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BOSTON LEGAL - We're in the Coast Guard!

The acerbic and reptillian Judge Cooper returns to Boston Legal in this final episode, but as a client.    Since this is Boston Legal, the client in question has an outrageous legal case:  Judge Cooper represents the people of Concord, MA who want to secede from the Union.  Yes, secede.  As in drop out.  This rivals the episode where Nantucket wants to acquire nuclear weaponry. 

Creator David E Kelly's shows have always been infused with a sense of the whimsical and absurd, and the cases on Boston Legal always seem more like legal fables rather than realistic courtroom stories.  Particularly in this season, the cases have been forums for Kelly's political views, and tonight was no exception. 

Despite Alan's loathing of Cooper, he agrees to take the case even though he knows they'll ultimately lose.  Denny Crane is so offended by the idea of Concord seceding that he agrees to represent the government, and so these longtime friends are pitted against each other.  Will the case tear Denny and Alan apart?

No, silly!  OK, I hope I'm not blowing the ending for you or anything, but the case does strain but not break their friendship, and this episode ends with the traditional balcony drink-and-smoke that we've come to expect.

The best moment for me was not in the courtroom, but the scene where Alan and Denny find out that they've been accepted into the Coast Guard Auxiliary and cackle and dance with glee like little boys.  It was just so... Boston Legaly. 

The show has really been built around the friendship between Denny and Alan, so it was nice to see this acknowledged on the last episode of the season.  If this were the series finale, it would have been a nice way to wrap things up.  But fortunately ABC has picked up the show for next season.

--Dave Campbell

BOSTON LEGAL - Denny Crane for President

This week Denny Crane's megalomania was wildly indulged when a friend from the Republican party (George Segal) convinced him that they were interested in Denny running for the office of President of the United States.  I couldn't see where they were going with this.  Boston Legal often has oddball storylines, but they make sense - this one just didn't add up.  Would the RNC really be interested in Denny?  Sure, he is a powerful attorney, but there is the mad cow thing.  And the hooker thing.

I should have known something sneaky was afoot when the Republican bigwigs continued courting Denny even after he does the old "pull my finger" gag in a meeting.  Behold:

Sure enough, the entire thing is a practical joke that climaxes with Denny being thrust onstage at his "campaign kick off party" wearing only a hospital gown and a bewildered expression.  For a moment I felt really bad for Denny, who seemed totally taken in by the whole prank.  Then a platoon of federal agents stormed into the party threatening to arrest everyone for illegal fundraising activity 0r something.  Everyone's freaking out - and then they realize that the agents are a counter-prank arranged by Denny.  Advantage:  Denny Crane.

Later Alan and Denny are talking to a baffled George Segal, who feels a little bad for staging such a cruel joke, and is impressed that Denny figured it out and trumped his joke.  Denny has a gleam in his eye - he's still formidable, despite the mad cow disease. 

And then Alan has to remind Denny what his name is.  Ah, brilliance and lucidity are such fleeting things.

--Dave Campbell

BOSTON LEGAL - An American Bromance

Boston Legal may be a law drama - or dramedy if I may use a made-up word - but the emotional core of the show lies within the friendship of partners Alan Shore and Denny Crane.  The signature scene of the series is the nightly cigar and Scotch the two eccentric lawyers share on the balcony at the end of another weird day at the firm.  These two unlikely soul mates enjoy winding down in each other's company, digesting the day's events and waxing philosophical and stuff.

It's not only important to the show and to the viewers, the balcony bonding scene is important to Denny and Alan as well.  So important, in fact, that on this week's episode Denny chooses Alan over the new love of his life, a sassy cattle queen who will marry him... if he moves to Montana with her.

He can't do it.  Denny is madly, impulsively in love with this woman - emphasis on the word "madly" - but she asks too much.  She basically wants him to break up with Alan.

William Shatner really inhabits the role of Denny Crane and it's rare on Boston Legal that you ever catch a glimpse of his previous most famous TV role.  No, not TJ Hooker - his other most famous role as Captain Kirk on Star Trek.  But this week he gives a positively Kirkian inflection to the line, "I... can't go... to Montana!"  You've gotta love The Shatner.

And you gotta love Denny and Alan's platonic love affair.  It's rare on TV that you find two male characters who are really so into each other that you can describe their relationship as a bromance, if I may use another fake word.  Derek Shepherd and Mark Sloan on Grey's Anatomy have sort of a bromance thing going I guess, but it's not quite as open and affectionate as Denny and Alan's thing. 

I mean, these guys actually say "I love you" and talk about their relationship.  They comfort each other, they bicker, they even hold hands when appropriate.  They have the emotional connection and honesty that women have with one another.  They're more than BMFs - they're platonic life partners who just happen to be straight men.

I salute the Denny and Alan bromance.   Sure, it's a fictional construct, but I think it's a nice example of how guys can be intimate with one another while still retaining their inherent guyness.  Right on, bros.

--Dave Campbell

BOSTON LEGAL - Excess baggage

Boston Legal returned to the air and returned to form with a new episode this week that was packed with just about everything one comes to expect from the show.  Except sex.  No sex or even talk of sex this episode at all.  I hope that doesn’t dissuade anyone who didn’t see it last night from checking it out on ABC.com.

This episode was all about how people deal with their “baggage,” the emotional hang-ups and damage that we carry with us every day.  Alan got to confront his fear of blow-up clown punching-dolls, reminisce about “killing” all his dolls as a child, and face down a hated nemesis in court, where he got to go on one of his patented Alan tirades during a closing argument.  Poor Denny had to come to grips with the increasingly disruptive symptoms of his, err, Mad Cow Disease and the fact that he will never ever get Shirley back in like, a million years.

Boston Legal has a knack at taking something that is funny and then twisting it until it becomes a thing of pathos and sadness.  Denny’s bizarre attempt at demonstrating his sensitive side to Shirley by “wiring his face for tears” starts off as odd, then becomes very funny when his tear-maker malfunctions and sprays fluid all over a nice restaurant and Shirley, and then finally becomes something desperate and sad as Denny breaks down into real tears when he realizes he’s lost Shirley forever.  I was kind of hoping that Denny would scream, “KHAAAN!” at that point, but my hopes were in vain.

The episode ended, as they always do, with Denny and Alan enjoying a cigar and some Scotch on the veranda and taking solace in the fact that although they’re weird, damaged people, at least they have each other.

--Dave Campbell

BOSTON LEGAL - Denny Crane, Superfreak

It’s nice to know that older people still like to get their freak on – at least in the world of Boston Legal.

This week’s episode was packed full of affairs of the heart and the loins as Crane Poole & Schmidt take up the case of a friend of Shirley’s who is suing her town in order to stop a nuclear reactor from being built nearby.  Scott Bakula (aka The Bakula, formerly of Star Trek: Enterprise guest stars as a lawyer representing the nuclear reactor people who also happens to be an old flame of Shirley’s.  That’s two – count ‘em, two - captains of the Enterprise in one show, although The Shatner and The Bakula never share a scene together.  That’s probably for the best, because with that much Starfleet macho in one scene, televisions around America would explode from awesome overload and possibly injure a great many people.  And they say nuclear power plants are dangerous.

CP&S’s client, Andrea, is an utter tramp, and I don’t use that term lightly.  She shamelessly hits on anything with slacks and a pulse, including Denny, Alan, and even Judge Brown, right in the middle of court.  She finds Denny a willing partner and the two of them are having sex in his office within nanoseconds of meeting. He doesn’t even catch her name, which is just fine with Denny.  Andrea then shifts her focus like a libidinous laser to Alan, having sex with him during a court recess – on the same day.  Not only is she shameless, Andrea has stamina.

Meanwhile Shirley and The Bakula rekindle that spark they used to share before Shirley went through six husbands and he had six kids with his wife.  Carl gets jealous and starts seriously rethinking his relationship with Shirley.  Uh-oh.

Denny and Alan are stoked that they had sex within hours of each other, but don’t know that it was with the same woman.  When Denny proposes that he, Alan, and their respective female partners get together for a nice dinner, some wine, and some hot middle-aged swinging action!  One thing I’ll say about Denny, he’s consistent in his lechery.

Things work out in court, despite some funny but wildly unprofessional behavior from Alan and The Bakula. It turns out the judge’s mother lives in Andrea’s town and he doesn’t want her living next to a nuclear plant.  I’m not sure the judge’s reasoning will hold up on appeal, but on Boston Legal they practice TV law – there are no boring appeals.  You either win forever at the end of the episode or you don’t.

Poor Shirley, though!  Not only does she not hook up with The Bakula – both take the proverbial high road – but Carl dumps her!  She fires him, of course, but takes it back.  Will Shirley never find true love?

Boston Legal is such a fun show because it has clever dialogue, a fast pace, and eccentric but well-developed characters.  I could watch an entire episode of Alan and Denny hanging out on the veranda, smoking cigars and chatting.  They have a unique, weird friendship that really works onscreen.

--Dave Campbell