So Help Me Todd season 2 episode 9 picks up where episode 8 left off. Agent Ariel Josephs, who had been undercover as Alex, revealed that she is part of a task force investigating a judge in Portland.
The F.B.I. has been watching Judge Brixton, a Portland judge they suspect of giving favorable verdicts for bribes. The F.B.I. believes someone in the firm is the judge’s broker, hooking him up with clients willing to pay for favorable verdicts.
While Todd is already at work Margaret and Gus are having breakfast at her condo. Gus has a tight deadline to process potential plaintiffs in a class action suit he won against a chemical company, Somaxic. All of the potential plaintiffs need to be processed by Monday, but it’s Friday.
Gus offers Margeret the job, which will pay $275,000. Even though Margaret knows the staff will be upset at working all weekend she jumps at the chance to make that much money for the firm.
At the hospital Allison treats a male stripper, Red, for tennis elbow, then helps a woman who has a cut on her hand. Allison comments that the woman’s engagement ring looks very similar to the ring Allison had. It’s actually her ring, and the woman is the fiancée of Allison’s ex-husband Chuck (Clayton James). Chuck comes in to check on his fiancée, Elise, and Allison has an upsetting and awkward encounter with him before she runs out of the room.
At the office Todd runs into Margaret, literally. Francey tells Margaret the landlord is demanding the rent because they are late paying it. Margaret tells Francey to send out an email telling everyone they need to work all weekend.
The staff overhear her, and Maragaret explains that they are in dire financial straits, so everyone has to work over the weekend. That doesn’t go over too well with the staff.
Todd convinces Ariel to hire him to help her find the broker. The F.B.I. doesn’t have enough evidence to charge Judge Brixton unless they find the broker.
The weekend
Saturday morning Margaret gives a little speech and organizes all the employees into sections. There are stations set up where the plaintiffs will be assessed and processed. Todd and Ariel start looking at every employee to see if they could be the broker. Todd goes overboard and starts speculating wildly about Beverly, Francey, Susan, Judy, even his mother being the broker.
Allison agrees to work as the medical expert on the case. She tells Margaret how upset she is about Chuck. Margaret is forced to reveal she knew about Elise and the engagement because she’s still in a book club with Chuck’s mother. Allison feels betrayed by Margaret.
While Allison is going through the plaintiffs’ medical records, she notices one woman who was recorded as having chemo six months ago just had a baby the previous week.
Knowing that no doctor would have given a pregnant woman chemo Allison starts checking the clinic where the woman had chemo. She finds 27 other plaintiffs also had chemo at that same clinic. She tells Gus and Margaret the plaintiffs are “zombie plaintiffs”.
Together Gus and Margaret figure out someone is trying to sabotage the settlement. If the case goes forward on Monday with the zombie plaintiffs, the lawyer for Somaxic can get a mistrial declared for negligence because of the zombie plaintiffs. They bring in the clinic employee who schedules patients to ask her what’s going on.
Todd suspects Gus is the broker. Todd calls Judge Brixton to the firm to see if Gus and the judge know each other. Judge Brixton and the appointment scheduler, Karina Speaks, end up in the conference room together.
Margaret and Todd both hide under the conference table to find out if their theories are correct. Margaret’s theory is correct, but Todd’s isn’t. The judge and Gus don’t know each other. But Karina did make the fake appointments.
Karina tells Margaret and Gus that Gordon Swanson paid her to make the fake appointments. Gus, Allison and Margaret figure out that Gordon Swanson is a member of the Somaxic board.
Allison tells Margaret that Gordon Swanson is Chuck’s dad’s golf buddy. Margaret remembers that Chuck’s engagement party is that night, so she takes Gus and Allison to the party so they can confront Gordon Swanson.
At the party Allison points out Gordon Swanson. Gus and Margaret approach him. They tell Gordon that they know what he did, and demand he tell them how many fake plaintiffs there are.
They point to a uniformed police officer in the crowd and threaten Gordon with arrest if he refuses to tell them. Gordon caves in and tells them. But the cop isn’t a cop, it’s Allison’s patient Red. He pulls off his pants and starts stripping, throwing his pants through the towering champagne fountain and ruining the party.
Monday morning Gus and Margaret go to court. They show evidence that Gordon planted zombie plaintiffs to get the judgement overturned. The judge upholds the original verdict and adds $50 million in punitive damages to the amount.
Back at the law firm Margaret feels like the financial load has been lifted. She pays the landlord and thinks that the staff will finally relax and start to trust her. She is devastated to hear that Francey has been offered a new job.
Ariel comes to the firm to introduce Todd to her colleague and let Todd know that Judge Brixton turned himself in. He never named the broker, but the F.B.I. considers the case closed. Ariel tries last one time to apologize to Lyle. Lyle tells her that he loves her, and she tells him that she’s transferring to Portland because she loves him.
New episodes of So Help Me Todd premiere Thursdays on CBS, then are available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
