Eli Stone: The Humanitarian
By fred | November 19, 2008
(S02E05) Things have been pretty unusual for Eli and the rest of the people who didn’t fall on to the dark side, with the split of companies and all. So far this season, Eli didn’t really get a chance to work a “real” case and do so with the little help from above, since they clearly leave no doubt now that, at the very least in Eli’s mind, his visions are a direct message from God.
Eli has been having visions and he’s been in court, even though he was not always allowed to, but it was to help Jordan and ensure their new company would have a future. Now that this is done and everyone picked a side, we can slowly move into a new daily routine. Except that, here, it’s never that easy, and you don’t ever get such a thing.
So yes, Eli worked a “regular” case and yes, he had a vision about it. Three, in fact, three visions. But here’s the thing : turned out the visions weren’t premonitions to warn him that a fire was coming up (as I actually thought at first…), they needed a little interpretation : “stay away from that case” was the message.
That was a first, in two ways. First of all, his visions have never told Eli what he should not do, what he should stay away from, what cases he should avoid, his visions have on the contrary brought Eli to his cases and/or clients, they have guided him to ensure that what needed to be done would be done. This time, however, and for some undetermined reasons, they were telling him to back off. So I guess the visions are even more than ever reacting to what Eli does.
And now for the secondary effect : Eli, for the first time ever (unless I’m mistaken) decided to go against his visions. He knew what they meant, what he was “asked” to do, or not to do, but he decided that “God” must be wrong on that one, and that he would simply ignore the visions and take the case anyway. And he won, he won the case which resulted in the firm getting a very important client, which then led to other clients to join in.
This was more than welcome, because while they were struggling, the Empire was counting scores and they were clearly winning, 86 to 5. But now that Eli won, and did so while still managing to stand up to his client, because while pretending to have his son’s best interest in mind he was actually only thinking of himself, Eli was inspirational — the son now wants to get emancipated, and he’s turning to Eli for help.
This could be trouble, obviously. This could be trouble for the very young firm, and for Eli - since threats against his brothers have clearly already been made. And with in mind the fact that Eli was told, with not one, not two, but three visions, to stay the Hell away from this case in the first place… Well, this could be trouble. We don’t know what will happen next, what will Eli do, but it sure sounds interesting.
Meanwhile, many fillers and boring subplots this week. For starter, and I realize that might be me because I was never a fan of musicals, but Jordan bursting into a song didn’t really do it for me, and got a little long one the side. Anyways, while she’s not the excruciating pain she used to be last season, I really couldn’t care less about Maggie not fitting in at the new place and whatnot.
Just like Taylor and Matt having problems, all the while he doesn’t know that she happens to be pregnant, makes me sleepy. And if I was happy to finally see Keith got something to do this season (I mean did he do anything before that??) I soon saw it vanished, when it turned out that he only got a bogus case so that he could start dating Patty’s daughter. Butter knife or not, this failed to be good. (Side bar: how old are they ? She seemed quite younger than he is, no?)
I can only hope the addition of cocaine to the mix is there to make things interesting, though I’m not sure it really will be. One thing I did appreciate, on a completely unrelated note, was how they gave the case about growing weed to a judge played by Tonye Patano, saw growing herself once upon a time on Weeds.
What did you think of this episode ? Worried of what will happen to Eli if he starts refusing to follow his visions “advices” ? Care for Maggie and her upcoming transformation ? Express yourself in the comments below…
I loved the episode. Personally, I loved Jordan dressed in a red shirt and throwing fire! Made me want more.
Eli did defy his visions, and certainly made things more complicated. I don’t know what it will mean, but maybe we will find out. The defiance did seem to produce more clients, but that may change when he represents the son.
I just hope Eli Stone holds on long enough for us to find out. I don’t like sounding like a pesimest, but the numbers are not good. More people need to watch this show.
Well, given the numbers it’s a fair concern… but ABC can’t (?) cancel Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, they might want to save at least one show, and Eli might have an advantage because rumor has it the show is much liked by ABC’s exec, so if one of the three was to survive, it could be Eli… but nothing’s less certain.