Eli Stone: Happy Birthday, Nate (Episode 206)

Scarecrow, I think I'll miss you most of all Okay, so do you remember before Thanksgiving? Because I don't. At the end of every month, it seems like my memory crashes and reboots with a wiped out hard-drive. So if you had to reach way, way back for some of this episode, you're not alone, and don't worry, I'm here to help.

Because the Stone brothers' father-issues are as deep-seated as Eli's aneurysm, Eli's visions this week revolve around their dad, Nate, Nate's birthday, and their dad being drunk to ruin it; Eli relives the memories from his dad's perspective, so he gets to act wasted for a bit. Nate witnesses the vision and remembers the incident vividly. Eli says it wasn't their dad's fault, really, and Nate reminds him that his duties as favorite son sort of died when their dad did.

Since last time, Eli's gone forward with JJ's emancipation claim, much to Jim Cooper's displeasure. Jordan's ready to side with him until Cooper throws his weight around in Jordan's office like he's the one in charge, and Jordan doesn't appreciate this attitude, so he gives Eli the all-clear. Eli and Taylor prepare the case against Maggie and Matt, who figure out that Posner and Klein have given them to Cooper to test their loyalty to the firm they chose. Cooper makes the case that much more difficult for JJ and Eli when he strongarms all of JJ's doctors into being unavailable for expert testimony. Eli then goes to Nate, telling him that he thinks that because he was their dad in his vision, inflicting some clearly lasting emotional damage on Nate, means that Nate should be his expert testimony. Nate adamantly does not want to, since he's thisclose to losing his job as it is, but Eli reminds him that he gets his orders from the Lord. It's hard to argue with a dude who always has God on his side.

And so, Nate testifies. He says that while JJ does have MS, right now he's asymptomatic--he's not had an incident since his first attack, and all his MRIs have come back clean, no new lesions. He adds that even if JJ were to have an attack, all the symptoms are easily managed, even by a 16-year-old. Matt asks him why none of JJ's doctors would testify the same, and Nate calmly says that there's a lot of things money can buy, including doctors. Just as he's said this, the chief of staff of his hospital has, of course, taken a seat in the gallery. Matt asks if it's possible that JJ could have an attack that would render him unable to take care of himself. Nate says it's not likely, but he has to admit that anything is possible.

Shall we get the subplots out of the way now? This one may have been more interesting if we had more time to see it play out, but alas. Keith's been avoiding Angela, who gets pissy about it, which puts Patty on his tail, so he tells Angela he knows she's a cokehead, and she's like, I was on amoxicillian for an ear infection, which gives a false positive for cocaine tests, you ass. So Keith goes to the hospital to apologize, but he's told that Angela, med student, hasn't been there in weeks: she's been suspended.

Taylor is still feeling conflicted over telling Matt she's pregnant, and she doesn't, and he's feeling exposed at Posner and Klein, so he picks an argument with her where everyone can see. When he arrives at Wethersby/Stone to apologize, with a chocolate bear and a huge rose bouquet, he runs into Jordan, who's mightily impressed with the display. Matt says he's sure Jordan's heard about his and Taylor's "little... little," meaning spat, and Jordan's like HAVE I EVER, I'M PSYCHED TO BE A GRANDPA! Matt's dumbfounded, and Jordan scoots. When Taylor confronts her dad over his big mouth, his defense is, "THERE WAS A CHOCOLATE BEAR!" Taylor explains her whole deal on this is that she never thought of Matt as long term. She wanted an anti-Eli, and Matt fit the bill. He wasn't supposed to stick. Later, she tells Matt that she was afraid to talk to him about their relationship, because she thought it was temporary. Matt: "I was going to say, let's get married." It may have started as a one night thing carried over almost a year, but he's always wanted more and still does. "Taylor, I just want to be with you," he says. He tells her they'll figure it out as they go. She says nothing, just smiles and kisses him.

Back at the firm, Eli stumbles into another drunken vision. He's passed out at his dad's desk, ontop of the infamous journal. Eli-from-the-past tells Eli-in-the-vision that he was just about to show him something from his book. It's open to a page with the name "JJ Cooper" inscribed at the top, circled several times. Eli frantically starts to page through it, but pre-adolescent Nate interrupts and gets pissed that Eli-as-Papa-Stone forgot the cake for his party. Nate flips out, but Eli tells him to calm down, Papa Stone was just about to read him something. Nate grabs the notebook and flips through it, reading the many notes to Eli, instructions to remember and references to his "gift." Nate says that if Papa Stone just pretended it was Eli's birthday, he might have remembered the cake.

Eli goes straight to Chen and asks if, by chance, he may have rescued the book from their rooftop barbecue. Chen says it's dangerous to know to much. Eli's frustrated because now he doesn't know the things he should, and this vision was about the notebook itself. He feels like the visions are getting more oblique lately. Chen reminds him that he was warned not to mess around with Jim, and he did. Eli says God also sent him the burning building vision, and that was a big fat zero. Chen tells him to wait--they're on His schedule, not the other way around.

Nate's boss rips him a new one for saying that doctors are bought off or intimidated, and on the heels of that lovely encounter, he gets a visit from Chen. (I can't get over everyone calling him Frank. It doesn't suit him, except for how frank is exactly what he is most of the time.) Chen tells him that he has to go back to court the next day. Eli doesn't know it yet, but Nate has to be there. Nate's like, okay, Zoltar. "It's in the book," Chen tells him. Nate reminds him that they BURNED the book. Chen says that he's telling Nate in confidence that his dad wanted him to be there in court with Eli.

JJ takes the stand and testifies that he does have a support system if he gets sicker. Nate slips in and takes his seat in the gallery. Nate says he has his coach, girlfriend, her family, and doctors. All better than the dad who tried to bribe his girlfriend to leave him alone and filled in their swimming pool when JJ refused to be part of his clinical trial. "If I stay with him, the only thing I have left is MS," he says. Maggie stands and asks if Cooper can question his son. Eli and Taylor, they are not pleased, but the judge allows it. Father and son bicker about whether or not JJ's mother would have approved of all the lengths his dad goes to in order to keep him from getting sick. And then Cooper pulls out the big guns: he reminds JJ of the week he went to Japan and JJ stayed with his coach and ended up in the ER having overdosed on 12 painkillers. JJ, panicking, calls to Eli that he wants to stop, and though Eli appeals to the judge, Cooper keeps going. JJ says that he'd just been diagnosed, and it was one night. Cooper reminds him of what he said when they spoke on the phone: "Why did you leave me alone, Dad? I can't be alone." JJ's struggling to hold it all in right now, and it's so sad. Taylor hisses at Matt to stop this, while Eli protests this is inhumane. Cooper tells JJ to hate him all he wants, but it doesn't mean he can take care of himself. Eli finally secures a recess, and the four lawyers go to a back room to yell at each other a lot. Maggie claims it was her idea, while Taylor thinks it's the textbook definition of unfair surprise. That devolves into Matt babbling about babies, Taylor chasing after him, and Eli dismissing Maggie. Nate sweeps in and asks if Eli saw what he did: JJ's hands shaking. Not from fear or emotion, but because of neurological tremors.

Nate does some new MRIs and discovers something horrible. JJ has at least two complete lesions, and these are not new. Nate thinks that they didn't go undetected--he thinks that when JJ had his monthly MRIs, the actual films were replaced with older, healthier scans imprinted with the new date. Doctors were forging JJ's MRIs as his condition was worsening. All this to claim he was asymptomatic and provide proof. JJ steps into the room and asks if he's getting worse. He figured, since they asked him to come in. He's been feeling tired, even though his dad was telling him he was fine. Eli asks Nate for a moment with JJ, and he tells the kid a story about when he first found out about his aneurysm; he knew he was dying, but the world just kept on going like nothing had changed. So he went on, too, even though he was scared. "That's what life is. You gotta keep moving forward, even when you know that there's bad stuff waiting for you years or weeks, maybe days down the road. You keep moving forward, because even when you think you know what's gonna happen, it doesn't always. That's what hope is made of," he says.

The Stone brothers take the chief of staff and Jim Cooper to task, the two sets of MRIs laid out for them to see. Matt and Maggie are dumsquizzled--Matt asks how this can even be done. Nate reminds them: buttloads of cash. Maggie asks why, and Eli tells her that it was all to keep JJ in the clinical trial. Nate adds that under FDA guidelines, JJ's no longer eligible for said clinical trial. Cooper says he did it for JJ, to cure him. Matt advises him to stop talking. Matt asks what now. Eli says that Cooper will emancipate JJ, set him up with cash for living expenses and medical care. And Nate says that the hospital is going to clean house, unless he wants the DA to get a list of the laws they've broken. Nate's boss says he'll talk to the board.

Back at Chen's, Eli muses that he didn't think the job would get harder, but now he has to help JJ get over the fact that the rug's been pulled out from under him. Chen reminds him he has a calling, not a job. Eli says it feels more like a job with an unpredictable boss. When Chen says he thought Eli had accepted the master plan, Eli says he has, and he's trying to be a good soldier. Chen reminds him again that he wasn't, he wasn't supposed to mess around with Jim. Eli's like, that's unclear. I won both cases, Cooper's and JJ's! And then he realizes that JJ=Jim, perhaps. He thinks he missed something in his second vision, the one with the burning building. Chen needles him back into it, and there in the burning lab, Eli sees JJ, cowering in a corner. He immediately makes a call to JJ's girlfriend's mother, but JJ's been gone for a few hours. He tells Chen to call 911 and drives straight to the Cooper building, which explodes, quite literally, in flames. Eli fights his way in, and it's exactly his vision from last week, fire eating the ceiling and walls. He talks JJ out, away from the gasoline can he's sitting next to.

At the hospital, JJ's bandaged in bed. He tells Eli that he was walking and thinking, and... His dad took away the thing most important to him, so he did the same. Eli says that JJ will have to talk to a shrink, but there won't be any charges. His dad again, JJ guesses, the control-freak. Eli sadly tells JJ that maybe his dad just wants to control what he cares about. JJ asks if Eli's on Cooper's side now. Eli tells him that JJ's an adult in the eyes of the court, and he has to learn that there are no sides, just people. He has tough times ahead, and he might feel like he doesn't need his dad, but someday, he might want him, and when he does, he doesn't want it to be too late. Eli leaves, and Cooper sits silently at his son's bedside.

Nate makes the last visit to Chen of the episode, to ask how Chen knew he needed to be in court. Chen says he put a copy of the book aside. Eli doesn't know, because there are things he's not ready to see. Chen says Nate can't tell Eli. Nate looks like he's trying to wash his hands of it, but he turns back and says that there are things in that journal affecting him, his life, and he needs to know what it says about him. "I feel lost," he says. "What happens to the brother of the prophet?" Chen smiles to himself and retrieves the copy, offering a single sheet to Nate. It's a letter from Papa Stone, the day of his birthday with the forgotten cake. He writes, "You are going to watch your brother do some amazing things. You'll feel lost in his shadow. But know this: he won't be able to accomplish anything without your help, your love, your patience. The world is counting on you, too. That's the future you've both been handed."

Eli breaks this news to Nate: the hospital wants him to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and in return for his signature, he gets a ginormous check, but gives up his job. It's a huge check. Eli says that he knows the hospital signed it, but he feels like it's from their dad. "I think that's what the vision was about, why you were involved in this whole thing. Maybe it's supposed to make up for everything." Nate says the check's not that big, and the brothers chuckle a little.

"You boys are my whole world," Papa Stone writes, "I know what's in store for both of you. I just cry, because I'm so very proud. I love you, Nathan. I love you so much, it aches. Happy Birthday, Nathan. Love, Dad."