Episode Report Card Deborah: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Luke of Narcadia
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 21 | Aired on 04.14.2005
Joan's walking along one of the balconies at school when she stops and leans over the side, looking at Adam sitting in the crotch of a tree below. He's absorbed in his sketching. Knitting God comes up and stands next to Joan: "Finished the scarf?" Joan sighs, "Oh, you know, it's never really finished, is it?" Not the ones you wear, no. Knitting God smiles: "Trying to take my job?" Joan: "No. But I do have a few suggestions, like: give Sean Penn a sense of humour." Ha! That might even be beyond God's power. Joan starts walking, and Knitting God follows her: "I know how hard this was for you. But now you know how much more you're capable of." Joan: "Why does that scare me?" Knitting God: "Because you know every day you'll face things you can't foresee. You know you can't avoid them and you just have to adapt and keep going." Joan: "Okay, who was that guy who brought Adam out of the woods." Knitting God gives a relatively straight answer (for God): "Another connection." Joan: "To me? Because I don't know him." Knitting God: "Connections exist long before we're aware of them. They've always existed. Always will." Joan: "So you talk to him too?" Knitting God doesn't respond. Joan: "Come on, don't hang me out to dry here. Does he know that I talk to you? Because this is starting to feel really weird." Knitting God: "Don't worry." She looks over at Adam, and adds, "Just take it one stitch at a time." Joan glances toward Adam, and Knitting God walks off. (This is probably as good a time as any to bring up the similarity noted by many posters between "Ryan Hunter" and the constellation Orion, often known as The Hunter. You can read more about the Orion myth here.)
Knitting God walks under the tree Adam's sitting in, and Adam notices her go by. I can't decide if he's checking her out, or if what little God-dar he has went off, or what. Frink: "There haven't been any Godwaves in this episode." Right then, Knitting God reaches up and touches the tree branch as she walks under it. Excellent Godwave, maybe my favourite ever. I didn't think they could come up with anything that subtle anymore. Joan walks up and says hello to Adam. He returns the greeting. We get a closer look at him and I just have to ask: what's with the rockabilly hairdo? Also, it looks so dark in this scene that I almost want to ask if he dyed it. Joan asks how he's doing. Adam: "Feeling kinda stupid." He says he was just trying to get some time to himself: "I never thought about the rain." Joan confesses she was really scared: "I thought…you know." Adam: "What?" When he realizes she thinks he might have been suicidal, he says, "No, no. No. I could -- I could never do that to you." Should hope not, because you know how it feels. "I'm sorry, Jane. I didn't mean to drag you through a whole 'nother mess, you know?" She knows. He promises to stay out of her way. Joan: "No, Adam, I…it takes too much energy to pretend like we're not connected anymore. We still are, just in a different way." Adam: "That's the hard part." Joan: "And the good part." She puts the scarf she knitted around his neck, and then moves away a little bit. Wait -- didn't she rip that apart last night? When the hell did she have time to finish it? She puts her arms up to grab a tree branch, and stands there swaying slightly and looking incredibly pretty and alluring. "So you don't freeze…in case you ever get lost again." Adam fingers the scarf, not knowing how to tell her that looking like Dr. Who just isn't his thing. She asks what he's drawing. He turns the sketchpad around; it's a drawing of Ryan. And then "Sympathy for the Devil" starts playing again, and…argh! Are they kidding me with this? Just in case we didn't get it the first time? And if we didn't get the first time, what are the odds we'll get it now? In the unlikely event that we happened to watch the documentary Gimme Shelter during the commercial, or ran out and bought "Beggar's Banquet" all of a sudden? Fortunately, I see the anvil coming and duck just in time. When Mick Jagger yelps, "Owww!" I can't help but agree. Honestly, what's happened to the music on this show? In the first season it was so well-chosen, so intelligent, it almost approached the sublime at times. What gives? Gah. I probably would have given this episode a B+ but for offenses against subtlety, I busted it down to a B.