By Jennifer Larson

Denny Crane (William Shatner) wouldn’t be Denny Crane if he wasn’t insulting somebody and pushing the envelope of acceptability. Well, tonight is no exception when he fires an employee of Crane, Poole and Schmidt for being too fat. It’s such typical Denny behavior that I’m not even offended by it. Of course, it turns into all kinds of trouble for the lothario lawyer, and of course he sees nothing wrong with what he’s done, even if it is illegal. That being said, I don’t know how much longer Shirley (Candice Bergen) can deal with having to defend him to the rest of the partners, especially his arch nemesis, Carl Sack (John Larroquette). Meanwhile, Alan (James Spader) is busy trying to defend a woman from murder by pushing a temporary-insanity defense.

You remember this lady; she’s the one who walked into Alan’s office last week asking for advice on how to get away with murder. Being the upstanding lawyer that he is, ok not that upstanding, but too ethical to help murder somebody, Alan refused to give her that advice. However, he did agree to defend her, when she actually went ahead with that aforementioned murder. You really can’t blame her, considering the guy she killed brutally murdered her daughter and got away with it himself after being acquitted by reason of temporary-insanity. I guess she was looking for some ironic justice, which with Alan on her side, she may just get.

The only problem with this women’s insanity plea is the fact that she seems to know every publicity trick in the book. I mean, she knows about sound bites, how to make a psychiatrist believe she’s insane and how to get Alan to vigorously defend her. She may even know how to give the jury an excuse to let her off. According to Alan, everybody knows she isn’t insane, nor has she ever been, but they will willingly buy into her story in order to see justice is done, but only if she seems sincere. Yeah, there’s a problem with that, she isn’t. She’s so happy the animal that killed her daughter is dead, especially by her hands, that it’s all she can do not to giggle in court. Ok, that may be pushing it, but seriously, she has no remorse whatsoever about killing another human being, and apparently juries don’t like that.

While Alan’s case is heavy and very serious, Jerry (Christian Clemenson) has a new client who wants to get her deported lover back. By the way, her lover is a piece of storage equipment. Raise your hand if you wonder why this particular client got sent to this particular lawyer. While that’s funny to you and me, it’s a very grave matter for Jerry’s crazy client. Meanwhile, Alan’s murder defendant was able to brilliantly pull off an emotional appeal to the jury, which leads me to believe that she may really be insane. But still, not as crazy as Jerry offering to take the box lover’s case. And speaking of crazy, Denny has put the firm in a sticky situation by firing the fat associate. She is a lawyer, after all, and she knows a goldmine when she sees one. Denny’s idea of the amount of power he has can make this lady a fortune. So, it seems as if crazy is the theme of tonight’s episode of BOSTON LEGAL, but really, what else is new?


Things are really up in the air with Alan’s client. You know the drill, the prosecution puts up one expert witness that supports their side and the defense puts up another that supports theirs. I guess it really boils down to who the jury believes, and Alan is usually able to get them on his side, so things look favorable for the murdering mother. Things, however, don’t look as favorable for Jerry’s client. It seems that her lover, the storage box, was destroyed in the move. Sadly, that means the end to that relationship, but having a similar fixation with an inanimate object himself, Jerry knew how to comfort this wacky lady. Of course she did look lovingly at Jerry’s clock before she left, so I don’t know how much he really did help her. Although, being that she came back to ask Jerry out on a date. it appears he may have had more of an impact than first thought.

As for Alan’s client, well she faired just as well. The jury came back with a not guilty verdict. I swear, Alan could win a case that had the murder victim come back to testify. So ends another week at BOSTON LEGAL. I can’t begin to fathom what they have in store for us next week.