What's needed here is a hurdle to romance, to their declarations of love, consummation, marriage and the consequent nosedive in the ratings, so Lulu, it turns out, has a boyfriend. An oldie but a goodie. Nick watches her over the rim of his coffee mug, rescues her from the clutches of an unrepentant crack whore, finds her insults kind of cute, and risks his father's wrath for the chance to go with her to hell and back, and all the while she's dreaming of Brian and trying to ignore the way Nick's looking at her.

Why loathe Lulu? I don't get it. She's done nothing that can rival Nick's bad behaviour, so why this ungenerous interpretation of her motivations? When she brings narcotics to the office, starts ambulance-chasing, propositions Alvin or enters a bathroom without knocking, I might consider changing my mind about her. She's imperfect, as Laurie Solt might say, but she has the right things in her mind. And now she's confused. Just how coherent would you be if you were stuck in the office all night with Nick Fallin and his seriously loose tie?

And speaking of Laurie, the experienced social worker who can't tell a dead baby from a sleeping one, she gets a sidekick this week in the form of Doris Green, who is indeed a little green, and who doesn't realise that she is a plot device designed to make mistakes and fail, thereby preventing Laurie from having to do those things and come off looking bad (except for the dead baby thing). I rather liked young Doris. I rather like anyone who responds so enthusiastically to Nick's beckoning finger. Doris, Lulu, Wendy... he knows how to summon a woman. You can be sure it worked on Ms Barstow, too.

Meanwhile, James has a case that leaves no emotional impact on me whatsoever because I know so little about James that I don't know how it affects him; and Burton's grumpy because he fears he's going blind. Nick's halting concern is simply delicious to watch, as he can't stop himself trying to extract more information about his father's surgery while being painfully aware that any questions that may reveal vulnerabilities are taboo between them. The treatment for Burton's unspecified eye problem (probably age-related macular degeneration or AMD, which Dabney Coleman suffers from) involves injecting a drug into the eyeball. No wonder Burton's a little on edge.

I don't recall an episode where we've seen so many different Nicks (next week we get to see his nipples, but I didn't really mean it that way). He shows gentle concern while letting Burton's grumpiness slide off him like, say, a fried egg in a Teflon pan; he folds his arms (that's scary!) and puts on his best teacher voice for Melinda; he has to deal with a smartass kid who's obsessed with the ridiculous notion that he thinks Lulu is pretty; he gets to yell – and I mean really yell – and pound on a locked door in a very manly manner; he does his “I'm so sorry you've had a bad day” routine with Judge Damsen at the end; he has the opportunity to glare at several people (he glares so beautifully); he has to hold in his horror as a little boy describes how “that baby”, who was his sister, died; and of course there's the whole “the way you look at me” scene.

Lulu claims she knows Nick pretty well. He's on automatic, he's Teflon Man, nothing touches him. We may know better, but this is only their second case together so she can be forgiven for getting it all wrong. And then – why, yes, that's our Mr “Runs-Screaming-From-Court” Helluva Lawyer giving her a lecture on courtroom etiquette and professionalism, and when she tries to explain herself he starts looking at her that way. And this time, it really is that way, and so she starts babbling in the hope that he'll dismiss her as an idiot and fall sleep.

Instead, her disapproval encourages him to prove why she shouldn't dismiss him. In a speech even less eloquent than hers (and he's used to that by now – when emotions are strong, the words are harder to find) he tells her about his home and “things” he keeps and friends he can't see and tendencies he has to control.

He has a shot at analysing her, too, and is so close to the mark that she gives him a thank you kiss. Or maybe it's an “I'm sorry” kiss for having compared him to a frying pan. Or, my favourite, perhaps it's just that she realises she's going to have to tell him to stop looking at her that way, because of wonderful Brian, and she knows that if she doesn't lay one on him right now she'll never get the chance again. Whatever the reason, she has to psyche herself up for it. Everything breaks her heart, including this.

And so, two minutes ago she was someone who for a few seconds made Nick want to shed his armour, a woman he thought was pretty. Now, watching her through plate glass, she's a woman who belongs to another man. Next day they take a deep breath and plunge back into the hellhole together. What are the odds that Brian would put a stop to that if he knew? – because there's nothing like a shared hell to draw people closer together.

It occurs to me that Lulu gets rough treatment because she causes Nick pain. But that's another reason why I like her. I'm all for Nick's pain. I want to see him tortured as frequently as possible. The greater his agony, the greater my pleasure. My perfect day for Nick goes something like this:

He turns up at Legal Services one morning and some kid pukes on his suit so he has to borrow Alvin's nasty jacket for his court hearings, and it does not match his pants at all. In front of the entire office, Lulu announces that there's a rumour he knows a few tricks, and asks him to be the stripper at her bachelorette party. Barbara wolf-whistles. Burton busts him back to paralegal for his terminal tardiness and offers Jake a partnership before telling Nick that by the way, his mother slept around. Dina rings from jail to tell him she's pregnant with his child, and Colin shows up just in time to OD (very stylishly) all over the oak credenza in his office, which Sheila tells him to vacate because “It's Jake's office now”. The Bunny-Buddy museum goes into liquidation, Amanda sues him for sexual harassment (“He kept looking at me that way”) and he drops his cell phone, wiping the speed dial memory. He gets home to find his only true friend, Esmerelda, floating belly-up in her tropical tank.

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* Takes the case of the unrepentant crack whore when Lulu and James refuse.

* Agrees to do Burton a favour.

* Goes out looking for Melinda.

* Doesn't say to Lulu, "What the hell was that for?"

* Tells Judge Damsen what happened to Tassie Trallins.

• Forty bucks buys you a pipe of crack cocaine in a Pittsburgh alley.
• Lulu has known Brian since college and they've been dating since graduation. He's a great guy. Her parents call him their son-in-law.
• Doris is scared of rats.
• There's something wrong with Burton's eyes.
• Laurie needs to take parenting classes.

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