Eli Stone: Back-seat Deifying Versus Front-seat Litigating

Eli Stone continues its solid run with this episode that finds Eli and Jordan struggling to stem the disheartening exodus of clients leaving their beneficent firm and siding with traitor/sell outs Matt Dowd and Maggie Dekker over at the Posner & Klein Evil Empire.  To make matters worse, an enemy from within is leaking business strategies.  Eli and Jordan, the two agents of good, need to land a big client and fast.  Eli sets his sights on prominent, rich philanthropist Jim Cooper, played by the always-dependable veteran Steven Culp.

Cooper has been trying to get his hands on some of the marijuana the government controls for medical research to start his own study on multiple sclerosis, the progressive disease that afflicts his swimming prodigy son.  The government won’t let him have any because they think it’s a security risk, so Eli convinces Cooper that they should sue the government for having an illegal monopoly, since all monopolies are anti-capitalist.  Cool!

But life is never simple for Eli Stone, who promptly has a series of fiery visions (and a flashy Jordan-led musical number, which will make fans of that aspect of the show happy) suggesting he drop the case.  He tells Dr. Chen but refuses to drop the case, prompting the good old spiritual doctor to caution Eli on sticking it to the Big Invisible Man in the Sky.  Eli sticks to his guns, because after all, Cooper seems almost too good to be true.  And guess what, he is.  Turns out the guy is an egomaniacal creep who knows that his son doesn’t even want to participate in a marijuana trial because it will disqualify him from swimming and Olympic tryouts.

But daddy doesn’t care about what his son wants, and why should he?  He’s only the sixteen-year-old fruit of his loins (the mother passed away, also from multiple sclerosis).  When the son comes to Eli asking him not to win the case, our lawyer/prophet extraordinaire finds himself faced with yet another dilemma.  It sure is hard out there for a seer.  Does Eli go against his ignoble client and threaten his new partnership with Jordan or does he play it safe?  Well if you know Eli, you know the answer.

Meanwhile, Eli’s sassy, pushy assistant Patti Dellacroix takes center stage…of the B storyline anyway…when she threatens Keith Bennett at (butter) knife point to defend her daughter, a medical student who was just pulled over for a DUI and faces the loss of her financial aid.  Patti swears her daughter is an angel and it’s all a misunderstanding, and Keith, fearing for his life, takes the case and gets the DUI to go away after administering a little dose of friendly blackmail to the powers that be.  And, as Patti’s daughter is a knockout, Keith asks her out.

It’s the first cringe-worthy choice the show has made in my book, and I was scratching my head when I had to watch the two get all lovey-dovey at dinner for five minutes.  Keith is a supporting player; who cares about this romance crap?  The show is called Eli Stone for a reason.  However, the writers won me over by twisting the sidebar in a way I wasn’t expecting at the end.

There’s also more unfinished business between Eli and Maggie that also has me scratching my head a little bit.  Last year it was clearly established that Maggie had a thing for Eli when Eli didn’t have a thing for her, and then vice versa.  Then, after Eli and Taylor were on the outs for good, Eli had a vision of Maggie being his wife.  But then Maggie announced she was marrying some other tool.  But then last week Eli laid the smackdown on aforementioned tool and kicked him out of the picture.  Then Maggie unambiguously told Eli that she loved him.  Eli’s response was nothing.  But then this week you can tell Eli really misses her at the firm.  What’s the deal?  Both are uninvolved and both have a thing for each other.  So the next logical step would be…I mean come on people, you’re lawyers!  How hard is it to put together?

Actually though, you want to know what I’m really hoping for, what would make me tingle with glee all over?  To have just one episode of network television that didn’t have a single romantic subplot or issue or tiff or conundrum of any kind whatsoever.  Just once, one episode of one scripted network show from any network.  Is that too much to ask?

Season 2, Episode 5: The Humanitarian (originally aired November 18, 2008)

For another take on this episode, check out Eli Stoned by Kaitlyn Edsall.

For more on Eli Stone, click here.

Tuesdays at 10/9C on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC