'Eli Stone': The Emancipation of J.J.

Last week, Eli Stone won a case for Jim Cooper, a Mr. Moneybags bigwig control freak who was fighting to get his son medical marijuana to treat his MS. This week, Eli has taken up the case of Cooper's son, J.J., who's tired of being a pawn in his father's control games -- including the clinical trial that the old man got funded and brought to the hospital where Eli's brother Nate is coincidentally a neurologist.

Spoilers ahead...

Jordan flips when Eli tells him about representing J.J., forbidding him to take the case -- which, as Eli points out, is kind of funny, since now that they're partners the whole paternal approach is a teeny bit outmoded. "We're partners now -- our fates are intertwined," Jordan tells Eli, explaining that this one action could essentially cause the downfall of their fledgling new firm. But when Big Daddy Cooper storms in, he's such a colossally unconscionable jerk to both Eli and Jordan that it gets Jordan's back up and he tells the guy to take a hike.

I'll bet you can see the next turn coming. Of course, Cooper goes out and hires Posner's firm -- specifically, Matt and Maggie -- to handle the case. Taylor's furious at Matt for not telling her about his new case, Eli's appalled that Maggie would represent such a controlling blowhard. Eli and Taylor want Cooper to agree that J.J. will not be forced into a clinical trial, and will get to stay with his girlfriend's family. The boy's mother left him nearly $100,000, and he has rights to some properties -- all of which will go up in smoke if his MS symptoms worsen, Maggie quite rightly points out. Big Cooper's had about enough of this conversation, and orders his son to come home. But J.J., bless him, stands up for himself, telling his father that he can't control the disease, even if he tries to control his son.

Eli can't find a ready medical expert to testify on J.J.'s behalf -- go figure, since Jim Cooper's name is all over the hospital -- and he asks Nate to testify, saying that he thinks the vision is telling him Nate needs to be involved. But Nate's got his own problems. In addition to the bad plaid pants and white belt he was wearing on the golf course with Eli at the beginning of the episode (they've hit the links in honor of Nate's birthday -- more on that in a minute), his bosses at the hospital aren't happy that he's cooperating with the son in this case. On the stand, Nate testifies that based on what he's seen of the kid's file, the disease is not advancing, and that Cooper's money and power has bought the opinions of doctors who say the son would be better off under his father's care. Matt casts doubt on Nate's testimony.

Separately, on the golf course, Eli starts acting as though he's drunk, then has a vision in which he's his own father on Nate's twelfth birthday. Papa Stone thoroughly embarrasses his son, and further makes the kid feel awful because Eli's his favorite. The vision recurs later as Eli's talking with Patti -- his father is writing in his journal notebook, including the name J.J. Cooper.

Eli goes to see his oracle, Dr. Chen, about the visions, but since he burned the journal, he can't quite put the pieces together. Chen ends up going to see Nate, imploring him to be there in court for Eli the following day -- their dad wanted him to be there. On the stand, J.J. testifies that he has a support system of friends, doctors, a girlfriend and his coaches, but that he doesn't need his father, who tried to pay off the girlfriend to stay away from him and who filled in the swimming pool (he's been training to qualify for the Olympic team) when he said he didn't want to participate in the clinical trial. In a highly unorthodox move, Maggie asks the judge to allow Mr. Cooper to cross-examine his son. Cooper proceeds to remind J.J. about a scary incident right after he was diagnosed, when he took a dozen sleeping pills and begged his father not to leave him alone.

Livid, Eli and Taylor scream at Matt and Maggie during recess. I like that Maggie's gotten a serious backbone, and I don't believe for a second that her flirtation with the Dark Side is going to be permanent. Matt scoffs at Taylor's objection to the unfair surprise in the courtroom, hurt and angry that he had to find out about Taylor's pregnancy because Jordan misread Matt trying to make up for angering Taylor and spilled the beans. I get Taylor's hesitation to come clean with Matt, I guess, but it's ironic given the fact that this whole episode revolves around the idea of proving yourself to be capable of handling difficult situations like an adult.

Nate comes in and tells Eli that he spotted J.J. displaying some symptoms in court. He re-examines J.J.'s file, and finds MRIs that have been merely duplicated, not updated -- covering up the fact that J.J.'s disease is progressing. Jim Cooper kept his son's worsening condition from him, and hid the fact that he was exhibiting more symptoms because it would disqualify him from the clinical trial. Whew. I'm trying to think of a worse piece of parental manipulation that wouldn't involve actually selling your kid off. What's worse, J.J.'s known for a while that something was up. And he's terrified. Eli tells him about how hopeless and out of control he felt when the aneurysm was first diagnosed. You never stop being scared, he says, but you don't stop living. You keep moving forward in life even when you know there's bad stuff waiting for you. "Even when you think you know what's going to happen, it doesn't always -- that's what hope is made of," Eli says. This conversation -- and that last bit in particular -- just feels saccharine, and almost too much to ask of even a talented guy like Jonny Lee Miller to pull off.

Thank goodness tough Eli's back at the firm the next day, when he and Taylor haul in Cooper, Matt and Maggie -- and Nate's boss at the hospital, who was in on Cooper's deception -- to take them to task over the fake MRIs and get J.J. his emancipation. And Nate gets to threaten his boss by saying that he'll tell the D.A. what went down if he doesn't clean house at the hospital.

Troubled by the whole thing, Eli goes back to Chen. He defied the last vision, yet he won the case -- he must have missed something. They use Chen's magic accupuncture needles, and Eli sees himself in a burning building, trying to rescue J.J. The kid's missing, and Eli finds him in a burning building, equipped with a gas can, but he gets him out safely. Later he lays it out for J.J.: the court says you're an adult, so you need to be one, he says. You may not think you need your dad, but someday you might want him, and you don't want it to be too late.

Chen turns out to be a great source of comfort and wisdom to Nate too. Nate goes to see him, asking how Chen knew he was supposed to be in court, since the journal was burned. Chen made a copy and has it hidden away -- there's stuff in there Eli isn't ready to see yet. But what about me? Nate asks. What happens to the brother of the prophet? Chen hands him a section of the journal with a letter addressed to just him. You're going to watch your brother do some amazing things, their father wrote. And you'll feel lost in his shadow. But he won't be able to accomplish anything without you -- without your love and your patience. The world needs you too. 

Nate ends up losing his job but securing an enormous severance check in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement. I think that's what this mission was about -- why you were involved in this whole thing, Eli tells him. Maybe this is supposed to make up for everything. The check's not that big, Nate tells Eli, in this scene that's another example of some beautiful work by Matt Letscher and Jonny Lee Miller. Regardless, the Stone boys are a package deal.   

In other storylines...

So Matt finds out Taylor's pregnant, even though she was too chicken to tell him herself. She was confused by this development -- she never thought they were permanent, so it threw her for a loop. But Matt totally steps up and tells her that he never thought of their relationship as temporary. In fact, she made him want more out of their relationship. And he suggests that they get married. The impending baby surely sped up the proposal, but the bottom line is that he wants to be with her, as a couple in a relationship. And they'll figure out the rest. Aw. Seriously? Matt's going to turn out to be a nice guy?

The storyline with Keith and Patti's daughter Angela advances just a bit. He's been avoiding her since he found out her blood screen came back positive for cocaine. After Patti starts in on him for not calling Angela back, Keith goes to see Angela -- who angrily informs him that the antibiotics she's taking for an ear infection are well known to create false positives for cocaine. Later, Keith goes to the hospital to find her and apologize, and one of Angela's co-workers tells him she hasn't been there in weeks. Does Angela have a drug problem or not? Looks like this will come to a head -- or start to -- next week.

Also next week: Seal!

What did you think? Do feel as though Nate's role has been clarified enough? Do you think Taylor and Matt have a shot? How long do you think Maggie would last at Posner's firm?

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