But why is it so good? Watch it and see, because I'm about to go off on a tangent concerning the single element that holds everything together. Could it be Nick's journey of self-discovery? Is it the Fallin angst? Is it the drug thing? The kids? The shirts (not the stripey one)? The answer is clear, at least to me, and my opinion must be correct or obviously I'd change it. The answer is, of course, Gretchen.

But she's not even in this episode, I hear you say. Look again! Or, rather, listen. I know I should save my Gretchenology 101 dissertation until her 15 minutes of fame towards the season's end, but I can't hold back. Gretchen represents everything that is dear to my heart about this show. Once she was little more than a brunette clock-in-a-box, popping up now and then to remind Nick exactly how late he was, succinctly rounding up to the nearest minute. She transformed into a cute blonde, lost a decade or so on her age and was eventually promoted from reception to PA, ever the cheerful face of Fallin & Fallin. She answers the phones with panache. She offers visitors refreshments with hospitable devotion. She delivers oral messages in a timely fashion, and with love, and without the need for Post-Its or other crass memory aids.

She was the 'someone' who brought food for Bart, the kind he really likes, and took him bass fishing on the weekend and paid for his pet therapy (bet you didn't know that). She was the only one to cry for Caldwell. She filled out the check in the correct amount for Nick's birthday. Now she delivers files on demand and thoughtfully slips a protractor between the pages so father and son can work together on that 45-degree angle. Soon she'll be buying dresses for Burton and nail polish for Nick and soft furnishings for Jake… but it's all just part of the job for Gretchen, and never once does a single tendril of hair stray from its deceptively severe upsweep. She may have begun life as an embarrassing continuity error, but she's become the glue that binds the universe together.

(Not forgetting that everything she knows she learned from Sheila, whom I would hold in equally high esteem had she not confiscated Nick's phone and car.)

Gretchen is as familiar as a NWO, as indispensible as a... well, as a NWO. Gretchen can teach us all a little something, if only we'd take the time to listen. Why doesn't Jake set her to work on revising the merger agreement to provide for a hold back in the amount of estimated clean-up costs, not forgetting the indemnification agreement? She can do that! Why doesn't James recruit her to sort out those naughty gangsta boyz? Piece of cake! Why doesn't Lulu give her the Bennett case? Why doesn't Burton ask her to administer his eye drops? Gretchen, the quiet achiever, can do anything and yet no one but her mom will even let her mind the cash box. She's the one constant in Nick's life, besides his dry cleaner and his teddy bear (bet you didn't know that, either). One of these days, he's going to learn that when Alvin needs a ride home, when Burton wants cigarettes, or when Lulu sends him a panicked email because she CAN'T REMEMBER HOW TO TURN OFF HER CAPS LOCK, he can always send Gretchen to help in his stead.

But rather than delegating to Gretchen, Nick takes everything and country music upon his comely shoulders this week. He doesn't have another hostage drama for a couple of episodes so he manages not to screw up Burton's eye appointment this time. He risks his kinda expensive furniture and re-tunes his radio for his dad, who if he's anything like my dad every time he visits is probably itching to hang up cuphooks or knock down a wall or something, but Nick doesn't need help from anybody as he spreads himself thinner than Vegemite helping everyone else. He even deigns to fetch coffee from the mysterious Convenience Store – the only time he's set foot in one before was to change a rolled-up twenty into twenty rolled-up ones to avoid waste while channelling his habit. Burton is having curiously erotic (I suspect) nightmares about two-hundred-pound Jamaican women and takes this out on Nick, who hasn't yet learned the gentle art of Pacifying Your Parents With Placating Platitudes, leading to an inevitable showdown as they yell at each other over traffic from opposite sides of the street. Or the same side of the street, actually, and then the other side of the same street, and despite not looking left then right then left again they miraculously achieve this feat without being flattened by a semi-trailer on its way to one of those... you know, smoky steel-factory-type places that Pittsburgh is full of.

Is Fallin drama. Is good. Even when it makes me wince.

Here's something else that's makes good drama. See all those naughty and nice Nick stars? Every star represents a decision, and the more the merrier (though not literally, because otherwise this would be a merry episode, and those scary piano chords are telling me to wipe the smile off my face). Drama isn't action, it isn't car crashes and comas and guns and Emmy-winning chewing of scenery. Drama isn't even SuperNick bounding over the median strip with his tailcoats a-flappin', even if Nick-on-the-move does deserve a star rating system all of its own. Drama is characters facing choices and making decisions. More than that - good drama is characters making wrong decisions. Better still - it's characters making wrong decisions that they know are wrong, and living with the consequences – either justifying their actions to avoid self-loathing, or trying to put things right to assuage their guilt.

That's Nick, of course, and that's Burton. This week that's James, who asks Nick to be Levi's lawyer because he did – uh, such a bang-up job last time. This time, Nick actually has a clever lawyerly trick up his sleeve but the judge dismisses it by saying blasphemous things about The Constitution and that's the end of Levi. James's subsequent wrong decision eats up his soul because he's scared of the man he's about to become, scared of living the consequences. (I'm sure if he knew that poetic justice demands it's going to come back and bite him in the butt, he'd feel a lot better about it.)

Not content to give us one grown man crying, they give us two: Alvin bawls his eyes out and I bet it's because Nick's got this Sticking Out Curl^TM over his left ear. It certainly reduced me to tears. (Gretchen of the Germanic bun could've fixed that!)

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* Lets Burton stay at his place and tries to make him comfy.

* Puts in Burton's eye drops.

* Tells James about Levi's death so Alvin doesn't have to.

* Offers to drive James home from the coroner's office.

* Takes over Alvin's case.

* Comes to the aid of puking Alvin.

* Tries to be sympathetic to James at Levi's funeral.

* Gives Alvin a pep talk.

* Drives Alvin and Burton home.

* Tries to stop James going after the boys who killed Levi.

* Offers Burton a ride back to the office after their fight.

* Tries again to stop James going into the home of the boys who killed Levi.

In Causality Alvin lived within walking distance of the Incline, which must be somewhere downtown near the offices of LSP and F&F. Now Nick takes the freeway to drive him home.

Nick tells Burton to lie down in his office – where's he going to lie down?

Nick leaves Jake to handle the clients, who are due in one hour. He goes across the street to the courthouse, but Alvin has taken back the case so he immediately leaves, is waylaid by James for a couple of minutes, returns to F&F yet has somehow missed the meeting entirely.

KEY

Nick Fix Percentage of screentime allocated to Nick.

NWO (Nick Walks Out / Nick Walks Off) The number of times Nick leaves the room without first ending the conversation in a socially acceptable manner.

Indicates hot stuff (generally, Nick engaging in amorous activities or taking off his shirt).

^ The NWO in Alvin's office was aborted when Nick turned around and continued the conversation, but I've included it here because what counts are intentions.