Episode Report Card Deborah: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "Until A Little Light Gets Through"
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.18.2004
When everyone's gone, Grace states firmly, "I will not sing. I will not wear a dress." Luke: "What?" Grace: "Those are the terms." Luke smiles to himself; he hasn't turned around to look at her: "So you're saying yes?" She adds, "And it has nothing to do with that asinine threat. I will do all the breaking up around here, got it?" She grabs her stuff and leaves. She gives him a bit of a shove in the back as she walks past him. Luke: "Absolutely." You know, I may be reading too much into it, but I can't help but think the writers are planting little seeds of some really unacceptably abusive behaviour on Grace's part, what with the cruel nicknames for Luke and the occasional acts of physical aggression. I don't know if I want them to go there or not. I think it would be a very interesting storyline that hasn't been done to death, but I just don't want Grace to be that person. I do wish Luke would call her on her abusiveness, even if it's relatively mild. If you think I'm overstating the case, reverse their sexes and see if you still think so. If Luke were calling her insulting names and physically pushing her around, people would be up in arms.
Walking down the street, Joan is distracted by a sign for a fortune teller: "Madame Marie." She decides to go in, only to find someone who really looks like something of a female impersonator in an awful black wig, doing a crossword puzzle. Joan asks, "How much of my future can I get for five dollars?" Madame Marie, who's wearing some horribly fugly printed caftan, grumbles that it's a slow day and tells Joan to sit down. They enter a darker room through the predictable beaded curtain, and Joan sits. Madame Marie coughs a bit before unwrapping a set of cards inside a rainbow-coloured pastel scarf. Madame Marie gets her fin, then lays out a few cards, remarking, "That's funny." They're all blank. Joan asks what that means. Madame Marie: "Well, apparently you have no future. Technically speaking, no one does." Joan: "Oh, God…" Was "technically speaking" the tip-off? I've noticed God likes to say that. Fortune Teller God takes off her glasses and says, "That's me. You heard of string theory?" Joan reminds her that she's failing physics. Fortune Teller God: "A quick tutorial: past, present, future, all coexisting. In different dimensions with different rates of vibration." Joan: "Great. How about college?" She replies, "The future's not fixed, Joan. Its very existence is determined by the choices you make in the present." Joan asks if she's not supposed to worry about the future. Fortune Teller God: "The best way to affect it is by bringing your consciousness to the moment." Joan: "Oh, you're like a walking refrigerator magnet." Fortune Teller God makes a very important point: "I'm just saying, that's where all the action is. It's the only place you have any real power." I really think that concept is so important that I want to put that last sentence in italics. And bold. And caps. And use a lot of exclamation marks. But I also want to not get fired. ["Hey, as long as I don't have to do the formatting, follow your star." -- Sars] Joan attacks: "Your wig is, like, from Cher's reject pile. Are you aware?" Fortune Teller God just strokes a hank of her bad hair and says, "Don't forget about the present, Joan." Joan leaves with a curt "talk to the hand" gesture. Sort of a variation on a Godwave.