Episode 12 - Tailspin

'Tailspin' - Eli's doing laundry in his building and meets a female neighbor. He's charming but things don't go quite as planned when a vision of an airplane landing practically on top of him has her running off.

At work, Patti's not happy because of an annoying tenant in the WSA offices. Which is nothing more than an excuse for them to discuss the firm's dire financial situation.

Over at Jordan's hotel room, he is on the phone with Taylor who's trying to convince him that the firm needs to take a table at an upcoming awards dinner. Jordan would rather not, considering he won't be receiving a prestigious lawyering award. Then his day gets worse when his room service arrives late and the order is wrong. He bitches out the middle-aged hotel guy who doesn't stand for any of his crap. Turns out the man's in an even worse situation than Jordan – he and 300 of his co-workers were recently fired while his CEO was given a $43million severance payout. Jordan immediately gets all litigious and offers to take on the case to sue the man's old company.

Across town at Posner & Klein, Martin Posner appears. He's crowing over another firm victory that Paul handled. Maggie pipes up because she thought they were Matt's client, only to discover Matt has gone home to WSA. In other news, Posner has been nominated for the lawyering award Jordan won the last 6 times, and Martin couldn't be more proud of himself. He enlists Paul and Maggie to write his acceptance speech for him.

There's applause over at WSA as Jordan welcomes Matt back to the firm. And he hasn't come empty-handed – a wealthy client has agreed to come with him. Unfortunately said client is not of the caliber that WSA likes to represent, and Keith threatens to walk if they take them on. Matt and Eli argue that they need to think about taking them on for the money it will bring in, but in the end the firm decides to turn them away. Jordan announces they'll be representing the hotel guy in his law suit instead.

Jordan and Eli talk about the case some more, and Jordan's insistent on going out on a high note if indeed this is to be their last case. Something he says reminds Eli of Grace, who Jordan describes as his 'would-be love of your life'. Jordan goes on to say that if the firm folds Eli can go visit her in Kenya, which prompts him to have a vision of being on plane heading for Nairobi. Eli immediately takes this to mean he will be seeing Grace again in the not so distant future.

A pre-trial trial is set but things don't go so well for Jordan and his team. The judge throws it out.

In his clinic, Nate calls his next patient, one Frank Lebakowski. He thinks it's a joke when Dr. Chen stands up, not realizing that's his real name. Frank's been feeling under the weather. As Nate examines him they discuss how Eli hasn't been speaking to either of them. Frank is feeling guilty over Mr. Stone's death, despite Nate reminding him that it was the alcohol that killed his father, not the Dark Truth.

Over at P&K, Maggie and Paul are working on Posner's speech. He comes up with a string of nicknames for her as she continues to bicker with him, until Matt shows up to collect his stuff. Maggie is all upset about him abandoning her at P&K and Matt reminds her that she can always come with him. She refuses, sadly.

Nate drops by Eli's office to apologize for keeping quiet about the copy of their father's journal. Once they're on good terms again, Nate is mentioning that he'd seen Frank, which sets Eli off. He blames him for their dad's death. Nate wants Eli and Frank to make up but Eli is wishing he could sue Frank over his part in his fathers death. The idle thought gets him thinking about Jordan's case, and he comes with a malpractice strategy that gets them back in the courtroom. Not only is Jordan going to defend the man from the hotel, but he wants to take on all 300 of his fired co-workers as well.

The case is going fine, but neither Jordan nor Eli are too confident. They seem to be the underdogs in this scenario. Eli has another vision about being on the plane, in which he realizes that he's not seeing the future but rather the past – 10 years in the past. And then he sees his father getting on board. Nate and Eli discuss this latest development. The brothers can't remember their father even taking a plane trip somewhere. After some Googling, they discover that the flight in question crashed killing everyone on board.

The case is looking shaky, but then Eli comes up with a handy suggestion thanks to something else he saw in his vision. WSA is still alive and kicking.

At the awards dinner, Posner wins Jordan's award. But then Jordan gets a surprise when Taylor announces he's being presented with a humanitarian award. At the event, Maggie and Eli meet up for an awkward chat. Eli tries to find out if anything is going on between Maggie and Paul but she isn't telling.

The case wraps up, and WSA win an enormous settlement of $220 million, so the firm's financial crisis is over.

In another vision Eli witnesses his father warning the passengers that the plane is going to crash. Though he sounds crazy when he admits he saw the plane going down in a vision, he manages to convince several passengers to disembark, one of whom is a teenager, Grace. Eli realizes his dad saved Grace for him all those years ago.

Eli finally mans up and goes to see Frank and they have a heart to heart. Frank talks about Eli's father being a derivation of Jeremiah. "God told Jeremiah, you will go to them but they will not listen to you." Eli confirms his dad needed the Dark Truth to save the people who did listen to him and got off the plane, including Grace. In that way, Frank helped save her too. Frank's not convinced and is still consumed with guilt over Eli's fathers death. Eli tells Frank that he was his fathers son too, because he was there for him at the end when in a way Eli and Nate never were.

(Airs on Saturday July 04 2009 on the ABC Television Network)

'Eli Stone' stars Jonny Lee Miller as Eli Stone, Victor Garber as Jordan Wethersby, Natasha Henstridge as Taylor Wethersby, Loretta Devine as Patti, Sam Jaeger as Matt Dowd, James Saito as Dr. Chen, Matt Letscher as Nathan Stone, Jason George as Keith Bennett and Julie Gonzalo as Maggie Dekker.

Guest stars include, Daniel Benzali, Kerr Smith as Paul Rollins, Kurt Fuller, Gina Torres, Michael Reilly Burke as Clayton Wells, Todd Grinnell as Anthony Gibbons, Mandy Musgrave, Steve Hytner, John Sloman, Tom Amandes as Martin Posner, Thomas Cavanagh as Aaron Stone, Caryn West as Margot Stemple, Amy Motta as Grace's Mom, Sabrina Lucero as Young Grace, Heather Prete as Flight Attendant, Michael G. Hawkins as Businessman #1, Richard Neil as Businessman #2, Eddie Driscoll as Airport Policeman, Isaiah Mustafa as Newlywed Husband, Angel Parker as Newlywed Wife, Carole Androsky as Jury Foreman, Perry Laylon Ojeda as Bartender and Patrick Weil as Prosecutor.

'Tailspin' was written by Andrew Kreisberg and Steve Lichtman and directed by Bethany Rooney.