No one gets on your case like family.
So Help Me Todd is an American crime/legal dramedy that premiered on CBS in 2022.
Todd (Skylar Astin) is a down-and-out former detective since losing his PI license two years earlier, until he's hired to work as the in-house investigator as the law firm of his mother Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden). Todd's loose ethics run a sharp contrast to Margaret's by-the-book legal approach, but together they're able to get to the bottom of cases.
Madeline Wise, Tristen J. Winger, Inga Schlingmann and Rosa Arredondo also star.
This series contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The parents of Margaret's client in episode 1x07, who are revealed to have kept their children in an abusive conservatorship since they were minors and even go so far as to frame them for their own criminal activities.
- Accuse the Witness: The resolution to episode 1x05. Margaret turns out to be right.
- Aloof Big Brother: Lawrence, the third Wright sibling, rarely visits his family and treats his siblings coldly, to the point Todd cracks jokes about him being a robot. His husband interacts with the family far more often than Lawrence himself.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Todd's favorite tactic for getting access to places where he's not supposed to be.
- By The Book Lawyer: Margaret, who follows the letter of the law to a fault.
- Cowboy PI: Downplayed for Todd, who is VERY willing to bend the law, but shies away from actual abuse of suspects/crime scenes to break a case.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Todd and Allison have this dynamic, respectively. Allison was a straight-A student who now enjoys life as a wealthy doctor, while Todd is a screw-up who's reduced to living in her garage. This is occasionally reversed when Allison's Stepford Smiler situation makes her snap, with Todd even lampshading how good it feels to be the responsible sibling for once.
- Idiot Ball: Episode 1x14, "Against All Todds", relies pretty heavily on Todd and Margaret trading this off. Veronica comes to Todd begging for one last favor before she disappears from his life forever, which he accepts. That part's reasonable given his past behavior, but then, even after discovering the whole thing is a Frame-Up, Todd continues chasing Veronica's assistant and believes everything she says. Despite Margaret telling him he's a gullible idiot, Margaret herself goes along with it, and makes no attempt to disguise or legally protect herself before entering an illegal gambling ring, despite knowing Veronica already used this exact tactic as a trap against Todd earlier in the episode. Moreover, despite prior episodes establishing that Todd records everything, he conveniently forgot to do this during his initial conversation with Veronica, despite knowing Veronica is a Manipulative Bastard. To cap it all off, the ending of the episode reveals Veronica somehow got her assistant arrested for her crimes in her place, despite them looking nothing alike, extending the Idiot Ball to the entire court system.
- Law Procedural: Half of every given episode is taken up with the legal aspects of Todd and Margaret's cases.
- The Mole: Lyle's girlfriend Alex is a spy working to steal the firm's secrets.
- Neat Freak: Lyle's introduction involves him freaking out when Todd leaves crumbs on his desk, and immediately vacuums it clean the moment Todd leaves. Later, he wipes his computer down with disinfectant when Todd touches it.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Inverted with Chet, Lawrence's husband, who if anything gets along with the family better than Lawrence himself. He even helps Margaret with some of her cases.
- Parental Favoritism: Discussed in 1x07 between the three Wright siblings. Todd and Lawrence each think the other is Margaret's favorite, citing her constant bragging over Lawrence's accomplishments and her dropping everything to keep Todd out of jail, respectively. Allison, meanwhile, self-confidently believes she's the favorite, but it's clear the stress of being the golden child has given her her own problems.
- Parents as People: A large part of the family subplot revolves around Margaret's complicated relationship with her children. She is neither a monstrous abuser nor a saint, and both her missteps and attempts to improve fuel a lot of the family drama.
- Private Detective: Todd — or at least, at heart. He was a professional PI until his license was revoked due to his partner's involvement in criminal enterprises, and working for Margaret allows him to claw back towards this.
- Propping Up Their Patsy: The central twist of episode 1x07, where it's revealed Chloe's parents, who initially present themselves as acting in her best interests, were in fact the ones who ordered Chloe to commit the crime in the first place, and were planning to use her as a scapegoat if anyone discovered the truth.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Many of the opposing prosecutors. Despite clashing fervently in the courtroom, Margaret has perfectly amicable conversations with them elsewhere, with some of them even agreeing to help her client get justice after the case is finished.
- Reality Ensues: Season 1 features a subplot revealing that Alistair Song, one of the firm's named partners, has been embezzling clients' money. In the season 2 premiere, we learn this has, quite understandably, led to trust in the firm hitting rock bottom and many of their existing clients pulling out, so now the firm is going under... and now that Marget is named partner, it's her responsibility to somehow turn things around, making her promoted job much less glamorous than she hoped.
- Relative Error: The parodic lone wolf PI mistakes Todd and Allison's sibling banter for Belligerent Sexual Tension, provoking a flabbergasted response from Todd.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Todd and Lawrence. Todd is a wild, chaotic Cowboy PI with little regard for rules who frequently gets in trouble with the law. Lawrence is a stern, stoic graduate of a military academy with a prestigious career. This causes a lot of friction between the two.
- Stepford Smiler: Allison initially appears to have a great life as a respected doctor married to a Nice Guy. However, as the series progresses, she starts to fall apart as she reveals the childhood pressure to be the golden child has stunted her emotional development and left her with no strong sense of personal identity.
- The Stoic: Played with in regards to Lawrence, Todd's Aloof Big Brother. Todd disparagingly refers to him as a cold, unfeeling robot, but we are introduced to him acting out a storybook for his daughter, and Allison doesn't seem to have trouble getting along with him. He likely plays up his stoicism with Todd, whom he strongly dislikes due to them having Sibling Yin-Yang.
- Straight Gay: Lawrence is a professional, humorless military graduate who works for the governor of Oregon. His sexuality is never mentioned aside from the fact he has a husband. Deconstructed in 2x06, where he experiences an existential crisis over his identity as a gay man due to his lack of engagement with the gay community or stereotypically gay interests.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: The PIs, Lyle (Tristen J. Winger) and Todd, form this type of pairing.
- Unconventional Courtroom Tactics:
- In the first episode, Margaret pretends to change the defendant's plea to guilty in order to bait the real perpetrator into coming forward.
- Played for Laughs in 1x09, where Margaret asks the witness a series of bizarre and nonsensical questions to bait him into giving enough audio for Todd to create a deep fake video. Everyone else in the courtroom thinks she's lost her mind.
- Played for Laughs again in 2x03, where Margret deliberately stalls the trial through a series of faked accidents and roundabout witness questioning to buy time for Todd to find the real culprit.
- Working with the Ex:
- A dark take on the trope. In "The Devil You Know", to help with the case of a murdered investigative reporter, Todd goes to visit Veronica, his former partner, ex-girlfriend and the woman that got him arrested and his PI license revoked, for advice. Margaret is appalled by this. After helping him and Margaret catch the murderer, Todd tells Veronica they're finally through, only for the ending of the episode to reveal Veronica got released due to her help in catching the perpetrator. After thanking the judge for her mercy, Veronica then proceeds to walk out of the courthouse with a slightly sinister smile on her face.
- Happens the other way around in "Against All Todds", where Veronica comes to Todd for help: She's being hunted by a crime family, and needs him to pick up money from their old office to help her escape. Todd agrees on the condition they never see each other again. This turns out to be a trap designed to frame Todd and Margaret for Veronica's own illegal activities.
