But first – I wish to complain about a scene that was cut short for this episode to accommodate an extra commercial for Tetley's tea. Detective Darger wants Nick to shed his jacket and shirt – on the surface, a sensible request since they are needed for evidence. But the original version of the scene includes Nick's lawyer objecting strenuously on the grounds that there will be serious repercussions if his client is forced to display his t-shirted bod in public. They exchange a few macho threats disguised in legalese, “My client cannot be held responsible for the consequences”, and so on, while Nick quietly strips in the corner and dreams about going home to cuddle up with Bart (or the memory thereof) in his big warm bed.

Despite the cut dialog, from our perspective the result is the same – that being the pleasure of three full minutes of Nick's t-shirted bod. It may not sound like much but he makes the most of it even when denied his bed – calling Brian a doofus (in so many words) and making him look like a wussy coward; rushing in to rescue a damsel in distress with no thought for his own safety; and sporting that possibly Emmy-award-winning distressed hair. Lulu tries not to notice Nick's stunning new look (although it's more than she bargained for when she pretended to be confused by the easement thing as an excuse to call him over to her house) as she blurts out something about a walnipple tree. The little old lady next door gasps, “Oh my!” and staggers inside for a stiff G&T. At the hospital, the entire prenatal exercise class goes into premature labour as the lethal weapon that is Nick in his whites strides past leaving a trail of swooning medical staff and palpitating patients in his wake.

The ancient Greeks advised “moderation in all things” (someone also said “you can never have too much of a good thing”, but that can't be true because I tried it and I'm still trying to clean the bits off). So while I'd love to encourage a letter-writing campaign to plead for more of this kind of exposure, I have to admit that like a juicy culotte steak, one reason it's so tasty is because it's so rare. So let's be grateful for small mercies: Nick has removed his shirt three times so far - because he was hot, because he had sex, and because he was witness to a homicide. The writers, I hope, will continue to come up with the occasional reason for Nick to wander around semi-naked. Here are a few ideas:

• He goes jogging at lunch time and Jake hides his suit as payback for the Meyers thing.
• Bart runs away from the doggy man again, follows Nick to the office and joyfully jumps on him in the elevator, leaving muddy pawprints on his chest as a sign of love - right before a Big Closing.
• A female corporate client (if he has any – one sometimes wonders) blackmails him into taking off his shirt. It doesn't matter how. She just does.
• He goes to a clinic to get shots for a trip to Malawi, where Lulu has asked him to join her and Brian on their honeymoon to explain the travel insurance forms.
• Someone, somewhere, somehow trips over something and starts bleeding to death. Petticoats are in short supply so Nick rips up his shirt for bandages. (Great action shot. I can see it now...)

There are some strange things going on in this episode, and I don't just mean Laurie doing a “home visit” on a homeless couple. Nick cuddles a baby. Maybe I missed something, but if you've got Nick plus a woman in a room with a screaming baby, that woman – whether she's a qualified child care worker or Joan Crawford – is about a million times more likely to think of grabbing the kid than Nick ever would be. But it's Nick who takes the baby. Even if I bought that, I don't buy this: he actually knows how to jiggle. This is no small thing. No man unfamiliar with newborns instinctively knows how to jiggle. Not only would I assess Nick as a fairly good jiggler, the baby clearly thinks so, too, because it shuts right up.

The next strange thing should perhaps not have surprised me, considering previous examples of innumeracy that the show has displayed. It concerns the company buyout that Nick negotiates for Wade Meyers. Nick's favourite thing is corporate finance, so you'd hope he knows some basic arithmetic. As if to prove this, he butts in with the answer to 180 minus 10 and slides Hank, the opposing lawyer, a triumphant smile. Not to be outdone, Hank barely breaks a sweat working out 170 minus 15. Nick, determined to prove himself the master of mental arithmetic, calculates the halfway point between 150 and 155 but – a bad sign – needs six seconds of thinking time. Their numeracy skills go downhill after that. Hank inexplicably offers back $10m worth of non-strategic assets for only $5m. Then he throws in a $15m jet plane in return for a $300,000 cheque, yet somehow they still close the deal at the same price as when the extras were carved out. Even if Nick didn't take back the art and apartments, they should actually close at $152.2m, not $152.5m, because the $300,000 was supposed to be taken off the price of the company.

Rather than worrying about the creative extra-dimensional mathematics of these lawyers, who have responsibility for millions of dollars worth of company assets and since I don't, I guess they must be smarter than me and my regular-dimensional mathematics, I'm going to assume that all it really comes down to is Nick's incredible powers of seduction as a corporate attorney. He smiles and coos until Hank becomes entirely undone. We haven't seen flirting like this since he asked Lulu out to dinner - and that was just for a laugh. This is serious business, and as far as I know Nick still thinks that money matters more than Lulu's alluring dimple as she sucks up her fettuccini alfeta. Hank goes out of his way to get Nick the deal he wants, throws in a jet plane for free, and asks nothing in return. I'd call that the deal of the century. And what board of directors wouldn't find an excuse to approve a $300,000 cheque to purchase a jet plane worth 50 times as much? (I didn't use a calculator for that, I swear.)

Special commendation to Jake for figuring out 12 times 80 without a single misplaced digit, although it's likely he had several hours to puzzle over the problem before announcing the result. There is still the small matter of the $175m deal that he eventually makes - this is $7.5m more than Nick's deal for Moorepark Food including an additional $15m for the plane. The only explanation for this bizarre wheeling and dealing is that Jake got Meyers a free set of steak knives. ("He's a CEO, Nicholas! He's not an owner. He can't buy his own steak knives!") What kind of a deal is it when you don't get steak knives?

Despite the screwy maths, the plastic baby and the mundane court scenes (it takes four separate hearings to sort it all out; I do appreciate the flattering courtroom lighting, but I think I've already established that our golden sun god needs no help in that regard, and it's going too far when there's not a single objection, your honour, to liven things up), this was a wonderful episode with all kinds of Nicks to enjoy, suited up or not. His reaction as he picks up on Mr Meyers displeasure, and his nervous pacing of the corridor before awaiting his summons, could well be my favourite mini-moment of the season - made doubly agonising for Nick because his boss has every kind of power over him, if he chooses to use it.

While he's busy disappointing dad and fending off Jake's offers of support with deadly silent glares, he's also bonding with Lulu over the homeless teenagers squatting in her house and ruining the scale. Discussing renovation problems is a sure-fire way of arousing passions, and Nick takes advantage. It's only later he realises that if he hadn't spent so much time talking about knobs on Carson Street and the like, he'd have managed an extra 30 seconds or so of neck nuzzling before brianus interruptus. (And it was such a sweet kiss, too.) Still, it's probably for the best because I'd have been forced to add an extra Naughty Nick star if her pipes had burst. Meanwhile Lulu, who doesn't want to do what she's about to do, does it anyway and enjoys the hell out of it while she can.

How to explain Nick's smile as he makes his leisurely retreat? My guess would be: "Thank god she wore nude lippy today." Which is a shame, because lipstick on his collar would have been a perfect excuse to shed that shirt...

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* Takes off half his clothes.

* Rushes in to save a woman in distress.

* Befriends Hank (I suspect they already knew each other, but the star is for staying friends with him).

* Gets a job for Denny.

• A second-hand Gulfstream jet costs at least $15 million.
• Laurie Solt has two children and a grandchild.
• Nick must not show his face in Spain.

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