(S03E13) Shirley Schmidt: This is getting ugly.

Denny Crane: Denny Crane ugly.

The whole Denise-Brad-Jeffrey sex plot has got to go! At first I thought it was kind of amusing. But, after three weeks of it the whole storyline has reached the tiring stage, especially if you saw the scenes from next week's show. It's like watching an episode of The O.C., except with much older people. Frankly, I really don't care who Denise is sleeping with. Hell, she could be sleeping with Paul for all that matters (that would make a much better story). It's time to get past it and have these three focus on the Legal portion of Boston Legal.

Now, with that out of the way, let's press on with this week's fairly Alan Shore-free episode.

The main focus was on the more entertaining Denny-Bethany-Bella love triangle. When we last left Denny he was jetting off to Hawaii to be with Bella, who is Bethany's mother. He was quite truthful with Bethany about it and she was a bit miffed. In fact, she tackled Denny to the ground. That's one powerful little person!

Anyway, this week Bethany took her mother on in court as the attorney for a animal rights group that was harassing Bella and her cosmetics firm. Defending Bella in the case was not Alan Shore, but Denny and Shirley Schmidt. This was interesting because Denny was ready to dump Bella for Bethany. There were some fairly good lines during this court case, the only one featured this week (because the whole Denise-Jeffrey-Brad story was so fascinating. Stop it, Rich! Bad reviewer!), and Denny actually sounded quite intelligent when questioning the opposing witness. I didn't quite get Shirley's statement to the court, though. I think she was defending Bella, but then again perhaps she wasn't.

While we are on the subject of Bethany and Denny I should mention two reoccurring gags from this season that resurfaced in this week's episode. The first was the one where Denny talks somewhat badly about Bethany, unbeknownst to him that she's standing right next to him. We've haven't seen that since last year. The second gag involved Denny speaking from his heart to Bethany. In reality it isn't his heart, but rather Alan Shore holding up cue cards for Denny to read. Both gags are funny no matter how many times you see them and I'm glad they were back this week.

Moving on, let's talk about Clarence and Claire. If any two characters have changed this season it has been these two. When we were first introduced to Claire she was shown as a hard-nose attorney from New York. But, as the season has progressed she's soften up quite a bit. So much so that she decided to go on a date with her assistant Clarence. When we first met Clarence he was, well, Clarice. Since then he has been more Clarence than he has been his other alter egos (although his Oprah persona did make an appearance this week). I'll be honest here, these two make a cute couple. I'd rather see a few weeks of this storyline than the one with Denise, Brad, and Jeffrey.

Before I go I just have to mention the costume party that was held at the end of the episode. According to Paul, everyone had to come as someone they admired. Paul himself came as Albert Einstein, Shirley came as Diane Sawyer (although she could've been Diane Keaton), Denny came as Dick Cheney, complete with loaded shotgun, Denise showed up as Jennifer Aniston, complete with Angelina Jolie voodoo doll, and both Brad and Jeffrey appeared as Buzz Lightyear (love that corporate synergy), which led to a fight between the two. The funniest appearance was Alan Shore, who came to the party as Shirley Schmidt-Ho (the inflatable doll that bears an uncanny resemblance to Shirley). When the camera panned to Alan in that outfit I just broke up laughing.

Although not alot of lawyering, a pretty decent episode.