Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
The Guardian Season 3 Episodes
Season 3 Episode Guide
22 Episodes 2003 - 2004
Episode 1
Carnival
Tue, Sep 23, 200344 mins
Nick represents a young boy living with a traveling circus who claims he was molested. Burton attempts to bribe a man.
Episode 2
Big Coal
Tue, Sep 30, 200344 mins
Nick urges some townspeople to sign releases exonerating a coal company from any wrongdoing.
Episode 3
The Line
Tue, Oct 7, 200343 mins
Alvin tries to delay Lulu's move to Berkeley. Nick gets caught in the middle of a father-son dispute during a merger.
Episode 4
The Father-Daughter Dance
Tue, Oct 14, 200343 mins
Alvin nor Nick are amused that Lulu, who was leaving, instead becomes the practice chief. Nick sues for the white Aaronson couple which wants to keep their African-American IVF baby but clearly didn't receive an embryo from the father's sperm, only to hear a rare medical explanation. Nick's teen charge is remanded to a psych ward, despite mental sanity, for lack of a more suitable institution; her mother died and her ex-con father is a recovered alcoholic, whose parental rights have been removed and that is almost impossible to reverse.
Episode 5
Shame
Tue, Oct 21, 200343 mins
Nick's juvenile, hard-working but near-broke client Lucas Farr hesitates to trust his help to prevent his kid brothers being taken out of his custody and hints at a lawyer boyfriend - it turns out to be Jake, who rather beats his gentle waiter-',on date' in panic then consider coming out of his the closet. Burton's banker-friend having been replaced with his son, its board loses patience with the law firm's $million debts, so major clients must be pushed to pay fast, but many simply can't, some actually need legal help due to general debt.
Episode 6
Let's Spend the Night Together
Tue, Oct 28, 200343 mins
Nick invites Lulu to move in while she ponders leaving her place to her lush father, at least during his cancer therapy, but she whines about lack of attention. Nick's futility-paroled client Pete Akins is furiously unhappy with his failure to prevent in court his ex seeking permission to undo his shared custody by moving out of state for her new partner's dream job with confused preteen son Evan, but goes about it tragically wrong. Jake offers to move in temporarily with his mother after his deadbeat father files for divorce and insists in introducing his snake mistress, with a tragic effect.
Episode 7
Hazel Park
Tue, Nov 4, 200345 mins
Nick's parole officer makes him finish off community service painting over graffiti. Thus he meets up with former juvenile client Lonnie Grandy, an incorrigible liar/thief who expects Nick to help straighten his life and proves a gifted manipulator. While Raphael and Ileana Hendrickson hire Burton to adopt a baby, the penniless mother, who agreed, takes a bad fall for over-stacked law firm files, is paid off and decides she now can keep her son. Burton plans to adopt Shannon, but her biological father withdraws his consent.
Episode 8
Believe
Tue, Nov 11, 200343 mins
Jake suggests a near-bankrupt marketing gadgets company should jump on a logo they can license cheap from a weird homeless veteran, but both jump the gun. Burton defends against Alvin heirs who contest their late father's million dollar donation to a near-bankrupt AIDS charity run by a cheap floozy. A terminal AIDS patient's kids are up for foster placement, but scary truths complicate any option. Nick is baffled when Lulu unromantic announcement she's pregnant, whining he shows no emotion, yet reluctance to accept his mother's ring and considers an abortion, which Jake talks her out of, pointing out Nick is ideal material.
Episode 9
Let God Sort 'Em Out
Tue, Nov 25, 200343 mins
Nick represents a teenager who wants to stay with his dying grandfather, even though they have been evicted from their home.
Episode 10
Swimming
Tue, Dec 16, 200345 mins
Nick needs daily pool dives to clear has head among various.chaotic situations. Adolescent client Chris(topher) Rapp, obsessed with 'missing' his mother's birthday, has a rap sheet for abuse complicating getting him out of abusive juvenile 'boot camp'. Near penniless Lulu still won't marry but wants to chip in to buy a dream house 'for the baby', but Nick bids alone. Burton worries him by postponing urgent heart surgery, insisting on a single specialist on holiday, but taking over major client James Fuller's latest merger fails.
Episode 11
Legacy
Tue, Jan 6, 200445 mins
Nick's adolescent client Ted Huberty, who has a petty abuse record, must be protected against bullies after his recently fired father was fatally shot after killing his former boss Kane and two office employees. Burton is the Kanes' lawyer, and can't convince son and heir Eric to abstain from acting as CEO in a major deal before the board appoints one, actually unlikely to be Eric. Due to his cardiac condition, Burton plans his retirement and positions Nick to be voted managing partner.
Episode 12
Beautiful Blue Mystic
Tue, Jan 13, 200443 mins
Nick is a mess, waiving Burton's instructions to return to rehab, having relapsed into drugs after Lulu left him for 'infidelity' despite her refusal to tie the knot. The bad batch of hallucinogen 'Blue Mystic' makes him dream, while Jake must dig up his notes for a major business deal, about an ideal therapist seeking his counsel concerning the hopeless custody case for her A-nerd boy which recalls how his well-meaning mother Ann left him with Burton. Conscious, he starts an actual program, including apology letters, which divulge his dirty deeds in the firm to understanding Burton and shocked Jake, and even takes the blame for Suzanne's slut seduction, making up prosaically with her knave son.
Episode 13
Amends
Tue, Jan 27, 200443 mins
Nick defends tragically intemperate Connor Adams, who wants custody of his teen son Larry despite a criminal record, but goes about it badly. After a bus crash with fatalities, Burton and Jake defend the company, owned by old business clients and Nick defends the naive black driver Cliff Jenkins, who is likely to get blamed. Cliff's own kid daughter Norah was aboard and confides in Nick clues to guilty distraction and the questionable cause.
Episode 14
All Is Mended
Tue, Feb 10, 200443 mins
Nick defends Mr. Tilden, whose parents-in-law beat him in court about his vegetative wife being euthanized, against a fake abuse charge from his eldest daughter whom he needs for domestic duties non-stop but who wants to live with her grandparents. Knowing Nick and Luly's baby will have Down syndrome, Alan gives him such client, Mark Barlow, whose inheritance must be arranged in a trust managed by his home caretaker Hank.
Episode 15
Without Consent
Tue, Feb 17, 200443 mins
Nick's teen client Luke Tomello caught his 'working' mother Deb with his schoolmate, beat her in fury and demands to leave her home, but his father Pete's old record prevents him being considered for custody. Jake worries little about his shiner, but gravely about public exposure as the police follow up on a complaint from the gay motel owner about the brute. Nick is prepared to finance a generous trust fund for the baby, but Lulu wants full control.
Episode 16
Sparkle
Tue, Feb 24, 200443 mins
Nick worries increasingly over Burton's obsession with fathering sneaky brat Shannon. Biological father Roy Cantwell returns in the picture, actually to sell his potential objection to adoption, so he can pay off debts. Burton leans heavy on the professional photographer who took sexy pictures she proudly had made behind his back, refusing to acknowledge her wicked side when robbed by her, and in for another shock.
Episode 17
The Watchers
Tue, Mar 2, 200443 mins
Burton panics after Shannon's disappearance, fearing she may be victim of human traffic or, as Nick finds, a pornography ring. Biological father Roy's debts are key, though she is far from innocent. Alvin's electoral campaign has a bumpy start with a silver lining.
Episode 18
The Bachelor Party
Tue, Mar 9, 200443 mins
Just when the Fallin law firm holds a team-building weekend, partially meant to present Nick as future senior partner, he cancels last moment, telling Burton only it's a private matter. Alvin failed to call a favor from a judge and resigns. He asked Nick along on his bachelor party to LA, having proposed just after receiving a fatal cancer diagnosis. Nick patiently stands by him in fun, desperate search for a 'healer, and for his unsuspecting son out of wedlock. Meanwhile Jake draws Burton as roommate, and is encouraged by the counselor to express general frustration about 'nepotism' in favor of Nick, which Burton denies initially, then reconsiders.
Episode 19
Remember
Tue, Apr 6, 200442 mins
Nick's latest battered teen client Andrew Ford probably fakes amnesia rather than testify whether his father Brent is violently abusive, but wants to stay at home and there is a third party. Alvin prepares for when his physical condition will disable him and fights a court order to hand the police the names of abused boys in a home which is the only link between a number of presumed abusers killed by a serial killer as all stayed there. Alvin interviews several and appeases uncooperative fury after the judge decides to demand the list to see first, but the court is in for a shocking tragedy.
Episode 20
The Vote
Tue, Apr 20, 200443 mins
It's partner promotion day in Fallin's law firm, and Burton supports his date Beth Jacobson, whom Nick mistrusts as gold-digger. After Nick's decisive no-vote, she files a sexual discrimination claim. Jakes leads a call to dump 'spoiled' Nick, who is nearing the end of his paroled community service. His teen client Drew Jankowski's threatens of suicide compromise an adoption prospect.
Episode 21
Blood In, Blood Out
Tue, Apr 27, 200443 mins
Serving his last hours of community service legal aid, Nick concentrates on the case of a black convict claiming innocence and seeking access to his baby, which is falsely promised to make him relinquish paternal rights for a single visit, rather than abused white whiner Christopher Rapp's desperate cry for help to be transferred. Jake ruthlessly organizes a vote to expel Nick as partner, which he won't call off although he nor Lulu exposes the gay hypocrite who strategically announces his marriage to an already weary bride, whom he lies to. NIck crushes Burton's hope to secure a family succession by missing the vote due to a juvenile prison drama.
Episode 22
Antarctica
Tue, May 4, 200443 mins
After Burton's firm failure, Nick starts a new corporate lawyer career at McNeil's, but an absurd client adds to his general discomfort. Terminal cancer patient Alvin's last case is Taliek Allen, a killer on death row, who is diagnosed with brain damage but rages at Nick for urging he should prepare a pardon plea. Nick senses after the birth of their Down-affected baby Lulu won't marry him. The legal services foundation needs a new boss.
