A Man’s Best Friend: Rake

Although IMDB has this episode “A Man’s Best Friend” listed for April 25th, it aired right after “Remembrance of Taxis Past” on Saturday, April 5. IMDB also has “Mammophile,” the “missing episode,” listed to show after this on April 11th, but we don’t know if it will air or not.

What a crime to have Keegan defend in the last show though, huh? A well-respected obstetrician, the very doctor who delivered Kee’s son, Finn, is accused of animal cruelty after a DVD is found in his stolen briefcase showing him and his wife frolicking with the family dog, Felix. Apparently, this is his wife’s fetish, but the doctor makes up a cover story about a prostitute so his wife will not charged. He doesn’t want them both to go to jail and leave their daughter, Becca, without one parent. He leans on Ben, Becca’s godfather, to support this story. Kee defends the case and wins but that’s all we’ve got to say about that part.

Robert Ebell’s body is barely cold before the Feds sweep through Leon & Associates, freeze Ben’s assets and haul off anything and everything they can. Ebell and Ben’s father were laundering Mexican drug money for years and now Ben’s ass is on the hook. Not for too long, though, but long enough for it to cause a strain on both his friendship with Kee and his marriage with Scarlet. Ben tells Scarlet that he has stood by and indulged her every whim as she tried to fill up what is missing in her life, but he isn’t willing to do it anymore.

The mystery of who ratted Michaela/Mikki out isn’t solved when Mikki goes to Kee and asks if he did it. Kee asks an insulted Ben if he did it. Scarlet realizes Ben knew all along and didn’t tell her and she is pissed.

David Potter is getting hazed relentlessly by the press about Mikki being a former prostitute. Worse, he is also wondering if every guy she talks to is an ex-client. Gloria Barzmann helped in getting Scarlet’s DUI arrest buried in a prior episode, but now Gloria sends that information to David to use against Scarlet. Gloria says she knows who leaked the story on “Michaela”. Glenn has already told Scarlet it only took 3 phone calls to find out that Mikki was a hooker but she didn’t say who actually told her.

Roy found out where Leanne was and came over to her office, wanting to know why she hadn’t returned his calls. He told his pregnant wife about them and Carlotta kicked him out. “Now, I’m all yours,” Roy announces, “and I think you should tell Bevan he would be wise to keep his ass in Scotland,” as he tearfully embraces Leanne. Roger Ebell’s suicide has complicated Leanne’s immigration status since Robert was supposed to sign her papers but now they are nowhere to be found.

After the DUI information is leaked, the focus shifts to whether Scarlet has a drinking problem. Ultimately, David Potter wins the election for District Attorney, but the Cousin Angus story has been eating away at him and he asks Mikki if Angus was real or made up because Keegan Deane was one of her clients. He smashes a piece of china when she can’t bring herself to reply. Speaking of winning, Glenn won the $1,000 bet with Kee over who would bang Maddy first.

Keegan and Scarlet share a drink and memories and the episode ends with them about to have sex while Ben is calling and leaving an apology on voice mail and talking about a new beginning. And so we will never know Kee and Scarlet stopped.

The only reason we can think of to watch “Mammophile”, if it does air or is put online, is it must be the episode that deals with Kee’s stalker Margaret. That story line mysteriously disappeared somehow.

We enjoyed this series and it’s too bad FOX canceled it. if there had been a Season 2, we definitely would have watched. We’d give the entire run a B+, mainly because the we didn’t much care for some of the cases Keegan Deane defended. Some of his clients didn’t really deserve to get off. But the characters were fun, the actors were fine and the dialogue was often witty.

Cast of A Man’s Best Friend:
Greg Kinnear – Keegan Deane
Miranda Otto – Maddy Deane
Ian Colletti – Finn Deane
John Ortiz – Ben Leon
Necar Zadegan – Scarlet Leon
Bojana Novakovic – Mikki
David Harbour – David Potter
Kim Hawthorne – Gloria Barzmann
Tara Summers – Leanne Zander
Pamela Adlon – Glenn Shepherd
Omar J. Dorsey – Roy
Mark Moses – Sam Falcon
Melora Walters – Jan Falcon
A Leslie Kies – Becca Falcon
Michelle Krusiec – Dr. Vaughan
Gregg Perrie – Cal Crawford
Emjay Anthony – Adam Leon
Nicolas Bechtel- Max Leon
Jenna Ortega – Zoe Leon
Maria Quiban – News Announcer
Christopher Cho – FBI Agent
Nalini Sharma – Alice
Dee Baldus – Nurse
John O’Brien – Judge
Alma Martinez – Prosecutor
Juliana Laufer – Jury Foreperson