Cleaver is forced to defend his loan shark Mick Corella on cuddle charges, and it means working with Barney again. But hope of dodging his back taxes is fading fast. Meanwhile, a dejected David sees his career go up in flames when the party he's been elected to loses government. Missy tries to commiserate, but finally crumbles, blurting out the truth about who she is. Meanwhile, as Barney and Scarlet make up, and Missy tells Cleaver it's over with David, she is taken aback by his reluctance to commit. When Corella is convicted, Cleaver sees an end to his debt problems, but a surprise is in store. Cleaver and Barney are friends again ... and life is good
Whilst barrister Cleaver Greene's ex-wife may call him unreliable, his son will call him a mate. To his learned friends at the bar table he is a real wag, and to most judges he is an outrage. To the Tax Office, he is a defendant, to a certain brothel owner a legend, and to his former cocaine dealer a tragic loss.
The clients he loves the most are those that appear to be utterly hopeless. He will do whatever it takes to defend and save life's truly lost souls. The big sinners. Its drug lords. Its cannibals. Its bestialites. And at the same time, he will struggle to save himself, to stop himself falling back into the abyss that has characterised most of his self-destructive adult life thus far.
Despite his own hopelessness, his wit and charm have won him hordes of companions over the years. Most nights of the week, there is no shortage of invitations: dinner with a judge, drug dealers, or his copper mates.
He tends to wake up bruised. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. Usually it's a combination thereof. Occasionally he wonders how his life came to this. Living in a studio above a café in the Cross, without his wife and son, in love with a prostitute, defending hopeless cases.