Leslie Jordan

Last night I snorted sharply several times in succession (closest I can come to laughing when I'm alone) watching Boston Legal. I love Leslie Jordan, here playing Bernard Ferrion, an anxious and fastidious 50-something "serial killer." That's James Spader's hyperbole: Ferrion hasn't exactly earned the appellation yet.

Bernie had lived with Mother, a "cruel hurtful" woman, all his life. But one day she got on his last nerve and he hit her with the cast iron frying pan and he thought she was dead except she didn't die till AFTER she zestfully outed him as her attacker. James Spader got him off, no worries, and felt kindly towards him, thinking the killing was a one-time-only impulse, so was genuinely horrified when Bernie then whacked the elderly next door neighbor, fearing she had witnessed his first crime. Spader gets him off again but tells him never to return.

Nevertheless, Bernie, a very lonely guy at loose ends now without Mother, shows up at the law office again and Spader asks in high dudgeon: "Bernie, who have you killed this time?!"

Spader's secretary, taking pity on the killer, decides he should come to church with her and get saved. He tells her he is Jewish but she says nonsense, there has never been a Jewish serial killer, and he says well, there was Berkowitz, but she says no, Berkowitz was adopted so he was one of us. Then she opines: "if you are out there murdering people, on some level you must want to be Christian!"

Leslie Jordan is the greatest. I hope they bring him back again and again. He actually talks like a southerner. From the Hey, It's That Guy website:

Leslie Jordan is small, southern, and fey, sometimes all at the same time. He plays characters with names such as Ernie, Shelby, Lemar Samuels, Tot Dixon, Emmet Lefebvre, Beverly, Truman Fipps, and Iggy.

(Note to expectant parents: this is a representative sampling of the names that, as Hollywood has scientifically determined, possess a whiff of southern-fried effeminacy. Proceed at your own risk.)

Leslie Jordan is a delight. (You'll notice that only tiny people, and usually tiny, southern people, are referred to as "a delight," e.g. Reese Witherspoon.)

Leslie Jordan is aware of his tiny, fey southernness. He once appeared as "Preston LeRoy" in a play titled Southern Baptist Sissies.

Technorati Tags: Television, Humor