the Roberts document to the cops, that’s it. Finito.

David is worried about betraying Joni, but more worried that Finch will get away with murder and drug dealing – and that Maddy will be caught in the firing line between Finch and the Fists. He gives the Roberts document to Kees. Joni starts packing.

When Rory Melville sees the Fists tailing Maddy, he alerts David, who calls Kees. When Ange sees a Fists gang member put explosives in Maddy’s car, she and Kees and David are joined in a desperate chase to get to the detonator first.

But their strategy seems to fall apart when Maddy and Finch change their travel plans.