NWO stands for Nick Walks Out (incorporating of course the incomparable Nick Walks Off), but you knew that.

The second new rating system will involve some sort of thermometer to measure biceps, t-shirts, getting laid and associated... you know, hot stuff, but I haven't quite worked that one out yet. I only know that we need it, and that it will be in Celsius not Fahrenheit. (Apologies in advance to those not yet with me in the twenty-first century.)

Let's get to it. Senator Caldwell has taken over the firm. He reckons if it ain't broke, don't fix it – causing Nick to walk out for the first of many times this episode, because it's very broke, very broke indeed. Not only is it broke, but Caldwell promptly brings back Lichtman to fix it, and Lichtman thereafter stalks around with his sinister plans, his silly grin and his leverage, occasionally bumping into Detective Darger who's been wandering the newly hallowed halls of Caldwell & Associates ever since he quite casually took a wrong turn out of Nick's office earlier in the week.

Burton's none too happy about any of this, but is adopting Nick's habit of not explaining himself, causing Nick to walk out again – and since this is the finale, where everything gets hiked up a notch, he's found a new and special way of doing it: he leaves the door swinging on its hinges. Impressive.

Meanwhile Burton, who didn't include his son in the loop, never mind in the deal, offers his office to Nick as consolation for the Evil Duo. (Caldwell will be conducting business out of the conference room, apparently.) (And good lord, while I have your attention, I could watch Fallin Jnr fold and unfold his arms all day.) Nick really really wants this office. The swivel leather chairs, the acres of floor space, the north-facing vista, Sheila right there on his doorstep (though she always was immune to the crook of his finger, dammit), the library. He covets that library, all those glorious alphabetised volumes with matching grey spines and red and blue and gold labels. When he would visit here at six years old, while his mom was in the restroom popping little helpers and Burton was down in the lobby sucking down Benson & Hedges Ultra Lights with his head in his hands because he couldn't keep her, little Nicky would leaf through Ze–Zy, which was the only one he could reach, longing for the day when he'd be tall enough to select any volume he damn well pleased – two, three, four at a time – and pore over them just like his father used to do until 2 AM every night and all day Sunday instead of taking him for ice-cream. Now he can pluck Aa–Af off the shelf without even standing on tiptoes, look up Abandonment issues and be done with it, if he felt so inclined, but it just doesn't matter any more. They've already scraped the letters off the window, and it's his name too. This is no place for a Fallin.

Top secret discussions ensue with a few other colleagues who aren't happy with Caldwell's decision to – well, to not change a thing. Nick intends to change everything and to make them all full equity partners and they don't even have to chew through a steak first. There will be “no useless associates” because this is the only law firm in Pittsburgh that won't be offering Louisa Archer a job. Other than that, I'm not sure what's in it for these guys. They'll be leaving the swish soon-to-be-repainted C&A offices and relocating to a mildewy Southside loft space with no inflated partner salaries (does that sound like “pay cut” to you?), no espresso machine and a receptionist who files everything under Miscellaneous. (First order of business: poach Gretchen. She serves a mean bottled water, too.) And Nick's socialist plot to share the clients and divide the profits sounds suspiciously like the philosophy of Kirk & McGee – Kirk who has no soul and McGee who can't putt reliably over two metres of freshly vacuumed carpet. These are not the men to emulate.

Caldwell tries to sweet-talk Nick into sticking around. So far Nick's done the group walkout; he's done the porte-ouvert walkout; he's done the semi-consensual-walkout-on-command. Now he gets to do the countdown-to-impending-walkout and he sure has fun carrying it off. He's above the fray and always will be. I'm thinking that next season he'll introduce the pre-planned walkout – that's the one where he decides he's going to walk out before he's even walked in. Ah, the delightful nuances of the pre-planned walkout – will it be the pre-planned porte-ouvert this time, or the pre-planned sneer-and-slam? The subtleties of Simon Baker's acting skills will be tested as never before.

Lulu – I haven't forgotten about her, even if the writers almost did – has for the sake of the promos been speaking in soundbites ever since The Divide, and while I don't expect her to be as distracted by the soaring Nick Fix as yours truly, it's clear that something's keeping her so busy that she missed Previously On The Guardian and still doesn't know the man she's about to marry is a [expletive deleted] goose and that the only good thing to come out of it will be an improvement in her wardrobe. Here's her last chance to choose – the goose or the god – but she's struggling to tame the monster her mother-in-law-to-be has created, the nightmare that is The Wedding. So many decisions she's not ready to make. Canon in D or Celine Dion? Sugared almonds or peppermint truffles? Lamb or beef? Fowl or Fallin? She has a lot on her plate. She also has Nick's fingers in her hair, but it's okay. I don't know why it's okay – it really shouldn't be, as he well knows – but it is. She was nervous and curious and confused and relieved and didn't know what to expect, and so she takes a vacation, comes back an Olson and now it all makes sense. I think. Lulu even gets to walk out, leaving Nick once again stuck behind plate glass. He'd give up his last Rolo to have her, but he knows that when you truly love someone, you have to want their happiness more than you want them. (Sting said it better. Forgive me.)

Lulu's not the only one dealing with misery and regret. Mandy used to pole-dance for the late great Lenny Getkin, and now she's strung out in a parking garage inhaling carcinogens. Burton lets the new blood dictate just one too many terms. Nick suffers the indignity of being summoned by a post-it note. How the mighty have fallen. The only people who get what they want by the end of it all are Donald Sample and his wife, who has Disappeared Grandma Syndrome, and we don't like them because they don't like Nick and won't let Hunter have poptarts for breakfast.

It's not over yet. Burton's not accepting gifts, Nick's not banging Mandy, Dr Reed is not a happy chappy and James is not taking parenting classes until Judge Damsen tells him to, which she does, because Nick can't think up a clever lawyerly trick in time to save him. No surprises there – the last court case he won was way back in In Loco Parentis (aka The Crack Cocaine Candy Catastrophe). James quits. Mini-Me walks off. (Go Mini-Me!) Jake can't believe he's doing this. Alvin is caught sleeping on the job in a rather nasty tie, which must signify something (the nap, not the tie – it's not like he's ever been a snappy dresser), but I can't for the life of me figure out what. And Alvin, mate, you should know by now that Nick never needs to talk about it…

… At least, not until the wisdom of Sane and Sober, page 7, paragraph 3 (which is as far as he got) flashes through his head, the one Mandy just whacked, and he acknowledges it must be about time to hit rock bottom. Nick has an awful lot to say about that. One bruise, two phone calls and no pulse later, Nick's realising that he's going to need to have his lawyer present if this is going to continue. Instead it's Burton who is suddenly and most inconveniently present, and Nick rather rudely ushers him out when all he had to say was, “Not now, dad – I have a controlled substance on the premises, albeit in someone else's bloodstream, namely that of a scantily clad homicidal amateur stripper in her second-favourite pair of shoes, currently lying comatose on my living room floor.” To which Burton would have replied, “You're right, son, it won't look good on my resume.”

Instead, Burton tells Nick exactly what was important in the beginning – so it was never about the walkouts, after all – and in the process he communicates a fair amount of subtext that leaves me with a vague feeling of discomfort regarding his obliviousness to Nick's manifest anguish. Nothing but that, that, that… thing with his damn eyes can explain his tunnel vision. I'm tempted to blame the director for poor judgement, cranking up Nick a little too high, thereby making Burton look a lot clueless, except that it's Mr Hollander himself, and he's the reason we're here. Can't bite the hand that feeds, even the one that fed us Amanda Bowles, though a sharp slap on the wrist may be warranted.

He's the reason Nick's here, too, although Nick has other ideas. Nick's here because he respects his father and wanted to spend more time with him. And I suppose he's also here, right here on the stairwell, because he doesn't think Mandy Gressler merits heroic efforts and because, in any case, a sneer-and-slam walkout right now just wouldn't give him the usual satisfaction. More to the point, he's here because of the drugs and the ba-a-a-ad deal, and because of Hunter and April and Justin and Bunny Buddy and Wendy and Leslie and Bart, who taught him to say I love you, and I'm sorry. That's why he's here and not walking out, but waiting instead for his dad to walk back in.

Love this show.

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* Agrees to become the second trustee of Hunter's trust fund.

* Takes Hunter to the ballgame.

* Agrees to represent James.

* Asks for Mr Sample's permission before speaking with Hunter.

* Lets Mandy use his shower. That's so considerate.

* Calls 911.

* Tells his dad he loves him.

• Lichtman is back.
• Mandy has a sister in Scranton, an ex-husband in Redding and she won an amateur stripping contest in Morgantown.
• Burton's still holding on to that photo of the little girl - a mystery for season two or a misplaced prop? Even he seems befuddled by it.
• Nick keeps duplicates of his credit cards in his car, and Mandy has light fingers.
• Nick lives at 1980 Ellsworth, Shadyside.
• Nick's medicine cabinet is full of crap that he's had since grade school.
• I also learned a whole stack of baseball stuff about World Series starters and closers and rotations, but I was not motivated to remember.

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