Eli Stone: Soul Free
By fred | April 18, 2008
(S01E13) Okay, so finally we’re here. When it premiered, after new episodes of Lost, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about this new show called Eli Stone. He looked like it could be a nice show, somewhere along the lines of what Ally McBeal was in its time. Then, as more episodes came up it became clear than it wouldn’t be anything like Ally McBeal (not that this is bad, or good, just an observation), but also clear was that some things weren’t quite right, and incredibly annoying with the show (her name’s Maggie).
At one point I really considered to drop it, but I stuck around for a couple more episodes, and something actually quite rare in television and new series these days occurred : it got better. It really did, and I kept watching not thinking I shouldn’t, but that if it was going to keep that road I might end up really liking this show. And if you only watched some of the first few episodes and gave up, I urge you to watch what happened next, because it changed, it grew, and it got (much) better, and I love it now !
As we all know, this was for sure the last episode of the season, and we knew that Eli’s surgery was going to play a big part of it, obviously. Now when the show opened with it, I was really shocked, because I thought they might end with it, but to open with it I couldn’t believe it. So much that I quickly thought that this had to be a vision, and not reality, and that Eli would see himself going through surgery and dying as a vision, and so he would not go with it after all.
Because it made sense to me, and because after all the latest development and the obvious fact that he could really see the future, I thought he would reconsider that whole surgery with such a high risk of death thing. Turns out that wasn’t really the case, and I was wrong : Eli went with the surgery, for real, and they did indeed open with it, for real, though we may not have realized that at first.
Because if this show has always been about the actual reality, as well as a distorted reality, or Eli’s visions, this week there was another little twist thrown in there, and I’m not sure it was really easy to figure it out as it went down. I suspected that something was going on, because yes, something wasn’t quite right about it. It wasn’t so much the way everyone behaved with Eli, which although odd I could see possible, and it wasn’t even that his final case was about faith, which could have been totally possible and a nice coincidence.
No what really had me was that this would have been the very first case that, I think, Eli wouldn’t have actually chosen, and that, for sure, he would have had worked on without having any visions at all relating to it. Usually, Eli had the name of the client, or how to win the case, or another kind of clue, anything, to help him or go along with the case. But not this time, and that, plus everyone’s behavior, especially when he was made Junior Partner and he really looked like everyone was saying their goodbyes, well obviously something was up.
Yet, I didn’t really get it right away that this “reality” was in Eli’s head only, well, in his and in Chen’s dreams as well, somehow. I didn’t get it that the “visions” were the actual reality, that Eli really had the surgery, that he really went wrong - although the aneurysm is completely gone - and that he really was about to be unplugged by his brother.
But it all makes sense now, and that case he made up in his mind was just another way for him to realize what it meant to accept to live with the voice of God, to realize how in the end, it was the best time of his life. That case was a very good one, with lots of questions and, in the end, not so many answers, but a lot of faith and how we decide to look at things.
What is it, to fight for one’s life ? To want to stay around the longest, even if it means not see your family and not enjoy it, or to maybe have less time, but make the most of it, with the ones you love ? I also really liked how, while being about God and faith, it was never about (any) religion, how it always remained very open and general.
Side note : I was absolutely thrilled to see Toby, I mean Richard Schiff, back on TV. Terrific actor.
I’m wondering whether this is the case for others too, but I for one never believed for one second that Eli would, or even could die. When it looked like he was gone, like he was going to be let go, I knew it could only be a vision, or that it wouldn’t not actually happen, just because Eli had a vision. He’s had visions just crazy, like a dragon flying in the sky, and visions of the future, the actual future. And in one of them, more than one actually, we saw Eli in something like 10 years from now, head of the “Live Brave” movement.
Anyways, Eli had the surgery, and though it didn’t go perfectly well, the aneurysm is out and he woke up. Does that mean he will still have visions, or just have faith without any visions now ? We have no idea of what it means, of whether or not Eli really woke up, or when, all we know is that the show needs a second season, that’s for sure. Especially since the show has not been afraid to evolve and change, a lot, over his brief first season, and as it went in this episode, about anything could happen next year, everything is possible, you just gotta have faith !
This is not only a very good episode, but also a pretty good finale, although I have one complaint : when Eli woke up, he first had a little moment with God George Michael, and there was singing and dancing involved. That is the one scene I didn’t really like this week, because it really felt like the show was celebrating everything that happened this year, that they were celebrating the show and saying goodbye. In other words, it really felt like a perfect series finale, and I don’t want it to be one.
Plesse sign
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/save-eli-stone