Ellen's not having the easiest time trying to represent Channing McClaren, mostly because he refuses to listen to or do what Ellen and Rutger, his chief adviser at McClarenTruth.org, tell him. During an interview McClaren publicly admits that his organisation made a mistake by publishing Noami Walling's personal communications. As Patty watches online McClaren receives a subpoena she served him while onstage, ensuring that he cannot leave the country while she tries to build a case against him by proving McClaren knew Walling personally and had intent to harm her. She asks Bill to find her proof that the pair knew each other.
Back at McClarenTruth.org Ellen questions Channing McClaren about Naomi Walling. He claims he never met her in person and that all their correspondence occurred online. As Ellen is leaving Rutger tells her that the company is having cash flow problems since the Naomi Walling story came out. Ellen tells him to find the money to pay her or hire another lawyer, and he questions her ability to represent McClaren, considering she does not appear to have much experience and has no staff. She informs him she is starting to hire, and that he should be more worried by the fact that the Judge assigned to their case favours Patty.
As Ellen has a name plaque installed outside her firm, an older woman named Kate Franklin approaches her with her resume and additional anecdotes. While Ellen accepts the resume she seems uninterested but later reads it and discovers Kate worked with Patty decades ago when Patty was establishing her legal practice. Kate also approaches Patty at Hewes & Associates and tells Patty she wants a job, and that Ellen as given her one, but she wants double the money to work for Patty. While Patty notices the proposition is out of character for Kate, she agrees. Kate returns to Ellen telling her that Patty was willing to pay her double the amount, revealing that she definitely doesn't want Kate working for Ellen. Ellen tells her she passed the test, but asked why she wouldn't want to work with Patty, to which she replies that she doesn't like her.
Despite being told to stay out of the public eye, Channing leaves the confines of McClarenTruth.org to meet with a man who claims he has more information about what happened with the Princefield leak. He asks Channing for money, which he refuses to give, saying he has never paid for information. After the man leaves and McClaren is kicked out of the bar for smoking, he is followed out by a brunette who recognises him. The pair start to flirt, and soon find themselves out the front of her apartment building, kissing, unaware that a man is watching them from the shadows. She asks him if he wants to come up, and after hesitantly looking at the security camera above the entrance to her building, he puts on a long black wig and agrees to come in.
At McClarenTruth.org, Rutger gives Ellen a USB containing damning evidence against Judge Haring. While she is hesitant to take it from him, they are both desperate to win the case, so she's takes it and approaches Haring outside his house. He initially doesn't believe that Ellen has anything on him, but when she produces the USB he agrees to step down as judge on the case, citing that his wife has become ill.
Later, the man that was watching Channing and the brunette them from the shadows arrives unannounced in Ellen's office. It is revealed he is a friend of Chris's, who Ellen hired to keep an eye on McClaren. He reveals that he has proof that McClaren meet with Naomi Walling at a hotel, using the hotel security footage and a photo he took of McClaren putting on the wig before heading into the brunette's. Ellen realises that this means McClaren is lying to her.
At Hewes & Associates, Bill is awoken by a drycleaner as he sleeps on a couch. After he tells the drycleaner he's wearing all the clothes he owns, he grabs out a flask from the side of the couch and starts to drink. Patty continues to ask him how his investigation into finding the link between McClaren and Naomi Walling is going, but it is obvious he has been half-heartedly doing the work, getting other employees to do most of it for him. Bill reviews the hotel security that Ellen also receives, but doesn't pick up that the man in the wig is McClaren and tells Patty that he can't find any evidence McClaren and Naomi ever met.
The next morning Channing returns to McClarenTruth.org and tells Rutger they need their employees back, after having angrily fired them earlier, because he knows that there is still more information to uncover about the Princefield leak and they need to get to work.
Ellen quietly celebrates back at her office with a glass of bourbon, but she is interrupted by a phone call from Patty Hewes. Patty congratulates her on removing the judge from the trail, but tells her that paranoia can lead to one seeing things that aren't actually there. Patty reveals that her conversation with Judge Haring that Ellen saw after the first hearing was misinterpreted, and that when Ellen sent Kate to Hewes & Associates she asked her assistant to lie and say she was receiving a personal phone call from Haring, to give Ellen the idea they shared a personal relationship. Patty tells Ellen that they actually didn't like each other, and he would have made her case very difficult, but the judge replacing him, Richard Gearheart, are on good terms. In court, Judge Gearheart tells them that Haring was not going to allow Patty to continue the case against McClaren, but that he thinks otherwise and will let Patty establish her case against him.
Three months in the future, Ellen stands and watches a pigeon on the top of a building, seemingly waiting for someone. The pigeon is suddenly flustered and flies away, and Ellen turns to see what caused that reaction. At the police station, a phone is given to Patty in the interogration room for her to make her call. As Ellen lies lifeless in an alleyway, her phone starts to ring. Presumably it is Patty calling her. Above, an unknown man looks over the edge of the building down at Ellen's body.
While again Patty bests Ellen in the match, the game is only just beginning, and now that Ellen has Kate on her side she might be a formidable force. Patty has problems on her hands with the lacklustre Bill, but because McClaren is such a loose cannon, and obviously lying to Ellen, it will be interesting to see which one is able to overcome and remove their obstacles before the other one gets the better of them.
Rating: 4/5
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