Episode Report Card Deborah: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Jew Of Arcadia
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.25.2004
Cut to Grace reciting her Torah portion, which I'm told is Shabbat VaYishlach, the actual Torah portion for the weekend this aired. (You can read an English translation here.) I'm always surprised that the show attends to tiny details like this, but plays fast and loose with huge things like…when Kevin's accident occurred. Grace's voice sounds almost unrecognizable as she reads. Apparently Becky Wahlstrom worked on her reading with the man who appears as the cantor in this episode. There's a cool wall hanging behind her, which has lots of wiggly lines in red, yellow, and orange radiating out from Grace. Shots of Joan kvelling away in the audience, beaming like a bubbe.
Cut to the audience singing and clapping. Well, most of them are singing. Adam doesn't know the words, Joan and Luke are mumbling along as best they can, and as for the speculation about whether or not Glynis is Jewish -- I think not. She doesn't seem to know the words, either. She's clapping very tentatively. Also: Figliola. My money's on Catholic. They finish the song and sit down. Everyone leaves Grace alone at the bima and she says, "I know we're all bonding here with the singing, but seriously, that is a bad song." Mild chuckling. She carries on, undeterred: "Anyway, basically, me and my dad have been fighting about this day since I hit the double digits. And, uh…I won't go into it. It was a political thing. And a daughter of a rabbi thing. But finally I gave in and indulged them in one last empty ritual before I'm outta here." A tip, Grace: Don't go into the spin doctor business. "But then, um, not to get all gooey or anything like that…" She turns to look at her father. "When you handed me the Torah, and I read those words, it hit me…this is a genius way of attacking adulthood. I mean, this scroll…there are no easy answers in here. It's basically a book of questions…something that makes us keep searching for a way to make sense of this mess. And just dealing with a lot of questions: that takes a lot of guts when there's no guarantee that there will be answers. And, uh, I just hope I'm up for it. So…fire up that cheesy music and let's eat."
Cut to a downpour of confetti -- in all the colours Joan used for distributing Grace's poem -- and Grace hoisted aloft on a chair, with some of those glow-in-the-dark plastic raver necklaces around her neck. "Hava Nagila" is playing like crazy and Grace shouts over the music, "Dude, I warned you!" I think she's yelling at the DJ. But she's smiling and laughing and having a good time despite herself.