Drop Dead Diva  Season 3, Episode 4 “The Wedding” Recap & Review

Originally Aired: July 17, 2011

Written By: OBS Staff Member Annabell Cadiz

Jane is continuing with her duties as best man to Grayson, attempting to convince herself that she is at peace with his upcoming nuptials. She heads to the ring store to pick up both Grayson and Vanessa’s rings and upon walking out, she gets held at gunpoint. The gunman seems wildly flustered though and doesn’t look as if his heart is really behind the mugging. Jane offers her jewelry as well but the gunman says no thank you. Before he can manage to get away, a police officer steps in and takes him into custody.

Grayson and Vanessa are wrapping up the last details of their wedding. Terri steps in and graciously offers to help teach them to dance as well as create an elaborate dance number. Parker assigns Grayson with the task of taking on an old family friend who needs representation for his camel Missy which had gotten kidnapped in the night. The camel is found and taken by Animal Control but Animal Control is refusing to return the animal to Mr. Lambert. Just as Grayson is closing his case with the judge, the assistant U.S. Attorney walks in and announces he will be arresting Mr. Lambert for criminal sell of a control substance, raw camels milk which is illegal in the U.S.

In an odd turn of events, Jane gets ordered to represent the gunman who had tried to mug her earlier that morning. The public defender for Keith (the gunman) has not shown up. Jane had been sitting in the courtroom hoping to convince the judge to return Grayson’s rings which had been placed in evidence. The judge denies her request. Keith apologizes to Jane for having assaulted her and pleads guilty. Keith’s wife approaches Jane, angry and distraught because now her husband will be sentenced to at least twenty-five years in prison since this is his third strike. Jane heads to the prison to figure out why Keith tried to hold her up in broad daylight in Beverly Hills and just stood around to wait for the cops to show up. Turns out Keith is sick. When he had been in prison earlier (for writing bad checks to get his mother medicine who had been sick and couldn‘t afford insurance) his appendix had exploded and he wound up with Hep B. The doctors placed him on the necessary treatment but once he got out of prison he could not afford the therapy and treatment necessary. He doesn’t want to be a burden on his wife so he figured going back to prison was his only option to staying alive. Jane decides to help Keith and remain his lawyer.

Kim joins Jane’s case under Parker’s orders. Jane sues the prison (which is owned by a fortune five hundred company) in which Keith had resided when he contracted Hep B claiming negligence and liability. With the help of Jane’s new doctor boyfriend, she finds her smoke and gun for her case: the prison is releasing it’s prisoners early under the compassionate early release program in order to get rid of having to take care of them. Jane and Kim come up with a plan to get the CEO of the fortune five hundred company indicted. Jane confronts him at his share holders meeting and manages to get a recording of him offering to pay her off to keep her mouth shut. Jane pretends to accept the offer and walks out. She wins her case and the CEO, along with the other members who were apart of the false Compassionate Release Program, are arrested. Keith is released from prison and has a very nice settlement that will help pay for his treatment. Parker steps in to take over Grayson’s case. Mr. Lambert has been bottling camel milk and selling it online because the milk is full of antioxidants that help people who are sick with cancer. But the government has no way to test the milk to make it legal. The judge orders that Mr. Lambert’s camel be returned to him and that he stop selling camel’s milk until the USDA comes up with a program to test it and make sure it’s not a health risk. She also orders the USDA to come up with the test within a six month period of time and suggests to Mr. Lambert if they do not to go ahead and file a suit of due process.

Grayson and Vanessa’s wedding is finally taking place. Everything is set up beautifully and Jane has gotten the rings back. As the bridesmaids and groomsman make it down the aisle and everyone awaits the entrance of the bride, Jane gets a text from Vanessa to meet her at the bridge. Jane tells Stacy to start reading the poem Vanessa had requested for her to read while she goes check on Vanessa. Vanessa is standing on the bridge, crying. She confesses to Jane that she won’t be going through with the wedding. She can’t marry Grayson because she feels like something is missing in their relationship. Jane tells Vanessa if she ever cared for Grayson then he deserves for Vanessa to be the one to tell him. But Vanessa is not that brave and leaves Jane with the task of calling off the wedding.

The reception goes on since everything is paid for but no one is really enjoying it. Jane sets off to find Grayson. She locates him drunk at the bar and helps him up to what would have been the suite he would have shared with Vanessa. Grayson falls back onto the bed taking Jane down with him and as he falls asleep Jane promises him he will fall in love one day again because he deserves to be in love. Grayson rolls over, wrapping an arm around her and Jane smiles, falling asleep next to him.

My Thoughts: This was one of silliest but also one of the most heart breaking episodes of Drop Dead Diva thus far. The whole case about the camel was just absurd but funny! I wouldn’t mind owning a camel but then again, I so would not want to have to take on the task of milking one. Camel’s are known for being temperamental and biting. The case did seem completely out of place with the rest of the episode. I know Drop Dead Diva is known for it’s ridiculous humor and outlandish cases but the camel case took that to a different level and I’m not sure it worked out while. The case just made the episode feel to much like a gimmick with bad acts.

Jane’s case was too quickly wrapped up. A case that goes after such a powerful company and powerful people shouldn’t have been able to be taken down so easily. It would have made more sense to have the case expand through a few episodes before being wrapped up by Jane’s brilliance. The small transitions occurring with Stacy and Fred seemed to only be placed to cover loopholes in the plot. I found their scenes rather useless than as funny and sweet as they usually are.

I am glad Vanessa did not marry Grayson. Not only because I want Jane and Grayson to somehow wind up together but also because she was never a good fit for Grayson. They always seemed like they were trying too hard to make things look good in their relationship. I could understand why Vanessa needed to back out of the wedding and realized her relationship with Grayson’s seems more like a sham. I think she should have had the guts to go to Grayson and tell him herself, before the wedding even started. She took the cowards way out but I can respect her for it because she did admit herself that she wasn’t brave enough to confront Grayson.

I hope the show starts to handle far better cases and learns to intertwine the various romances better into the storyline so the episodes flow more gracefully. Drop Dead Diva has such fun loving characters and I would hate to watch them all become stale because of lack of good writing.

Fun Facts: Features guest stars Louis Van Amstel, Howard Hesseman and Jaime Ray Newman. Music from the episode included: “All Around Me” by Yael Meyer, “Hop, Skip, and a Jump” by Shaun Barrowes, and “You” by Brain Evans.