I heart Eli Stone!

I know it's been quite awhile since I last blogged. Life's been busy and I've barely had enough time to watch my shows, never mind write about them. But I had to write about Eli Stone because I've just been really, really loving it. Yesterday's season finale almost felt like a series finale but I'm optimistic that the show will see a second season. ABC has treated it really well, giving it a post-Lost timeslot and airing all 13 episodes and it seems like they have some confidence in it.

My first review of the show was generally positive, but things have really only gotten better since then. The show does a really great job at balancing the quirky humor and George Michael and the general wackiness of Eli's visions with the seriousness of his aneurysm and how it's changed him. I like that the show deals with faith without making it about any particular religion, and each episode is really like, life-affirming without being overly obvious or schmaltzy about it. I even enjoy the legal drama part of the show...yes, the cases are kind of crazy and unconventional but they stem from Eli's visions and tie into his personal journey so I'm more willing to go along with them than if they were on, say, Boston Legal...

And all the supporting players really bring the show to another level. I love Victor Garber in anything, of course, but Jordan's surprised me with how he too has been affected by Eli's change. (And the scenes with him singing are AWESOME!) I think Maggie is super cute and I totally squealed when we saw that vision of Eli and Maggie with a baby (yeah, the shipper in me always manages to crawl out). Even Taylor's grown on me...I still don't really get how she and Eli ever made a great couple but I buy that she really cares about him, and the story with her and Matt Dowd was pretty entertaining. And I love how they've developed the relationship Eli has with his brother, Nathan too. I thought the episode where Eli was seeing Nathan's memories through his eyes was really well done.

The season finale was just so wonderful though. It was kind of trippy, because at first you think the episode is switching between scenes of Eli before his surgery to have his aneurysm removed and then after but by the end you realize that all the scenes of "before" are actually all in Eli's head while he's in the coma. Eli's imaginary case involves a man with cancer who decides he doesn't want to go through chemo for the third time because he believed that God told him not to, which was just a perfect tie-in to Eli's situation. And it turns out that that man was already in a coma in the room next to Eli's. How crazy is that??

If there is a second season I wonder where things are going to go. It seems that Jordan was actually intending to make Eli a partner for a pro-bono division so that would work nicely but since the surgery was successful in removing his aneurysm I'm not sure what they're going to do about the visions. I hope we get a chance to find out!