After a pilgrimage to the Himalayas to scatter his dad’s ashes, Eli has a vision-free spell that lasts for two weeks. Things are looking up, in fact. After winning that $5.2 million case, he has a no-fire contract with the firm, and his fiancée, Taylor, is being awfully patient about the whole weird-visions-prophet thing.
Then he starts hearing music again. This time, it’s a children’s choir singing “Freedom.” And a bi-plane nearly runs him down a la Cary Grant in North by Northwest. He whines to his home-boy mystic advisor, Dr. Chen, that he doesn’t want to be a prophet. He just wants to be a lawyer. Even though the rest of the firm is pretty sure he’s had a nervous breakdown, and his secretary, Patti, says he acts like he’s been “free-basing copier toner.”
He ends up working with Maggie, an enthusiastic first-year associate at the firm who’s geeked about a case involving a female farm worker who’s sterile after working with a certain pesticide. When the other attorney says maybe she was sterile before she started working with the pesticide, she confesses that she had a baby and gave it up for adoption, but neglected to tell her stunned husband this little fact. Even worse, the couple were conned on their U.S. citizenship test and might end up getting deported.
Ok, here’s where Eli gives a nice little speech in court about how wonderful America is, and how the immigrant couple came here to make their lives better, and all that stuff. It’s all good, but I somehow feel like I’m being preached to. Same with Eli’s realization that he can’t “spend 70 hours a week making rich people richer.” Soooo, we get it, he’s going to do something more noble with his life, whether he wants to or not.
Starting with the farm-worker couple, who are awarded two years by the court to become U.S. citizens – the legal way. But first, they decide to go look for the baby she gave up, and Eli just happens to have a list of churches with children’s choirs in the area. She left the baby at a church. See how this is all coming together? It’s a little bit Seinfeld, a little bit Northern Exposure, and a little bit Boston Legal.
My favorite part of this show is the musical numbers, especially when we get to see Victor Garber sing with a children’s choir. I think they should add an extra musical number or two in every episode.
I also like the scenes with Dr. Chen. He’ll say things like, “Most prophets work for social justice, but don’t achieve it in their lifetime.” And Eli will respond with, “So I’m getting the ass end of this deal.” Yeah, we need more of that.
