It said it was showing St. Jude, which I think is some charity event for a local hospital. I’m glad I tuned in to check!
Anyway, I thought this episode was a little too pat. I loved the character interaction as always, and Luke thinking Joan was pregnant and then getting hyped on caffeine was hysterical. I was a little surprised that Helen would tell her friend at work that she might be pregnant before she told her husband, but I guess it goes back to the communication thing the therapist was talking about last episode.
I didn’t quite catch the prize for the TriMathalon…since Luke won, he gets $30,000 towards tuition at MIT? What’s that, three textbooks and two classes?
Usually, there’s a long winding road from Joan’s task to the finale, but I knew once God told Joan to get her license that she would end up rescuing her dad somehow. And how many teenagers take off in the middle of school to go get their license? Seems to me Joan gets away with missing a lot of classes.
Also, did Will slam the car hard enough into the pole to kill the kidnapper? I know the guy took off his seatbelt, but there wasn’t that much damage to the car.
Oh, and when Helen saw Toni and the other cop at the school and she started screaming…my God. Wow.
I thought Kevin was the fact checker…so how come he didn’t check the facts in the editorial before it was printed?
I thought it was one of the best, most moving episodes so far, mostly because of the scenes with Kevin and his mother.
As for your questions, the kidnaper slammed his head into the windshield, and they showed quite vividly that it fractured his skull, which has a tendency to do nasty things to you, particularly when it’s hours before help arrives.
Kevin checked the facts he was told to check, which was the racial mix of the zero-tolerance arrests. He delved into it deeper later out of loyalty to his father and found out there were facts not cited in the editorial.
I like the show and the underlying theme that one person’s small effort can change life. This episode was a bit too black and white, and you could see in five minutes where it was all leading.
Not the best episode, but still worth watching.
But subtle it wasn’t.
Now if only God would tell her to go to Washington DC and put that banana peel on the floor and…
I’m starting to get weary of shows in which a driver being held at gunpoint by his or her passenger gets out of the situation by ramming the car into a pole, counting on the passenger’s unfastened seat belt and/or lack of passenger-side air bag and/or dumb fucking luck to escape.
The first time I saw it was an “X-Files” episode (or was it “Millennium” or “Strange Luck”?). Then “The Handler” did it. Now “Joan” has done it, too.
Yeah, that was a little odd, but I guess they had to make it during the school day, so Helen could come back to see the cops there waiting for her.
They did get the license right, though. Maryland just changed the design of our licenses, and even in the quick glimpse I could tell they had it right. Blue outline of the state in the upper left, little icon of a blue crab on the right. I’m glad they didn’t dummy up some fake-looking one. None of the MVA’s have a city name out front, though. They just say “MVA.” When Joan and her mom walked out there was a big sign that said “Arcadia MVA.”
I like picking on up things like that, since this is supposed to take place where I live. No way is that city they’ve started showing from the air Baltimore or anywhere else around here.
The plot was a little forced, but I loved Luke all hopped up on caffeine and thinking Joan was pregnant. Was he like that from one cup of coffee or had he been slamming them back all day?
And where does one get Starbucks-like cups of coffee in a high school?
The first time I saw this trick used was in a 1994 movie called The Last Seduction. Since then, whenever I see a hostage-behind-the-wheel scenario, I expect this to happen.
It looked as though Will managed to ram just the passenger side into the pole, although I have to wonder if such a maneuver would significantly impact the odds of a driver’s survival and the passenger’s death. (I’m sure Luke could come up with an exact figure, though. Mathletes…gotta love 'em.) I also found myself wondering why the judge from whom the car was stolen would drive a vehicle without OnStar, or even air bags.
There have been a lot of seriously flawed plot points throughout this series so far but, for what it is, I think it’s a pretty good show. It offers a little humanity, hope and faith without forcing religion down the viewers’ throats. I hope it can sustain that and not fall into the overly preachy quagmire that Touched By an Angel became in its final seasons.
A lot, actually. Most DMV/MVA offices are open during ‘regular business hours’ or so, at least around here. Most of these hours, teenagers are in school. In my school district, taking the drivers test is actually a valid excuse for missing class.
Question for Maryland Dopers - can you really just get your license at 16? There’s a very stupid, 3-year process in NJ for it: you take drivers ed in the classroom and a written test, then a 6-hour behind-the-wheel course, and you then you can get your permit at 16. After 6 months and when you’re 17, you can take the road test, get a limited license (time and passenger restrictions, which bite). Finally, at 18, you can get a full license. Is it really just ‘walk in, take the road test, and get your license’ in MD?
Also, I love the sibling interaction on the show. It seems so natural and right.
As soon as the Chief locked his gun in the glove box, I knew what was going to happen. Not a bad episode, but I was wondering – why the hell didn’t the airbags go off? It’s a Mercedes, for Pete’s sake.
You can get your learner’s permit at 15 and 9 months now. You do need to have completed driver’s ed of course, and you need to take both a written and driving test. You have to have a licensed adult over 21 in the car with you at all times with a learner’s, presumably your parent.
At 16 you get a provisional license, which I believe is good for one year. No driving between the hours of midnight and 5:00 am is one restriction; I’m not sure about the others. If you get any moving violations on your provisional, the time you have it is extended. I could go look it up, but I’m too tired from shoveling.
(I should know all this; I have a child who will be 16 next summer. :eek: )
So then Joan should not have been driving at night with her younger brother in the car?
I’m going to pass the baton again next Friday (for real this time, Gorgon Heap!) We have our office Christmas party and I’m going to miss the School Dance Date with a Punk episode.
You know, they weren’t exactly clear - she may have already had her learner’s permit. They did keep saying she got her “driver’s license,” not her learner’s. A bit of artistic license, maybe.
Since she’s already 16, I would assume her already had her learner’s.
My daughter is counting the days till April, when she can get her learner’s permit. She won’t be 16 till July, though.
God help me. :eek:
I’ll have to admit that I really liked this show when it first started ( However, the soundtrack is pretty weak in my eyes…ears?) I have to wonder if most of the good ideas and writing went into the first episode. I thought the whole episode relied heavily on the premise of the show and didn’t really go anywhere. My guess is that the best days of this one are in the past.
Damn!..I was so sure that they were still in repeats for the holiday season, that I didn’t even tune in to watch…grumble…stupid conference trips throwing me off…
