Garrow's Law

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        Oh, Garrow.  I don’t know how many times I said those words while watching this series.  Far too many to count, I’m sure.  That’s because with each episode I saw a good man get himself into trouble.  No matter what he did, somehow it led to a difficult situation.  Sometimes this happened because he was standing up for his principles.  Other times it was because of love.               

         William Garrow (Andrew Buchan) is a young lawyer who spends his time watching trials at the Old Bailey in London.  It is there that Garrow realizes how unfair the trials are as the accused rarely, if ever, have adequate representation.  Mostly the accused are forced to represent themselves with only prosecutors truly getting the chance to state their case.  When the accused do speak, it mostly falls on deaf ears, leading to their conviction.  Seeing this happen, Garrow declares this unjust.  He sets out to change the system, but as a fairly unknown man, Garrow needs help to get started.  He turns to solicitor John Southouse (Alun Armstrong) for help.  Southouse finds people for Garrow to represent.  Very quickly Garrow’s notoriety for defending people starts to build, and people start to seek him out.  Garrow is then able to use this new-found attention to not only take cases in order to free the client, but also to change the law as it currently stands.

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        Garrow’s mission to change the laws does not go over well with legal and government officials.  Part of the reason for this is because Garrow’s tactics are untraditional for that time (the 1700s).  He talks to the jury as well as becomes very passionate when questioning the witnesses.  Garrow even has a tendency to not listen when the judge reprimands him for his actions, and instead keeps going with what he is doing.  These tactics, however, despite irritating those around him, get results.  Garrow wins many of his cases and people start to come around to his thoughts on issues and the way he does things.  Not everyone, of course.  There are some members of the government who dread every success Garrow gets.  They much prefer the status quo, and they will do pretty much anything to prevent Garrow from changing it.        

                There are two main people in government that Garrow butts heads with.  One is Viscount Melville (Stephen Boxer).  A high up government official, Melville likes his power and hates the fact that Garrow is trying to change things.  In order to stop Garrow from doing this, Melville uses a lower government official, Sir Arthur Hill (Rupert Graves).  Desperately trying to climb the political ladder, Sir Arthur is very easy for Melville to manipulate.  Sir Arthur already doesn’t like Garrow because of Garrow’s relationship with his wife, Lady Sarah (Lyndsey Marshal), so it is easy for Melville to get Sir Arthur to do things that could ruin Garrow.  The thing is, these tactics would ruin Lady Sarah too, which as the show goes on, Sir Arthur does not seem to mind.

                The problem between Garrow, Lady Sarah, and Sir Arthur is the fact that Garrow is dearly in love with Lady Sarah.  He does not do anything about it because she is a married woman, but that does not stop Sir Arthur from imagining otherwise.  As he sees the friendship between Garrow and Lady Sarah grow closer, Sir Arthur concocts the story that the child Lady Sarah says is his is actually Garrow’s.  This is not true whatsoever, but it does not prevent Sir Arthur from declaring it so and throwing Lady Sarah out of the house.  He then hires an awful lawyer who creates schemes to make Lady Sarah, and in turn Garrow, look bad in the public eye as well as in court.  The problem is, as Sir Arthur approves these schemes, his own life becomes more and more unstable to the point where it is practically destroyed.  Instead of that leading him to take a good look at himself, it only makes Sir Arthur even more mean.

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        Through all of Sir Arthur’s antics, Garrow stands by Lady Sarah’s side.  He refuses to leave it as he is completely willing to lose everything for the woman he loves.  Unfortunately for Garrow, but wisely on Southouse’s part, Southouse does not always agree with the stance Garrow decides to take.  A man with the voice of reason, Southouse has the ability to see the dangerous path Garrow keeps going down.  It distracts Garrow from the good work he is doing with the law, putting all that he has accomplished at risk.  It would be great if I could say that all Southouse has to do is take Garrow aside and put him straight, but I cannot.  Far too often, Garrow does not listen to what Southouse tries to tell him and goes deeper down that bad path.  Fortunately for Garrow, though, he always figures out what Southouse was trying to tell him before he gets too far.  That way he can fix things before it becomes too late.  This is especially important when what Garrow has to fix is the relationship with Southouse himself.  In so many ways, without Southouse to guide him, Garrow would spend his days as a lost man.            

                Garrow’s penchant for standing by Lady Sarah no matter what is why I said “Oh, Garrow” and shook my head so many times.  That’s because I saw Garrow do all these things for a woman who he truly loved but who I don’t believe loved him the same way back.  I’m not saying Lady Sarah did not have any feelings for Garrow, but I do feel there were many times where she used him.  This was especially true when Garrow and Lady Sarah were first starting to get to know each other.  Without much possibility of power of her own (again, this was the 1700s), the only way Lady Sarah could influence and change things was if her views and opinions were to go through a man.  When she saw Garrow’s attraction to her, Lady Sarah chose him to be her man of influence.  Fortunately for Garrow, he and Lady Sarah were of like mind (which she definitely was not with Sir Arthur) and he was never going against his own principles to get her agenda across.  This using of Garrow’s feelings against him is what bothered me, and it carried throughout the series.  While Garrow would stand by Lady Sarah no matter what, and do whatever she needed, I did not feel she would do the same.  This became clear the few times Garrow did refuse to go along with what Lady Sarah wanted as she always seemed surprised and frustrated at Garrow when it happened.  Again, I’m not saying there was zero feeling from Lady Sarah towards Garrow, I just don’t feel it was anywhere as deep or passionate as Garrow's care for her.                              

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        Now, from what I have just written, it may sound as though I did not like this show, but that is not the case at all.  I loved watching Garrow work his cases and see people one by one come to his side.  One of the biggest people who did this was Judge Buller (Michael Culkin).  He did not like Garrow at all at first, but as the series went on, he became one of Garrow’s biggest supporters, as long as Garrow did not get in the way of his lamb chops.  Garrow’s main legal rival John Silvester (Aidan McArdle) also came around a little bit as the series went on.  Certainly, not as much as Judge Buller, but I have to wonder if the show had gone past three seasons if Silvester would have come along further.

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      Another thing I really liked about this show was how good of a man Garrow was.  I liked watching how kind he was to people and how much he cared about his cases.  Garrow had a great heart, and I kept wanting to see him happy.  While I was not overly fond of Lady Sarah, happiness for him meant life with her, and I watched each episode hoping in the end Garrow would get what he wanted most in the world. 

           With only three seasons and a total of twelve episodes, this show can be watched really quickly. From what I understand the show was cancelled after three seasons instead of having a scheduled ending. Despite this, I believe the show ended on a good note. Nearly all the questions from the series were answered, leaving very little unknown. So even though it would be great if there were more episodes to see what other changes Garrow would make in the law, I’m satisfied with the series as it is. That’s not always an easy thing to say with a show, even when the ending is expected.