Joan of Arcadia Season 2 thread (merged) (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

10/8/04

Not too crazy about Joan's assignment to plant stuff near the bleachers, even if it provides her nutty friend a chance to redeem herself to the rest of Joan's friends.

The lawsuit from Kevin's accident is seriously overwrought and grating on the nerves, especially Helen's trouble with making a friggin' statement of that fateful night.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

That lawsuit is beginning to bother me too. It just seems so insane! I am hoping that it will get to court and the judge will toss the whole thing out, and give them a good chewing when that happens.

I wish they'd take it to the press and let them have a field day with it, just to get the public on the right side. And their attorney seems like he's just going to sit back and let the whole thing happen, too. Am I missing something here?

Glenn

 

[Chris]

In real life, you could try to raise that kind of lawsuit, but most judges would toss it before it went anywhere. The cost of pressing the lawsuit to begin with would be fairly daunting, and the reasons behind it are non-sensical; if he wants to forget all about it, why would he be dregging it all up again?

I've been there (been a victim of violent crime) worked with others. It haunts your nightmares for the rest of your life. But I have no desire to go back into a courtroom with those people under any circumstances. Even counselors afterwards will tell you at a certain point, you have to try and move on..

The way that subplot is developing I don't care for.. but I am wondering if he's going to end up with a love connection with the nun.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The crazy camp girl still seems so artificially placed; I hate it when shows wedge new characters in that the audience has no attachment for and give said characters equal screen time with the characters we've spent a whole season or more getting to know.

Everything else seemed very top notch to me.

 

[Don Peskin]

Why don't they file a counter suit?

 

[Chris]

Yeah, I wondered that same thing too (in regards to a countersuit)

 

[Patrick Sun]

10/15/04 "The Cat"

Well, it appears the lawsuit subplot was put on the backburner as Helen's aunt Olive (Cloris Leachman) shows up in time to suffer a stroke and has a hard time allowing the Gerardi's to take care of her. Olive, being an independent free spirit, was having a hard time adjusting to her semi-paralyzed condition, but she comes around, though not until Helen gets fed up and rips her a new one.

God has Joan adopt a stray, wild cat, with much protestations from Joan. Eventually, with Olive moving into her family's home, the cat needed a new home, and Adam eventually wound up with taking in the cat. The eventual payoff is that the cat provides the inspiration for Adam's dreaded pop art homework project, and opens the door for Adam in a career in commercial art.

Luke finally gets Grace to open up to him w/r/t her home situation, her mom is a drunk, which is why Luke has never been invited to her home. When Luke sees Grace after the revelation via Instant Messaging, it's a very heartfelt scene between the two of them.

Joan's psycho friend agrees to go out with Friedman if he can recite "Hamlet" in its entirety. Friedman appears to be up for the challenge...

As aunt Olive adjusts to her situation, her attitude becomes better, and she even gives up the secret recipe for her piaya, and then she flies the coop to return to her free-wheeling ways in search of getting back in touch with her herbal doctor.

Will has to deal with an IA investigation of Roy as being a dirty cop, but it turns out to be 2 of Roy's subordinates, but Roy resigns, and the IA investigator (Annie Potts, I think) ends up taking his job.

Overall a good episode. It was good to see the Gerardi's laughing again after the previous episode were so dark and somber.

 

[Ivan Lindenfeld]

"Cat" was much better than expected. I like watching shows to spend time with my wife and find that they are better than I thought, even good.

I thought a stunt guest star episode would be weak, but the B and C story was so interesting I didn't care. I am growing into a big fan, but you won't see me bringing up the show at work.

My top 5 favorite TV series currently in production I think.

Such good writing and never cloying.

I bet they take the Grace's mom is a drunk some interesting places.

 

[Elizabeth S]

I was so glad to see that Luke understood that Grace needed a private, comforting hug and no words.

 

[Patrick Sun]

For some reason, I teared up at that scene. The acting, the moment seemed so real.

 

[Patrick Sun]

10/22/04 "The Election"

While it would appear more of the same from season 1: God telling Joan to do something which results in something unexpected but positive, this time Joan is told to get involved with the high school student council presidential election process. The parallel story of Helen's fervent desire to fight those who would censor art in her class's exhibition of student art provides Joan with the price for a "win at all cost" attitude, and the unintended consequence of Joan getting involved (along with her friends) pays off in unexpected ways for Adam. Good story on showing the impact of our actions even when ambition blinds us to the consequences and fallout for such desires.

Will has a hard time getting on board with new boss Preston's way of juggling the numbers to provide a scenario for a rosier effectiveness of the sherrif's department. Preston convinces Will of the payoff for seeing the numbers in a new way to get additional funding to benefit the department's response time and manpower to minimize casualties and cutbacks.

Luke makes a little headway with getting Grace to open up about her alcoholic mother, and its impact on her childhood and teen years. Luke even showed some backbone to some jock who pushed Grace into a wall. They both laughed about living through that episoe.

 

[Chuck_W]

Thanks Patrick...whenever I miss an episode of a show (like I did tonight) I always look forward to your synopsis to keep me updated.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Yep! Your recaps are great!

Although I absolutely love this series, I wonder how many schools hold their student body elections in mid-October. Just another 'get out there and vote' episode.

'7th Heaven' did this same crap, and 'American Dreams' wasn't much better. Ok, I know that the members here are not 'regular/average people, but I think its a cop out and a waste of an episode. Are the producers sinking down to a new low to get more ratings, or are they really sincere in trying to get everybody out there registered? How many areas will allow you to register to vote this late in the race? This would have been much, much better if they had shown it when school started up, 5 or 6 weeks ago.

Glenn

 

[Phil Dally]

I wish I hadn't wasted my Tivo on the Stolen Honor special on Fox. Joan would have been a much wiser choice.

 

[John_Lee]

I wish that, when my CBS affiliate moves a show to 2:05 a.m., in order to replace it with a crappy brochure for the zoo, that they'd actually show it at 2:05 a.m. so I can go to sleep and wake up with an episode to watch instead of a Johnny Mathis infomercial.

 

[Travis_S]

Amen, John. What the hell was that?! JoA is a great family show, I wonder how many families would wait until after 2 in the morning to watch it! I was stunned when I saw that it was moved into the middle of the night, then they have to go and show an hour and a half of informercials instead of exchanging their times with JoA.

 

[Chris White]

Have they decided to just forget about the lawsuit or was that settled and I missed it?

 

[Natalie F]

I think it just wasn't brought up in this ep, as it definately comes up later.

 

[Patrick Sun]

10/29/04 "Wealth of Nations"

An episode of good intentions gone awry in which Joan, coming off a high from scoring an A+ on her Economics test, is asked by God (Frederick from "Frasier") what will she do with her knowledge that she exhibited on her Econ. test.

This spirals into Joan helping her mom and ex-nun with sorting donated clothing for the homeless, and then Joan gets the idea of starting a clothing donation drive at school, and later it unravels into Joan taking some of the better clothing donations to the vintage shop and exchanging the donations for money. Joan rationalizes this line of action because she was using the money to buy more clothes for the homeless, while skimming a little bit to benefit herself in the process (using macro economic logic to justify her actions, the profit motive keeping the economy going with also doing societal good). One of the clothing items is a swanky Italian red jacket. Judith manages to convince Joan to get a belly piercing with some of the money as well.

Joan laments about never getting time to see Adam anymore now that he's got a design art gig, and Friedman has a laptop for sale. Joan rationalizes that if Adam had a laptop he could use, he could do his work anywhere and they could spend some time with one another. Joan consults with Kevin about giving Adam a laptop, but Kevin suggests that it would reduce Adam's self-worth/manhood (with the requisite diminishing manhood jokes by Kevin), so make it seems like Joan didn't get him the laptop. Joan didn't have enough money, but Judith goes into uber-flirt mode with Friedman and a deal is struck for his laptop. Following Kevin's advice, Joan makes it seems that she's just lending Adam the laptop because her parents bought it for her.

Helen and ex-nun go shopping in the vintage store, and ex-nun convinces Helen to buy the red Italian coat, so after some firm negotiation on the price, Helen gets the coat. Later, Helen shows up wearing the coat at school, and at the room where the school has the clothing donation drive. Helen is confronted by a widow who donated his deceased wife's coat, and the revelation of people profiting on this donation drive drives a wedge in people's trust and halts the donation drive. Helen finds out that Joan was the one who sold the coat to the vintage store, and the lesson was loud and clear (betrayal of the public trust in charitable activities shrivels up future charitable acts). Joan has to take the laptop back from Adam as she makes amends for her actions. Adam noticed that her belly piercing was oozing, and it's infected and will probably leave a scar (another side-effect of her larcenous activity). Adam gives Joan grief for stealing from the homeless. At least Adam isn't afraid to call Joan on her actions, but is gentle about it.

Will convinces Helen that they need to counter-sue and she agrees. Will tells Prescott about the lawsuit. Prescott goes into investigative mode and give Will some ammo on plaintiff's parents (cooking the books in their business). Will wants to use the info for leverage in the case, but Helen and Kevin are against using blackmail to right things among the 2 parties.

Luke convinces Grace to go to an Alateen meeting to get into a support group environment because she shouldn't face her mother's alcoholism alone. At the meeting, she introduces Luke as her boyfriend, a milestone in their relationship, and it's implied that she goes on to share her own story about her mom's alcoholism and its impact on her and her family.

Kevin bumps into his ex-girlfriend and her lawyer (she was cited for open-container violation), and the lawyer invites him to the Laugh Riot on open mike night. Later Kevin checks out the Laugh Riot (comedy club), rolls into his Ex, and gets that she was on a date with the lawyer. This motivates Kevin to try open mike night himself. Later, he gives it a shot, and with his whole family in tow, Kevin doesn't bomb and gets the crowd to laugh at his material, mainly about his condition and the positives of being wheelchair-bound. The comedy probably gives him an outlet about his condition and outlook.

Nowadays, it's amazing how easily Joan slides into conversations with God in all his forms. At the comedy club, in the form of a comedian who bombed, God corrects Joan on the saying "money is the root of all evil" with "the love of money is the root of all evil."

 

[Patrick Sun]

11/5/04

God gives Joan a videocamera to help her see what's underneath the surface of things.

Joan annoys the crap out of her friends and family with trying to stage events instead of capturing the reality of situations. Adam is especially annoyed and tries taking direction, but ultimately walks away in frustration.

A golf outing between Will, Kevin and Prescott has Will thinking about getting a new lawyer who's got a hard-nosed rep. Helen wasn't happy about them not including her in the decision-making process (all the while, Helen flirts around with the idea of seeing her old boyfriend who's in town for a few days, but after many attempts to connect in person, Helen finds that she doesn't need to see the old boyfriend and stays home with Will and the family). The new lawyer (Evan Handler) is a real ball-buster, too.

Joan is crushed when she tapes Adam and Judith sharing an embrace through the windows between 2 buildings at school, and jumps to all sorts of on-the-surface conclusions that results in Joan and Judith getting into a hallway fight. Joan over-reacted to Adam and Judith talking about how great a person Joan is, and then they share an embrace. Luckily, Friedman has a tape (from Judith's cam, I think) that shows Joan she jumped to conclusions and feels really bad about the whole thing. Later, during Joan's detention duties of cleaning up graphitti, Judith shows up and forgives her and helps Joan clean the walls up.

Luke and Grace still wrestle with Grace's home life. Grace invites Luke over to her house after school because her parents would be gone. Luke gets to see Grace's room, and they start to make out when her parent come home early, and Luke offers to escape through her window, but Grace decides it's time for her parents to meet Luke.

Joan goes to Adam's house to apologize. She spots some of Adam's videotapes from his childhood and offers to watch one when he was around 7. The tape shows him and his mom in a light-hearted way, and how he did what his mom directed him to do (in a playful manner), like run up to kiss the camera like he was kissing mommy, and Joan finally understands that her direction of Adam earlier reminded him of his deceased mother and brought back that pain for him. Joan hugs Adam as he sobs, remembering the good times he shared with his mother.