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Original Air Date: February 14, 2008
ELI‘s first hallucination of the episode is a carryover from last week, when he imagined himself on a battlefield in the middle of a raging war. The attorneys are in a staff meeting at the time led by JORDAN WETHERSBY, and after a soldier tells Eli he must help Private Swain before she goes down as the next casualty, Eli comes back to reality under the conference table. This is the first time one of his visions has included someone talking to him directly.
After the meeting, partner MARTIN POSNER tells Jordan he’s come up with a way to get the firm out of the no-fire agreement they made at the end of the autism case. If they can prove Eli is mentally or physically ill or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the firm won’t have to continue employing Eli. Apparently, he’s only carrying 10 percent of his former workload, and not even repossessing his car and decreasing his expense-account funds has rehabilitated him and prevented his strange behavior.
The next step is to require Eli to take a physical exam and drug test, and Eli is served legal papers for both later. Of course, he goes to his brother NATHAN to ask him to forge documents declaring him healthy. Nathan refuses to risk his medical license, however, even when Eli explains that the only thing keeping him from turning into their father is having his career and being able to go to work everyday.
Unable to figure out who this Swain person is since there’s nobody with that name on the firm’s client roster, Eli visits DR. CHEN, who’s certain the lawyer’s visions will stop as soon as he takes on the right case, just like the last two times. The acupuncturist is half right because when Eli goes to meet TAYLOR for lunch afterwards, he encounters a young boy named BRIAN waiting for Taylor to finish speaking with his mother, the wife of her client in a divorce custody battle. The boy’s mother’s name is Private FELICIA SWAIN.
Convinced he has to take Swain’s case, Eli approaches her attorney LARRY CONOVER, the same lawyer who worked for BETH KELLER before Eli in the pilot episode. Yet, Larry wants absolutely nothing to do with Eli because giving his clients away obviously isn’t good for his practice. In court, Taylor argues that Brian should remain with his father ROBERT because his mother is on active duty in Iraq. The military won’t discharge soldiers except in the event of extreme hardship, which won’t happen as long as a second parent is available.
Eli passes information to Larry about previous cases of active military personnel seeking sole custody of children where hearings were granted to determine the outcome. This precedent persuades Larry to identify Eli as his co-counsel. The judge agrees that Private Swain should get her day in court for her Hardship Discharge Application. Yet, following the session, Felicia cuts Larry loose and retains Eli alone. She claims she can only afford one attorney, and she thinks she needs one who isn’t sweet like Larry is.
Taylor, on the other hand, is upset about the whole situation being prolonged. She wanted the seemingly simple case over as soon as possible in order to free up time to tend to their huge engagement celebration with 150 people. The planned event is so large and detailed that everyone keeps annoying the couple by describing it as a gala.
In court, it soon emerges that Felicia is a stronger parent than her husband, although he objects to her having full custody of their son due to her frequent tours in Iraq. Brian was undisciplined while staying with his father, however, which he never was under his mom’s care.
Dr. Chen told Eli his visions would stop once he took on the right case. But, when Eli is thrown back onto the battlefield with the same soldier instructing him to take the ridge, Eli pays Dr. Chen another visit.
Now working under the assumption that his visions must be about something more than just the Swain case, a needle job helps Eli flash back on an incident with his father. As a boy, he comes home one day and assumes his father is playing a game about war because he’s sitting on the floor talking about Nazis and getting somebody named McMullin off the ridge. Eli becomes worried, though, when his father holds up a real gun before going into another room and firing it.
Later in court, Brian reveals on the stand that he called 911 the night he ran away from home while under his father’s care because his father hurt him. The boy reveals bruises all over his left side, a development that virtually guarantees his mother will get full custody and that criminal charges will be brought against his father.
Now it’s time for Eli and Taylor’s engagement party. They argue on the way because Taylor feels Eli ambushed her in court with the whole 911 call line of questioning. Worse, when they get inside, Beth walks up to Eli while he’s talking to his brother Nathan. PATTI invited the former client because she can’t stand Taylor and also because she wants Eli to get mad enough to not want her to help with his wedding. As Patti states, mission accomplished on the last count.
During Taylor’s parents’ speech, Eli experiences yet another battlefield episode. This time, he ends up diving head first into the food table while running for cover at some imagined rally point. Taylor is beyond disappointed, and she leaves to return to her parents — who think Eli is at the emergency room following a bout of commitment anxiety — after she and Nathan drop Eli off at home. Nathan has come around, however, and he signs Eli’s medical release, promising that he’s going to make sure Eli doesn’t become their father.
Eli visits Dr. Chen again next for another needle job to return him to the memory of his father with the gun. He remembers how his father shot into the bedroom wall. Then, to protect his father and because he didn’t want to lose him, Eli took the gun and told his family and the police that he did it. The memory helps Eli make a big breakthrough in his own case, and he goes to Felicia Swain’s house to confront her with his suspicion that her husband and son are faking abuse to get her discharged from the military.
To Eli’s surprise, Felicia is in on the scheme, too. She feels she has no choice after every legal method she’s tried to get a proper discharge has failed. Despite the fact that Robert could go to jail based on the false abuse allegations, the alternative is that if Felicia remains in the military, unlike her incarcerated husband, she might never get out.
Eli is now torn because he can’t knowingly and willingly lie to the court. Therefore, the next day he closes with the argument that Brian isn’t functioning well under his father’s care, regardless of whether the abuse allegations are true or not. Moreover, while Felicia Swain voluntarily enlisted in the military, her son did not.
Felicia is awarded custody of Brian, and officers enter the courtroom immediately afterwards to arrest her husband. Following his win, Eli meets briefly with Jordan, who has received the younger lawyer’s clean bill of health signed by his brother. Jordan isn’t so much concerned about the effect of Eli’s “crisis” on the firm, which will be minimal, but rather its effect on his daughter Taylor. He asks Eli one last time if there is something major wrong with him, and Eli lies and says there isn’t.
At Eli’s apartment, Taylor reveals that she figured out what happened with the Swains because Eli didn’t directly accuse her client of anything in his closing statement. Unfortunately, however, Eli has bad news.
Remembering how much he sacrificed for his father because he loved him has made him feel that he can’t put Taylor through the same roller coaster that his father subjected his family to by staying with them. Although he never breaks the engagement off in so many words, Taylor leaves and the implication is clear. Eli thinks he’s made the decision he has because he loves Taylor, while she suspects he made it because he doesn’t love her enough.
MY TAKE: If you’ve noticed that I didn’t mention ditzy Maggie Dekker even once in this recap, it’s because that’s how useless I feel the character is. Julie Gonzalo’s dimwitted, annoying, and completely unnecessary associate is the one (colossal) misstep in an otherwise charming and refreshing series. The sooner her character gets the heave-ho, the sooner the show will get that much better.
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