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'Bluff City Law' Episode 2 sees father-daughter duo teaming up to help farmers fight a cruel corporate scheme

There is a bit of idolizing the father as there have been two women on the show who tell Sydney to forgive him for the sins.

Spoilers ahead for Episode 2 of 'Bluff City Law' titled 'You Don't Need a Weatherman'

Jimmy Smits' Elijah Strait and Caitlin McGee's Sydney Strait have been at loggerheads ever since she rejoined the firm. A lot of the tension between them is a result of their personal differences and the weird situation their family finds itself in, but a part of it is owing to the difference in the way they approach work.

In Episode 2 of 'Bluff City Law' titled 'You Don't Need a Weatherman', the father-daughter duo is almost forced to put their differences - personal and professional - aside. They are to help a group of farmers who are at risk of losing everything they have worked for in their lives including land that has been in their family for generations, to an insidious corporate scheme. The scheme has taken over lands of hundreds of farmers already and if the Straits don't stop it, they will keep on. 

At the same time, Anthony (Michael Luwoye) and Jake (Barry Sloane) work together to take on a seemingly light-hearted case about a stolen barbecue sauce recipe that actually would have a deeper impact on the city than anyone knows. This subplot is quirkier in nature for the cases that Straits take up, but it is what keeps an otherwise heavy episode afloat. 

It is in the second episode that we can see hope for Sydney's relationship with her father. After spending a good time of the episode staying mad at him, ignoring him and his prodding, Sydney talks to her father. It is not a chat that puts her at ease - it is just more than something she had before. 

When Sydney walked out of the firm, there were several contributing factors, but the biggest of them all was that she hated her father - for his professionalism and how he spent his life. The strained familial ties are not hidden from view as everyone at the firm is aware of how things between Sydney and her father were left.  

So far, there have been two women on the show to tell Sydney to forgive her father for his sins. "Even if he is wrong - especially if he is wrong; because life is short", she is told in episode 2 by a long-time friend of his father. We cannot help but think that 'Bluff City Law' makes an idol of the faulty father figure, who only comes to realize his mistakes in the twilight years of his life, but has spent a greater part of the same life neglecting those whose attention he now seeks.

Despite this, Jimmy Smits is honest in his portrayal of a father who has sinned too much - a father too desperate to reconnect with his daughter. At the same time, Caitlin is a tad annoying as Sydney is the second episode. The annoyance is partly a result of just how cliched her reactions are to the situations she is put in. We did wish she stood her ground though. 

'Bluff City Law' airs Mondays on NBC at 10 PM ET.