We begin where last season left off, with Mandy Gressler, the stripper, at his house threatening to blackmail him. They struggle, she falls and hits her head and overdoses and the cops are looking at Nick for it. His dad, Burton (Dabney Coleman), is about to get a judgeship, so Nick doesn't want anything to jeopardize that. Long story short, Mandy dies, leaving a young daughter, Shannon (Amanda Michalka) and her mom, Mary (Farrah Fawcett), both of whom become a big part of Burton's life later in the season.
Lulu (Wendy Moniz) and her husband, Brian, have their share of problems this season, when Lulu finds out that Brian cheated on her with a hooker and Nick defended him without telling her. She and Nick continue to have feelings with each other and flirt with a relationship. Brian loses a patient on the operating table and then his job when, during the course of a medical malpractice suit, the hospital finds out he lied on his job application and has epilepsy. All of this is pretty much the straw that breaks the camel's back in their marriage and Brian heads home to stay with his ill mother. Lulu gets a stalker for one interesting episode, but they never reveal who the stalker is and allude that it is Brian. As Lulu decides to embark on a relationship with Nick, they are both involved in a terrible auto accident that leaves Lulu in danger of death, however she eventually recovers and the two finally get together. Lulu's mom, Caroline (Rita Moreno) also makes a handful of appearances as she buys a local corporation and tries to lure Lulu into becoming her second in command. It seems Lulu is in great demand because she also gets a job offer to head up a clinic in Berkeley, CA and as the season closes, she is strongly considering it and fighting with Nick about their future.
James Mooney's (Charles Malik Whitfield) nephew, Levi, shows up again, but only briefly, before getting beaten up then murdered by a group of gang members. This causes James to go on a mission of revenge to determine who did the deed and when he gets a name from an old contact, he and a group of his friends beat the guy with bats and tire irons. This same person later pops up again at the clinic during a custody dispute and James discovers that he was set up and that this man was merely an enemy of his old contact. This comes back to haunt James in a big way in the season finale.
Alvin Masterson (Alan Rosenberg) has his share of trouble when the clinic finds itself in money trouble and he also gets into hot water during a raid on a massage parlor when he is there visiting with the owner, who he reveals to be his girlfriend. This is only discussed during the one episode and never touched on again, so maybe the show's writers were testing the waters and decided to drop it? Another loose end... Wait, wasn't he trying to date Lori Solt (Kathleen Chalfant) the social worker? What a dog.
Jake Straka (Raphael Sbarge) is the same slimy little lawyer he was last season. At first, he and Nick start their own firm, then when Burton loses the judgeship, he joins them only to have the man who took over Burton's place at Fallin and Fallin commit suicide in grand fashion, leaving the firm in Burton's hands once again. What a strange and pointless turn of events. Jake has a few episodes that center on him, namely one where he gets beaten up by some punks running an internet scam and he has to get even, and another where his old high school tormentor comes to work at Fallin and Fallin to head up the new criminal division. Jake finds a way to get even.
While Nick and Lulu finally get together, they just aren't believable as a couple to me. Everyone on the show is a really good actor, but they just don't have a lot of chemistry together. Nick and Lulu's frantic couplings in bathroom stalls, meeting rooms at work and even a church weren't hot or romantic. They just seemed thrown in and I didn't think the relationship worked. While I thought Nick was growing a heart last season, this season he just seems to "phone in" his work at the clinic more and more. I felt like the season's storylines focused more on the happenings of the main players and far less on the kids' cases Nick had to defend, which is a shame. Two shining moments came in the season finale. One, a fairly young Will Ferrell comes on board at the clinic as a new attorney. He looked very Ron Burgundy and silly, but I was excited about what he might bring to the show. He had all of 5 minutes of screen time before he was shot in the forehead. Oh well. The other interesting scene was when Burton and Nick are headed to the symphony, but having lost their "dates" (Nick and Lulu are fighting and she is off to Berkeley for the interview and Burton has lost custody of his foster daughter, Shannon) and they are angry about it. Some guy in a Mustang steals Burton's parking spot and he gets out of the car to have words; the shouting match turns into a brawl where Burton and Nick beat the living shiznit out of the guy. I was so happy to finally see Nick show any kind of emotion or feeling that is was a nice change.
If you loved The Guardian back in the day and want to relive it, then by all means, check it out. If you've never seen the show, this isn't the place to get into it since it only made it for three seasons total.
