The Irrational tonight

10/9c

The strongest episode to date of the unconventional crime drama pits behavioral scientist Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) against a paid legal expert with the “morals of a jackal,” smartly played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner. They face off in a civil trial following a botched police raid in which a young building inspector is shot and killed in his own home, the result of apparent human error when a “Viper Squad” unit barges into the wrong house. “That raid was a disaster waiting to happen,” concludes Mercer on the stand, but as his outspoken sister Kylie (scene stealer Travina Springer) notes, “How do you persuade a jury whose minds are already made up?”