The Return

Return, October 12, 1999

Harm comes back JAG for the first time since leaving to go back to flying. He comes in and meets the Gunny. People see him come in and he nods his head in response. Tiner spots him and he welcomes him back to JAG and tells him the Admiral and the others are waiting for him in the conference room. He heads on in to the conference room where the others are talking about the cases that have come up.

After the meeting in the conference room is done, the Admiral and Harm go into the Admiral's office. Harm is trying to not upset the Admiral because he thinks the Admiral may be mad still that he went back to flying like when Mac left JAG. Harm and the Admiral talk about what he did which got him nominated for a Distinguished Flying Cross Medal pushing his wingman over the mountain. Seems the Admiral is not holding any grudges like he did when Mac came back to JAG, instead he is giving him his best case, a willful disobedience case, defending the SecNav's son, Brian Nelson. Brumby will prosecute.

After talking with the Admiral, he is walking and reviewing the file for the case and he accidentally walks into Mic's office which used to be his. He leaves and goes into his office and makes a phone call to Jordon to try to get her to call him back. Mac comes in and they talk about what it is like to leave and come back. She asks him to go to lunch but he can't because he has to go to Norfolk instead with Bud to meet with his client. Harm asks the Gunny to find out if he can find anyone that served with the Commander Burke.

When he goes home, Jordon shows up at his apartment. He thinks they can get back together. But she has other ideas. He wants to know why she hasn't returned his phone calls. She doesn't really answer him but pretty much tells him there is no hope for them and she is going to Spain. He begs her not to leave but she does.

During the trial of the SecNav's son, Harm and Bud are trying to prove the unlawfulness of the order. The Judge tells everyone that he wont tolerate them bringing down a fine man. In my opinion, Harm was not up to usual snuff in this episode and I guess neither did Mac because she let him have it with both barrels.

Of course, after a conversation with Harm at his apartment, the SecNav gave him information and told him do what you want with this information even though it could have ended the SecNav's career as well. Harm is now in a moral dilemma, do what is absolutely necessary to win for his client or bring down Commander Burke and the SecNav and save his client. He decided to go another route, he went after Commander Burke but not the SecNav even though the SecNav was sitting in the courtroom and Harm knew it.

Harm did what he thought best, he thought that the panel would see the truth but in the end he was wrong. The panel found Nelson guilty of the charges. In the hallway, Commander Burke again told Nelson he would drop all of this if he would just apologize, Nelson again wouldn't apologize. All Commander Burke wanted to do was break his spirit in my opinion and rebuild him into what he thought was a good soldier that would do his bidding without question. As you can tell, not my favorite episode.

By Michele Blackburn

I think THE RETURN is a very good episode. It's filled with a lot of legal jargon, but it's very good. I like the beginning when Harm and the Admiral are talking. You can tell that Harm is scared because of the reaction that the Admiral had when Mac came back to JAG. He's afraid that the Admiral's going to do something to him. The Admiral coyly smiles and tells him that he didn't leave the Navy like Mac did. Then he assigns him the SECNAV's son for a case. The look on Harm's face is priceless. This is the Admiral's way of getting back at Harm for leaving, but he also knows that Harm is the best lawyer he's got and will defend the boy to the best of his ability.

On a different note, I feel sorry for Harm when he's in his office calling Jordan asking to talk to her and Mac walks in. I feel sorry for both of them especially Mac. She cares about Harm a lot and she doesn't want to see him hurt.

When Jordan shows up at Harm's place and tells him that she's going to Spain the look on Harm's face is enough to make you want to kill Jordan for doing that to him. I know she felt abandoned by him when he left and I feel sorry for her, but the way she just came in and told him before he could say anything was crude. I think she did it in a hurry because if she took her time it would be harder to say it.

In the end, the SECNAV actually showed signs of being human and not a robot. When he asks Harm to put him on the stand so he can testify I feel bad for him. I can see the pain in his eyes. Then to top it off the jury finds his son guilty and the SECNAV gets up and just walks out.

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