Great exchange:
“I’m surprise she hasn’t figured it out by now. She’s not THAT dumb.”
“Dumb, no. But she’s totally self-absorbed. Paris Hilton has more introspection.”
vivalostwages - Last week’s ep was a supreme tear-jerker. At the beginning, Judith is trying to teach Joan to juggle. She’s not very successful. Friedman has just finished Hamlet and is going to do it for Judith in the next couple days, to try and get his promised date. Joan and Adam go on their first “real” date. (Nice dinner, the boy pays, you get the picture) Judith had helped to set it up, helped Joan with clothes and hair, picked out clothes for Adam. While they were on their date, Judith went out with some “friends” from her old school - the bad crowd she used to hang with. They were buying some drugs when the dealer tried to rob them. He pulled a knife and Judith tried to push him away. She was stabbed multiple times. Her so-called friends ran, leaving her to bleed out in an alley. She survived to the hospital. Joan and Adam find out when they come home from their date and go to the hospital, where Judith sees Joan before she dies. Adam yells at Judith for her irresponsible behaviour, then leaves the hospital. Judith dies shortly after that. Joan comes home, where Luke, Grace and Friedman are sitting on the porch. Adam shows up and Joan (rightfully) goes off on him for leaving when she needed him. He’d gone to get a present he’d gotten for Judith to thank her for helping with his art project - light-up juggling balls. Amber Tamblyn’s RL dad, Russ Tamblyn, shows up as Dog-WalkerGod and helps her to really juggle (the God part was kind of lame, in my opinion).
As a sub-plot, Luke tries to get Grace to go to a Schlock-y movie fest. The world’s worst SciFi thing, where the viewers dress up like cheesy robots and creatures from a grey lagoon, or something. Grace wanted Luke to go to an anarchist’s meeting (Luke: You have an organization? Isn’t that an oxymoron?") In a Gift of the Magi type of deal, Luke goes to her thing while she goes to his. In the meeting, all the girls looked just like Joan. Just like her. When Grace isn’t there, Luke goes to the SciFi thing to meet up with Friedman. Grace is there sitting with Friedman, enjoying herself. Friedman figures it out between the two of them. At the end, when they’re all reeling from Judith’s death, Friedman takes Luke’s and Grace’s hands and makes them hold hands in front of everybody.
StG
Yes. He also put the kibosh on Adam’s art, until Joan and Helen encouraged him to try again.
Oh, jeez. I forgot about that. It will be interesting to see what TWoP comes up with.
This particular God avatar had a…quality. I won’t say more than that.
Here, viva, this is a recap of Friday Night, the episode where Judith dies.
Thanks. I was beginning to think I was invisible. 
Of course, I could have checked IMDb and not even bothered asking but forgot until just now.
I really miss this show. Even more than *Enterprise *and if you know anything about me, that says a lot. It’s a wonderful series and I’m surprised I like it so much considering my (lack of) faith.
I don’t think you need faith to love this show. I’m certainly no church goer, but it’s nice to see God as this laid back entity, who let’s you make your own mistakes and choices, without being banged over the head with the Judeo-Christian philosophy.
In fact, I wonder if fundamental Christians have a problem with this show. Do they think portraying God as a six-year-old girl or a woman knitting on a bench or a Goth teenaged boy is sacriligeous?
Well, I’m a pretty ardent atheist. If God were to materialize in front of me right now and completely heal my broken leg without so much as a bruise, I’d be more likely to believe he was some sort of extraterrestrial medic instead of something divine.
That’s why I say it surprises me I like this show so much. That someone who’s fairly blase about religion would like it is not surprising but I’m pretty actively against it. The writing is superb, the characters are all interesting, and the plots generally keep me glued to the TV though, so I wind up just not caring.
What’s even more surprising is that I’ve tried to get my (Christian) mom to watch the show and she seems uninterested despite liking the dreck that was “Touched by an Angel”.
The world’s just a weird place, I guess.
How’s the leg healing, by the way?
It hurts a little and some parts of it, especially the upper calf, are pretty tender and/or sore but, overall, I think it’s doing well. I’ve been in surprisingly little pain (I’ve had cramps that hurt worse) and nothing seems to be atrophying *too *much so I guess I’m doing fine.
My ankle is really thin right now and that concerns me a bit though. Shouldn’t it be my calf that’s atrophying? I’m no medic but that’s what would make sense to me.
I’m not a fundamentalist - but I’m pretty conservative/evangelical in a liberal mainline denomination (which makes me seem much more conservative than I really am). Anyway, I think this is a great show. I wouldn’t rely on JoA to develop my theology on the nature and character of God… but, TPTB have done a remarkably good job of writing for Him. I can only imagine how hard it is to appeal to non-religious people, but not offend the religious. If I recall correctly, Barbara Hall is a practicing Catholic, so she probably has a good frame of reference in terms of traditional religious concepts of God.
God showing up in the various avatars: no problem. Not even the most fundamentalist Christians believe that God is an old man with a long white beard.
Two things.
I though Joan was flipping off the new School Office God?
Did you mean Grace?
I liked the way the “best way to affect (effect?) your future is to affect the present” angle was presented. And I knew, I knew those tarot cards would be blank. (I liked that scene, too. No reprimand, just a life lesson moment.)
Thanks for the recaps and links.
Aes, are you doing exercises while recovering?
I have a physical therapist who, I assume, will help me eventually but, for the time being, am not bothering aside from locking my knee ocasionally.
I think they’re still working on what to call the avatar over on TWoP - they’ve been adding a new server or two and have been up and down, unfortunately, so not as many folks as usual had the chance to post (last I looked, that is!). So far, though, I think someone had coined “AbFabGuyGod” but that might be wrong. LOL I’m not familiar with that show myself.
No, I’m pretty sure that after Helen was through ripping Price a new one, Joan, who was standing beside her, turned and flipped her hair in a dismissive gesture.
That was a great scene, by the way.
As Joan was leaving Price’s office (in her mother’s wake), she turns away from Price and flips her hair, and the effect was clearly the equivilant of flipping him the bird.
By the way, it seemed to me that, when Grace was tearing up the contract, that she just looked good. Did they make her up more than usual, or was it just love?
She was definitely wearing makeup. In the dining room scene I thought it was a little heavy-handed (though what you’d expect from someone who normally eschews the whole feminine thing), but it seemed to even out for the ripping scene.
Grace spruced herself up for Luke’s birthday dinner. That says a lot about their relationship. She did look very good!
Yeah, another great show from a great series. Wow, script writing that doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence. What a concept.
You don’t know how excited I was when I noticed the Celtic cross! But it was only partial: significator, the cover, cross, below, behind, crown, and before. Just getting that part right made me a happy girl (whereas most shows/movies screw it up e.g. “The Gift”).
Gay God gave me a good chuckle too. I appreciate an episode that doesn’t leave me a sobbing wreck like last week’s!