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Reviewed by Joel Zand November 12, 2000
Working for The Man In an election week mired by law and politics, solo Ed Stevens delves deep into the world of small town politics by helping Stuckeyville's incumbent mayor pander for votes. Ed is becoming quite a whiz at marketing his practice. How many lawyers do you know who can market their services with as much subtlety as does Ed, the bowling alley lawyer who proudly proclaims that he's hosting the town's "full-ass bowl-a-thon." If you know anything about Ed, then you know he never does anything without putting his whole heart into it. Stuckeyville's Mayor Kendricks -- "the Man" -- becomes Ed's newest client shortly before the town's upcoming election. The Mayor is not really looking for legal advice as much as he is a clever campaign strategist to catapult him ahead of his opponent, Mr. Ludwig, the waterbed salesman. Kendricks is upset that Windy City publisher Holstrom & Company's Guide to Small Town U SA gives Stuckeyville just a 3-star rating. Although the book characterizes Stuckeyville as a "cute, quaint, utterly unremarkable little hamlet," its neighbor Jaspertown ranks slightly higher, because it has a ferris wheel. Being an all-American mayor, Kendricks is litigation hungry. It's the American way, especially when it comes to an election. He wants Ed to sue the publisher for slander to stop the book's scheduled release just before the election. Some of Ed's advice to the mayor is sound -- that the publisher is entitled to its opinion - but some of it is horrible hornbook law. Remember this important pneumonic, Ed: "slander is spoken." Books don't speak - well, at least not in that literal sort of way. So like the lawyers who flew to Florida to litigate for their candidates this week, Ed takes up Kendrick's cause (As an aside, while representing the mayor, Ed learns that with so much time on his hands - being Mayor of Stuckeyville ain't "exactly a pressure gig" - Kendricks likes to have men and woman pose nude in his mayoral sanctum so he can paint nude portraits). The Festival of Ducks To lobby for Mayor Kendrick, Ed comes up with a clever, albeit not too credible scheme for bolstering Stuckeyville's prominence in the eyes of the publisher rating it in the Guide to Small Town USA. When the editor arrives in town for the yearly book update and to discuss the mayor's threatened legal action, Ed tries to show the town's noteworthy features, but comes up empty when he realizes that the supplier of a local delicacy is doing time for ramming his Camry into his ex-wife's living room (the law works in mysterious ways). So Ed comes up with an idea for the mythical Festival of Ducks, a high profile event where the town gets together to remember heroic ducks that saved the town's founder centuries ago. Yeah, right. But if there's one thing that Ed knows how to do, it's throw a party. Creating atmosphere and goodwill is something about Ed that makes him a real charmer. By the end of this family-friendly festival, Stuckeyville's rating leaps from three to four stars. He may not be in court this week, but he's an effective advocate. Bowling and Voting Meantime, Phil Stubbs becomes sensei to the Stuckeybowl bowling champion, Kevin Schwartz, a child bowling prodigy. Phil has three ground rules for the kid, now dubbed "Shazzam Jacobson." First, stay in school. Second, no drugs allowed. Third, never question the sensei. He has Shazzam show up for practice at 5:00 a.m. He fools the kid into thinking that Phil himself is a 300 bowler. But the kid is wise to the ways of Stuckybowl's snake oil salesman. He knows the punch line to Phil's jokes. He even learns that Phil is not the 300-game bowling teacher he leads people to believe he is. Unlike his student, the sensei doesn't always get strikes. His "Philenator" bowling ball knocks down only 6 pins. But Phil has a practical view of the bowling and voting worlds: "If the Presidential candidate got 60% of the votes, that would be considered a landslide." It's a good thing Phil bowls in Ohio, not Florida. The Grass Is Not Always Greener In addition to helping the Mayor, Ed has to woo his most important constituent. Carol Vescey, the object of his unrequited affection, wants to turn over a new leaf by fleeing Stuckeyville. Traveling makes for good writing, she argues with Ed. But Ed doesn't want her to go too far, so he makes a deal with the guy who runs the Pine Forrest Refuge ("A place for writers" the sign says) - a writing colony just outside of Stuckeyville. Ed gets Carol a week at the retreat in exchange for doing the closing for the colony's owner. Not too realistic here. How many schoolteachers just pick up and leave for a week? But when Carol finds out that the contrived atmosphere at the writing workshop is not what she imagined, she heads home to Stuckeyville. Midwestern Exposure This week's episode makes clear that Ed is NBC's midwestern version of CBS's now defunct "Northern Exposure." Instead of a transplanted New Yorker who is a doctor, we get one who's a lawyer. Doc Joel Fleischman had a love interest in Maggie the Pilot. Ed's got a Love Jones for schoolteacher Carol Vescey. On Ed, folks walk around with sip-top coffee cups everywhere they go, fresh from the coffee joint where they always just happen to run into one another. On Northern exposure, folks hung out in the local tavern. There were always festivals celebrating local lore in Cicely, Alaska on Northern Exposure . On Ed, there's a "Festival of Ducks." Yet something needs to set Ed apart from Doctor Fleischman. Ed doesn't need a duck, but maybe a dog …
In a curious role reversal with the show's protagonist, Joel Zand is a New York solo practitioner who left his Midwestern roots behind to work with Findlaw. He has represented New York City landlords, tenants, and folks with pets in pit-bullesque litigation (always representing the underdog, of course). Zand received his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and his B.A. from the University of Chicago. |
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