By Scott Patrick Wagner
Fancast.com
The latest episode of Boston Legal, "Indecent Proposals," pits The Power Known as William Shatner up against another force of nature, brilliant guest star Christine Ebersole as a cattle rancher out to block the sale of cloned beef. As she is introduced into the offices of Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, she asks Denny Crane if he eats meat; he responds, "Your place or mine?" And the tone is set for another wildly entertaining hour. The second case on the docket involves Shirley asking Alan to help her sue the Democratic Party . . . it seems her insufferable nephew is a superdelegate in Hillary-chosen Massachusetts who has decided to throw his super-vote to Obama instead. The sheer timeliness of this episode boggles the mind, citing issues as fresh as the Clinton "mistruth" over that "under fire" arrival in Bosnia. (TV episodes usually have a pretty long lag time between filming and airing; this one, amazingly, must've still been in rewrites as of last week.)
In cattleville, Denny has determined that Sunny Fields (Ebersole) is "the one," and he is madly in love. "Mad" being the operative word, since Denny has spent the past four years trying to convince everyone he has Mad Cow disease and now seems to be proving it. On a visit to his hours-old beloved's ranch, Denny asks her how she can tell if any of the cows have That Disease. She explains that the cows reveal it themselves, by running away from an afflicted member of the herd. As Sunny brings Denny up to the gate to introduce him to her livestock, all the cows make an immediate stampede away from Denny. He is a shaken man, certain that the rest of his herd have confirmed his diagnosis.
In the superdelegate case, Alan is arguing before the Pissy Judge (Henry Gibson), and starting to sound suspiciously like someone sneaking in a message for his candidate, Obama, in the midst of this pro-Clinton case. Shirley calls him on it, and they both get into a heated exchange that includes every piece of mud that Clinton and Obama have thrown in recent months. Unlike their political counterparts, however, Alan and Shirley realize they're being buttheads and resolve things with a hug. In the cattle cloning case, Sack (John Larroquette) is arguing before the Senile Judge (Shelley Berman), while Denny falls further smitten with Sunny, if that's even possible. Denny then proposes to her, and she asks for the night to think about it.
Amid accusations of being a "snidely-butt" by the pisher-nephew superdelegate, Alan eloquently argues that, although the Democratic Party is a private institution and can make whatever rules it wants, the two parties are, in fact making our decisions for us, overruling the votes of the citizenry, and making this anything but an actual democracy. Though the Pissy Judge agrees with him, he acknowledges that his hands are tied, and perhaps it is mandates such as the Dems's that cause people to vote Republican . . . how else to explain George Bush, he laments. The case is dismissed.
The Senile Judge can't keep up with the case, and rules alternately for both sides, twice. Nobody ends up knowing who won, but a splendid indictment of the incompetence of the FDA took place in arguments. On the personal front, Sunny announces to Denny that she has bought a ranch in Wyoming and is moving her business there. She asks if he is willing to move with her, and she will marry him if the answer is yes. Denny, at a loss, realizes that he can't leave Boston — mostly because he can't leave his best friend, Alan. Since neither Denny nor Alan can seem to make a relationship work with anyone else, it is a very smart decision.
