(Season 5, Episodes 13-14)
It seems I’ve hit a snafu with FX and the network’s airing of The Practice re-runs. I’m not sure who they imagined would be watching at 7AM on Saturdays and Sundays, but apparently that crowd isn’t tuning in as enthusiastically as they’d hoped, because the network has pulled back from airing four episodes per weekend to just one or two. I guess, like a refinanced mortgage, we’re going to pay less per installment for a longer fixed life.
In other words, financial freedom, or in this case Alan Shore, is farther away than once imagined.
5.13 “The Thin Line”
I assume that, at the time of its original airing, Bobby’s murder trial was a big thing. Even with his “not guilty” in the bag, it must have been a fitting climax to the William Hinks story. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get onboard. Putting aside the fact that in no way could Bobby be found innocent on all three charges that he was facing (he did, after all, send Alan over to break into Hinks’ home and scare him), his refusal to ever consider the advice of his own partners — and supposed close friends — is so insulting as to leave me wondering why he ever hired them as attorneys in the first place. How is Bobby always right?
And when did Lindsay become a mini-Bobby? Yelling at Eugene and Ellenor for not doing good enough in court, and then not apologizing when pulled back from the brink of insanity into the realistic world? That’s a Bobby thing to do — never admit that you’re wrong. I’m sick of Lindsay.
Lucy got her first call-out as a counselor for the rape crisis center. I bet this is going to be an ongoing thing for her, and while she crumbled her first time out, I think it’s going to be good for the character. I was upset with her for not being there for her first victim because she couldn’t handle it, but then it’s easy to judge when you could never imagine what that situation is like.
The end of the episode was a blast — literally. Lucy opened a package sent to her … from a beyond-the-grave William Hinks. It was a tape-recorded message that exploded as she and Rebecca tried to flee the office. I smell charred flesh (sorry)!
5.14 “The Day After”
Does it minimize the significance of Lucy’s character that she was fine after the explosion, while Rebecca was dangling between life and death? Because I sure felt like it did, even if it does make sense that something like that could happen. If you recall, this was the great Jehovah’s Witness question, with Bobby taking Rebecca’s mother Helene (CCH Pounder) to court over her claim that Rebecca’s religious beliefs precluded her from receiving a much needed blood transfusion.
I know that they were acting out of love for Rebecca, but Bobby goes too far. Who’s he to say what Rebecca’s religious beliefs are, or that her breaking one tenant of her religion means she wouldn’t keep another? And how would her willingness to represent someone who was doing something against her personal religion prove anything? Honestly, I questioned just how much Bobby, here both sanctimonious and judgmental, actually had Rebecca’s best interests at heart.
Meanwhile, Ellenor represented a friend fired from his teaching position because he knew that another teacher was sleeping with a student and didn’t say anything. The case was ludicrous (and will hopefully continue next time), but it was the familiar faces that drew me in: the teacher Kevin Riley (Thomas McCarthy, Scott Templeton from The Wire), School Board President Harold Shaw (Michael Fairman, Seinfeld’s Arthur Pensky of “Now, you are aware….” fame), fellow teacher Scott Guber (Anthony Heald, Judge Harvey Cooper of Boston Legal), Principal Steven Harper (Chi McBride), and Superintendant Marsha Shinn (Debbi Morgan). Guber, Harper, and Shinn were all characters on Kelley’s Boston Public … did that spin-out of this one episode? Because if so, the man is even more amazing than I originally imagined.
Oh, and Lindsay went into labor right after the judge found for Rebecca’s mother. They had a boy, named him Robert. Does that mean we’re getting rid of her?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 14, 2010 @ 12:30 EST5EDT
That episode (or episodes) was a crossover “event” between The Practice and Boston Public. The events happened sometime toward the end of the first season of BP, when it was still worth watching.
*POST AUTHOR*
See what you miss when you catch it 10 years late?