If someone told you that a legal drama that takes on one case a season could be one of the most interesting shows on television, then you probably would not believe them. Well, Burden of Truth is just that show, so you will want to watch it on The CW starting tonight at 8p.
Last year, Joanna Hanley (Kristin Kreuk), a big city lawyer, returned to her small town to represent the company that supplied the HPV vaccine to the teenage girls who were suddenly stricken with a mysterious illness that left them with the seizures and loss of memory. When one of the girls, who did not get the vaccine, gets sick, Joanna’s company is found innocent. She now has to look into what is the connection between the girls and their uncurable illness. Eventually, she finds out the mill is at fault and they are forced to pay the girls $2 million each. That causes the mill to shut down and now her old town is dying.
Joanna did not fight the case alone, Billy (Peter Mooney) is a lawyer in that small town and now they have turned against him because so many people lost the jobs.
When Joanna was back in Millwood she befriended Luna (Star Slade), one of the teenage girls, who did not get sick. The two women will find out they have a connection they never knew about. Her mom, Gerrilynn (Jessica Matten), had an affair with Joanna’s father when she was minor and she got pregnant. David Hanley (Alex Carter) denied he was the dad and never told anyone about the affair and the baby including his own daughter.
Did I mention everyone hates David and he was forced out of town taking his daughter with him? Even Joanna does not really like her dad and now she hates him just as much for lying to her for all of those years.
Which catches you up to the season premiere. It has been a year since Joanna won the case of a lifetime and she changed her last name to Chang. She works for another big city law firm and is given a big case to handle. Noah (Varun Saranga) is a hacktivist who created an app that can spy on your privacy. Lovand, the company he created it for, wants him to take it down. He does not want to do it, so they sue him to do just that. They win, but he refuses to do it. Now, he not only puts his life in danger, but he also puts Joanna’s in trouble too. Will she continue to defend him or will she walk away?
Meanwhile back in Millwood, Joanna’s father is acquitted of any negligence from his affair with Gerrilynn. Something that upsets her and her daughter. They vow to make him pay, but how far will they go to do so? That will be revealed in the third episode and that is when the show gets really good this season.
Summer TV used to be where networks used to dump their unwanted shows. Not anymore. Burden of Truth is better than all those regular season legal shows put together. Tune into the 8-part miniseries that reminds us that a show can tell one story for a season and still be interesting to watch week-after-week.
Don’t believe me? How about the fact that The CW already picked it up for a third season and the second on did not even premiere yet.
