Episode Report Card Deborah: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Revenge Is Sour
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.26.2004
Once again: this just isn't working for me. Are we supposed to excuse what Angela did to Joan because of the revelation that her mother has breast cancer? One's got nothing to do with the other. It smacks of the same kind of manipulative nonsense as Iris's piñata freak-out. Are we supposed to take from this the idea that vengeance and retaliation are bad, because we can't possibly mete out divine justice and we should just leave it to God? Is the point "always turn the other cheek"? And why does it seem that neither of Joan's parents knows about what happened? Luke must know; he'd have to be a saint to refrain from telling Kevin. And Kevin would never keep it to himself. How is it possible that Helen works in the school and hasn't heard tell of this? With a teacher and a cop for parents, I would think that a sexual harassment suit would not be far in the offing. Yes, we've learned the Girardis aren't the litigious type. Still, while Kevin's friend probably didn't intend to paralyze him (not that the lack of intention excuses any drunk driving, ever), Angela definitely intended to hurt and humiliate Joan. And I think Will and Helen would grasp that. And if this story is supposed to parallel that of the old guy, who is supposed to have made an honest mistake, I guess, then it doesn't. The episode's called "No Bad Guy." Maybe the old guy wasn't, but Angela definitely was. She might have taken the picture by accident, but everything she did after that was deliberate. And if we're dragging Andy into it, maybe he was really writing the truth as he saw it, and maybe he was just taking cheap shots at Helen to hurt Kevin. Feh. I'm getting worried. This show started off so well, but I think they've got too many writers, and not all of them are equally talented. We need Barbara Hall, Hart Hanson, and Tom Garrigus to write the rest of the season if it's going to get back on track. Plus that episode shuffling I discussed recently feels like it's really showing. I've given the show its first C grades this month -- during sweeps -- and that is not a good trend. If it weren't for the last scene, I think I would have actually given this episode a D -- the script is really a mess, with a ridiculous number of inconsistencies and plot holes. Get it together, people. You've got an awesome group of actors here. You've got to give them great stuff to work with. Don't turn into The West Wing on me already.
Raining again. Will's sitting on the bed, lost in thought. Helen comes in and says, "Ordinarily, I'd give you a back rub, but I'm afraid my callow hands might turn Dada into doo-doo." Wouldn't that have been funnier as "Dadda"? She sits on the bed with her back to him and starts applying hand lotion. Will: "So we've moved on from the review?" Helen: "Oh, yeah." Will says he did a bad thing today. Helen: "Tell me." Will: "I made that little old man feel guilty for killing people." Helen: "He didn't feel guilty enough?" Will: "Not for me." Helen: "You needed revenge?" Will replies, "For a baby in a stroller, I kinda did." Helen says that God forgives it. Will: "God?" Helen: "The universe, whatever." Will admits to needing to hurt the guy. Helen: "More than he was already hurt?" Will: "Yeah." He hesitates, then asks, "Am I going to hell?" She turns around toward him, reminding him he doesn't believe in hell. Will: "I believe in someplace...where you aren't." Frink: "You're gonna get laid tonight, buddy." She says, smiling, that there's no place like that. She strokes his face and he takes her hand in his.