Saving Grace fails to setup its endgame

April seems to be the month of long-awaited returns (don’t knit-pick me for a couple of days). From Glee to In Plain Sight (and no, my move to Albuquerque hasn’t resulted in me walking through the background of a shot with our favorite US Marshalls) to V and to the lame duck Saving Grace. Det. Grace Hanadarko, last we saw her, was flying off of a building. If you were expecting a explanation on how they lived that didn’t involve the word “miracle,” well, you just don’t know what show you’re watching, now, do you?

Grace’s life, especially since Leon Cooley’s death, has been increasingly difficult to follow. When we first met Grace, she was a child of joy, but not faith (once could, though, swap out the word sin for joy, with no real measurable difference). The hard living (my euphemism for boozing and sleeping around) was all about rebellion, a theme that truly hasn’t changed much since meeting Earl. It took quite a while for the angel to make an impact on her life, but it was Cooley’s death that really set things in motion.

The first half of this season (or last season, depending on who is counting the episodes), was, quite frankly, pretty boring (I think I put it best when I was talking about the show’s cancellation: “You might as well call this summer Saving Grace 3: The Search for Neely, as it has been the main storyline much of the season. Frankly, that search worked about as well as its Star Trek analogue: Ultimately successful, but boring as hell in the meantime.”). I had hoped that the first episode back would set a solid goal to which the show would drive to the end. That is not at all what we received. I’ve less of an idea now than before about what the show is about. Sure, Grace is supposed to be redeemed, but can that actually happen at this point?

Saving Grace has always done an outstanding examining religion and faith in modern times. But if the main narrative of the show dies a boring death the way that it has been doing recently, that effort will be lost. The only intriguing thing introduced this week was the “angel of bad shit” (my words, not Grace’s), but after the bad taste in my mouth that Neely has left, I’m not sure if I can trust that an interesting concept be executed correctly. The producers have set a high bar in the early seasons for intelligence in their plots, and they need to meet it with the endgame.

Notes & Quotes

• “OK, lets talk.” Really? You want to speak to God, and that’s your opening line? One would think you’d like to start with a little stronger position.
• “I’m working on a book about how darkness always follows a miracle.”
• I had forgotten that Jessica Walter played Grace’s mother (In fact, I’d forgotten that we’d ever even met Betty).
• I wonder if Johnny will ever truly know Earl (or, heck, even remember him week to week).
• How can you not love the idea of locking a dog fighter in a room like that?
• Butch’s wedding, with Bobby’s help, was one piece of positivity in an otherwise negative episode.

Clacked by Ivey West
on Mar 30, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT