One of the reasons I enjoy Boston Legal is the complex and fascinating character of Alan Shore. Our protagonist in this show is sometimes a hero and sometimes an antihero, and in this episode he is both.
Without revealing too much about the episode, Alan is forced to do a bad thing to stop a bad man from hurting innocent people, and at the end he regrets how quickly he chose this action. This is a quandary with which philosophers have grappled for centuries: when is it appropriate to take wrongful actions to stop harm? Ethics are not situational, although there are some who would like us to believe they are. We're expected to cheer or at least be pleased when the "bad guy" gets shot on a lesser program, although we all agree shooting people is wrong. If it was the bad guy who got shot, the one doing the shooting must be the good guy. Real life is of course not so simple. It's never good to do harm, even when the one harmed truly deserves a comeuppance.
Boston Legal shows us not a shooting, but an unquestionably wrongful act, and the act is performed on someone who is definitely a bad guy. And the genius of this program is they simply don't leave it at that; Alan is left to wonder at the end at what he's becoming. "Denny Crane," answers Denny Crane, as though it should comfort Alan that he is approaching an icon of dubious morality. The appeal of the simplicity and the directness of immorality is something that Alan, a deeply conscientious man who usually pretends to be something else, is frankly afraid of. Alan struggles with right and wrong, even as he always tries to create the right outcome. And so Boston Legal makes me think, even as it entertains.
Without revealing too much about the episode, Alan is forced to do a bad thing to stop a bad man from hurting innocent people, and at the end he regrets how quickly he chose this action. This is a quandary with which philosophers have grappled for centuries: when is it appropriate to take wrongful actions to stop harm? Ethics are not situational, although there are some who would like us to believe they are. We're expected to cheer or at least be pleased when the "bad guy" gets shot on a lesser program, although we all agree shooting people is wrong. If it was the bad guy who got shot, the one doing the shooting must be the good guy. Real life is of course not so simple. It's never good to do harm, even when the one harmed truly deserves a comeuppance.
Boston Legal shows us not a shooting, but an unquestionably wrongful act, and the act is performed on someone who is definitely a bad guy. And the genius of this program is they simply don't leave it at that; Alan is left to wonder at the end at what he's becoming. "Denny Crane," answers Denny Crane, as though it should comfort Alan that he is approaching an icon of dubious morality. The appeal of the simplicity and the directness of immorality is something that Alan, a deeply conscientious man who usually pretends to be something else, is frankly afraid of. Alan struggles with right and wrong, even as he always tries to create the right outcome. And so Boston Legal makes me think, even as it entertains.
