Eli Stone's Self Sacrifice

I was watching the episode "Something to Save" last night at ABC.com and was once again absolutely blown away by this brilliant speculative fiction show.

***Spoiler Alert ***

Eli Stone gets himself, his x-fiance and his brother into a heap of trouble because of the lies surrounding his medical condition. He claimed to forge his brothers name on the paperwork throwing himself fully into harms way and saving his brother from getting into trouble for perjury. This type of move we have seen before where a truly heroic character steps up and protects those in their community.

I became nervous that they would then have this episode magically resolve it's self and everyone would live happily ever after. That was not the case, in a brilliant move the writers actually have the main character still have to pay the consequences for lying.

***End Spoiler Alert**

To have the main character live up to the aspiration "No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friend." It was nice to see but this has been done before. The trick is in what a show does after that point. Many shows will then end with everything happy again like it was magically resolved. Eli Stone is written so well that although things are happy in the end they clearly show a reward for right action and consequences for wrong action. I am really looking forward to seeing the next episode when it is released on ABC.com