Boston Legal is good for your soul

I watched several episodes with dad last night and it was like a breath of fresh air. I laughed so hard all my muscles felt wonderfully relaxed afterwards and I had that soft smile on my face until I went to bed. It's like I always forget how incredibly funny and touching and well-written this series is when I spend more than a week or two without watching any.

The last time before yesterday was during my dad's convalescence, the night before my mom came back from Cancun. I remember because we watched the episode about the little girl who couldn't smile, which has haunted me ever since and become my favorite. I watched it again last night. God, Denny trying to make the little girl laugh with his lame magic trick - right after we've a poignant moment of the mom in Alan's office explaining her physiological inabilty to smile! Such perfect and hilarious contrast, a comedic timing so typical of this series. One of my favorite bits is when Alan is having lunch with the kid; she shows him that stunning autoportrait she did and tells him she's studying Magritte, the artist who painted a pipe and wrote below "this is not a pipe", adding a bit condescendingly that it was written in French and she translated it for him. And then BAMF Alan calmly pronounces with a rather good accent "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" in French and little girl goes 0_0, with an obvious new respect for him. Hehehe :-D You could see it's where he truly realized he'd do anything so this child gets into that private school.


He got another totally BAMF moment when he waltzed into the director's office and explained that he was SO sorry, but he'd jumped the gun and told his former journalist girlfriend he had a wonderful story for teh media about the compassionate school admitting the handicapped little girl, and he was going to rectify that right away :-D But it was the ending that was the most poignant, for both Alan and the child, where they acnowledge that "it's not easy being a purple thread".

And let's not even mention Beverly's cat :-D

I also finally got to watch Denny's wedding... I'm glad that the divorce mess I knew was coming (thank you, DVD back blurb) wasn't because Bev was a materislist bitch who'd been manipulating Denny all along; she did have feelings for him, even though she didn't love him as much as he did. And while she HAD given him permission to stray, even the most tolerant woman wouldn't exactly be jumping with joy that her husband of 2 hours is banging a waitress in the same coatroom where you first banged him. Ghod, the expression on everyone's face when they caught Denny in flagrante delicto! And the rabbit Denny pulled out of his hat during the divorce negociations about Bev's former unethical business practices reminded us again that he was far from the blind, senile man most of the partners think he is. He DID have something as a levee even not having signed a prenup.

Yet Denny IS going slowly and he knows it, as showed by his strong reaction in that other episode where the husband killed his wife eaten away by Alzheimer's. I didn't quite want to look at my dad, who after we visited my grandma last year asked me never to let him live if he ever got to that point. If that happens, and I pray it doesn't, I fervently hope that if a cure hasn't been found, euthanasia will at least have been legalized. Although it will have to be ruled very strictly, if you don't want people with less altruistic motives to use it for their own gain...

The one thing I want to remember from these episodes is Denny's final words in the murder/enthanasia trial show: "In the meantime, LIVE BIG my friend." Live Big. It makes so much sense, because we only live once (until proven otherwise - any such proof is welcome :D)and that's too short to waste it on a paltry, monotonous or idle life, because we have only one opportunity to shine, help others and leave something behind.

Live big. I shall remember that :).