Eli Stone – Eli messes up four relationships

by Jason Hughes

(Season 2, Episode 9 – “Two Ministers”)

Oh, it was a banner week for our Eli. A banner week indeed. On the plus side, he did get to help a transgender minister try and get his flock back. That was the official “case of the week.” And while it was good, and gave us some more depth into the great evolving character of Keith Bennett, it was the ongoing drama between all the other characters that really drove the story.

It is starting to feel like we’re going to get some satisfying resolution to all these plotlines, as promised. And with each passing episode it’s getting more and more disappointing to think that it’s all coming to an end so soon. They’re all getting so well-rounded and interesting. I even like Taylor again. But no Jordan at all tonight rings up a big New Year’s “Boo!” from me.

Let’s take a look at those relationships Eli screwed up tonight, eh?

Eli and Ashley
It was done almost immediately. I have to wonder if the decision to truncate a possible romance for Eli so hastily was a part of the original plan, or some of the tweaking done when they realized they were working on a deadline. Granted, her reaction to finding out he had visions was understandable, but it was still a bit abrupt. It’s too bad because Ashley was an interesting character, and had the obvious connection of being Maggie’s client over at Posner-Klein.

That’s one relationship, actually, that hasn’t really been touched on as we’re starting to wind things down: Eli and Maggie. We know per a vision that at least at one point the two were fated to be together. We don’t know if that’s still the case or not. After all, Eli’s visions have been known to change (we’ll get to that more later). I’m guessing they’re saving this one for the finale.

Eli and Dr. Chen
I think the moral of the story for Eli here is that Eli needs to stop getting off the damned path. For whatever reason, Dr. Chen is his spiritual guide on this journey and you’d think by now he’d get that. Yes he has human emotions and desires, but come on, dude. You had to know that getting selfish was never going to work out well for you. He and Dr. Chen will bounce through this and continue being friends, but you have to feel for the good doctor feeling like he was betrayed in a way.

Nate and Beth
This one I don’t think he was going to be able to save no matter what he did, but by going to Dr. Lee and risking his life on a dangerous procedure for selfish reasons, he did make the whole situation a lot more awkward than it needed to be. If he hadn’t gone to Lee and seen the future on this one then he could have been just as oblivious as Nate was which would have helped tremendously with…

Nate and Eli
Brothers fight. I have one so I know this from first-hand experience. And then they make up. Nate blamed Eli for withholding his vision about the wedding (which is valid) but then proceeded to blame Eli for all that has gone wrong in his life (which is questionable), following it all up by saying Eli was worse than their father (which is just downright mean). Sure, in context they now understand their father better now, but he was still shit then.

Elsewhere on Eli Stone
You’d think it was Eli’s show the way he keeps hogging the limelight. Oh … yeah. Keith kind of took a prominent role in the case of the transgender minister, which just happened to be his minister. While watching the episode, I kept trying to figure out if they’d cast a man, woman or transgender for the role.

As it turns out, the internets reveals that Dallas Malloy (who many of you will slam me for not remembering from Jerry Maguire) played this role, and IMDb indicates that it may be her first acting role playing someone other than herself, with Maguire being her only other role period. She did a solid job of playing a man who used to be a woman. I won’t say her acting was as impressive, though she got the job done. I just didn’t get the charisma that most ministers possess from her.

The Dowd and Taylor had a baby scare, which only served to reiterate that while Matt has turned into a big softy over this baby, Taylor is still reserving herself. At least I’m pretty sure that she was leaving the option of abortion on the table when the possibility arose that their baby might have Down’s Syndrome, or some similar situation. Maybe this was another case of a quick storyline change to keep things as clean as possible before we say goodbye.

Bring back Jordan! And I’m not completely satisfied with the way things were left with Angela. She and Keith did have some sort of connection and I’d like to think that he’s there in some capacity helping her. He’s a hard dude, but I think he still cares about her. Maybe they’ll get to that, too.