Episode Report Card Deborah: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Grace Under Pressure
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.05.2004
Price moves to physically remove Grace. Joan hollers, "And what's it about for you, Grace? Your idea of freedom is a world where everybody agrees with you?" Grace: "You believe in this crap?" Joan says she doesn't know what she believes: "I know Ramsay came in here with a gun! I know people could have died! You, me! You said I think like this because my father's a cop. Like that's bad?" She walks out from behind the podium and keeps shouting: "Yeah, my dad is a cop, and you may think that makes him some kind of pig, but he deals with those guns every day! This is not some political thing for him! This is reality! He's had them pointed at him and shoved in his face and that makes it real for me, too, because every time I hear the cops are someplace and shots are fired, I wonder if I'm ever going to see my father again!" Grace blinks back tears and swallows. Joan: "I --I don't think we should have to live in like, some prison. That sucks! But I do know we have to deal with this! We have to work something out!" There's a shot of Adam, riveted by Joan's passionate outburst. Joan: "Even if it's not what we started believing in the first place." She puts her hands to her head and says, "I know I'm mouthing off, Mr. Enfield, and I can't cite some report to back up my theory -- this is just how I feel!" Worn out, she calms down a bit and apologizes for messing up the debate. She comes down from the stage and runs out of the room down the aisle between the seats. Her mother watches her go.
Joan runs outside and stands near the spot where I think she had her first or second conversation with Cute Guy God. Security God walks over in a black toque and says, "You made quite an impression in there." Joan says she doesn't need the sarcasm: "I tried to debate, I tried to do what you wanted and I lost it, okay?" Security God thinks it was super: "What you did up there was true. You found your voice." Joan's real chuffed about that: "Great! Great! Thanks for the lesson. It cost me my friend." Security Guard: "What? Because you two don't agree about things?" Joan tries to compose herself slightly: "I...don't have a lot of friends. Okay?" Security God: "Do you know what grace is, Joan?" Joan: "Yeah! Pissed off!" He means the kind with a lower-case "G": "Do you know the meaning of 'grace'? It's a touch of truth, that lets you see the world in a new way. It's a gift that can only be felt when you're open enough to accept it."
Security God walks off just as Grace comes bursting out the door. When she sees Joan, she slows down to a normal pace and walks over to Joan's side. Joan doesn't seem to hear or notice her. Grace says, "Um...I don't -- I don't really apologize, so, um...." She walks around to face Joan, and continues, "So this isn't happening, but, uh...I just shoulda thought about you." Joan holds it together for a moment, but then her faces caves in on itself and she starts whimpering and crying. She bows her head and puts her hands to her face, while Grace hunts in her pockets for some Kleenex. When she finds some, she offers it to Joan, who takes it, whispering, "Thank you." Grace ventures a very tiny smile, and I wonder if Joan will try to hug her, though I don't think she's quite that bold, and if she did, what Grace would do. Joan wipes her nose slightly and looks at Grace with a certain amount of forgiveness and relief, and says, "'Kay." Becky Wahlstrom was really good here.