The Firm (TV series)

A 2012 Canadian television series that airs on NBC in the USA, serving as a sequel to the film of the same name, which was based on the book of the same name. The series takes place a decade after the events of The Firm, where Mitch McDeere and his family, now living in DC, leave witness protection while he starts his own law firm, and soon starts a partnership with the shady law firm, Kinross & Clark.

---

Tropes used in The Firm (TV series) include:

• Big Brother Worship: One of Mitch's cases involved a mentally-challenged boy who completely loved his Big Brother Bully and was willing to go to jail for him.
• The Conspiracy: Right from the start of the first episode, Mitch is the target of two completely independent conspiracies:
  • The Chicago mob he testified against over a decade ago has found out he is alive, and are secretly following him and plotting to kill him.
  • The firm he has partnered with wants to cover up a pro bono case Mitch has been assigned to, because it has some connection to a Dark Secret that several of the firm's partners are in on.
• Continuity Lock Out: The pilot episode dispenses with most of the Expospeak and assumes viewers have seen the 1993 film or read the novel.
• Hollywood Hacking: The show has a general case of not understanding how computers work, and even less so how those computers are connected. In one episode, Tammy, who calls herself the most tech-savvy of the group, spouts some alleged Techno Babble about how to download a file. In another, she's proud about having been able to track down an IP that leads them to new clues about their case. That IP? 192.168.1.1. (the standard set of numbers used by most routers as the default IP address).
• How We Got Here: Each episode is structured this way, except that it takes about 5 or 6 weeks' worth of episodes to finally "get here", at which point they just flash forward to another "here" that it'll take another month and a half or so to "get to".
• In Medias Res: Every. Single. Episode.
• New Job Episode: The pilot episode. Mitch is attempting to run a small law firm out of the back of a travel office before getting integrated with a bigger law firm by the episode's end.
• Once an Episode: We start on a tense action sequence that overlaps the cliffhanger from the previous week. Then flashback to n weeks ago to explain that episode's piece of the How We Got Here story. That takes up most of the episode until we finally return to n weeks later, which gives us a few more seconds of action beyond where we left off, and then... To Be Continued.
• Rewrite: In the film, Mitch severed his ties with the firm without revealing the mob's involvement (and specifically told the head of the Morolito family that he had saved them from being ripped off for millions as a result). The series changes the story so that the Morolito heads were imprisoned as a result of the investigation, with the son of one of the mobsters swearing revenge on Mitch after his father's death.
  • This is actually a rewrite of a rewrite. In the novel, Mitch and Abby end up in lifelong exile in the Caribbean.
• The Scrappy: In-universe. Mitch's fledgling firm is considered to be this by every other law firm in the Washington area. Kinross & Clark brings him in for ulterior reasons.
• Steal the Surroundings: Ray has to steal data off of a security system by "Going to the C drive and getting root access". He can't do it and just grabs the whole computer.
  • Done again in another episode, where a few thugs are looking for a hard drive at a hacker's house, but as "the place is like a friggin' Radio Shack", they think it is Hidden in Plain Sight, so they start stealing everything to sort it out when they get back..
• Start My Own: Mitch starts his own firm in the pilot episode, only to integrate into Kinross & Clark.
• Time Skip: The television series takes place a decade after the events of the film.
• Witness Protection: It is revealed that Mitch and his family were under protection from the Feds for the past decade, and have only emerged at the beginning of the series.