The Book of Questions

Shout-out to OhTara.

Joan, Adam and Grace are reading a poster at school offering counselling (courtesy of Stuart Dingle, MSW) to students troubled by Judith's murder (or "tragic death," as they put it here). Some brain trust has seen fit to attach a little addendum, reminding students to wear school colours to support the Eagles on Spirit Day. Joan angrily snatches the poster down: "How lame is this?" Grace sneers: "Yeah. Like eagles are ever blue." Joan seems more upset about the grief counseling. Adam says the school has to do it. Grace: "They're covering their asses in a litigious society. Someone could freak out and sue the school." I'd like to interject a remark here about how ridiculous this suggestion is, butyou know. Joan: "Oh, and Dingle's going to calm them down? That comb-over alone could trigger a mass suicide." There's someone walking behind them in the halls wearing a very weird mask over his or her head, kind of a skeleton face with stiff freaky hair. I don't know what's with the weird masks on this show. Adam says that talking about it might help. Joan is impatient: "Hey, I'm the brainchild of Dr. Dan, remember? Sitting in a room and crying with Dingle is not going to help. You show me someone with the answers, I'm there, but this?" She crumples the poster up and tosses it. As they come down the stairs toward their lockers, Grace ventures, "So Saturday, uhI have this thing on Saturday with uh, food and crap and you guys can come if you want to but you don't have to, I don't care." What a felicitous invitation. Living up to the graciousness implied by her name, as always. Joan: "Could you be any less specific?" Grace explains it's her bat mitzvah. Joan and Adam are speechless, then on the verge of sniggering. Grace warns them, "Do not start with me! The Jews have been making kids do this for thousands of years. You got problems, ask Maimonides." Joan and Adam struggle to suppress their smirking. Grace: "And wipe that smirk off your face, Rove!" Adam says, "You know, you've been putting it off for years. Are you really gonna go through with it this time?" Grace rummages in her bag as she replies, "Do I look like I wanna discuss this?" Adam: "No." She hands them two vandalized invitations, explaining she ripped off the baby pictures: "Parents are sadists." She gives them an uncomfortable grimace and wanders off.

Adam tells Joan he thinks they should go. Joan: "Like I wouldn't go to Grace's bat mitzvah?" Adam meant the grief counselling. He thinks it would help to talk about it: "I mean, I'm having trouble coming to sense with it." Joan apologizes for jumping all over him, but says that constantly rehashing it just keeps it too fresh in her mind: "Without some kind of 'why,' it's just going to drive me crazy. I can't. I'm sorry." Adam: "Sure." The bell rings and she kisses him, saying she has to go: "Can't be late for French. Gotta keep myD average." Adam calls after her, "Hey, do you think your grades are tanking because" Joan pleads, "Please, don't. Just don't." Adam wearily leans his head against the locker.

Adam's in his studio painting when Joan comes in to tell him she just met Grace's mom. "She's like the total anti-Grace. She's all funny and outgoing. Mind you, the closed captioning reads, "She's like this horrible anti-Grace." Joan wants to know why Adam didn't tell her about Sarah. Adam says he hasn't seen her in years: "Grace's house is kinda off-limits. I'm surprised she let you meet her." Joan says Grace didn't, and her mother just showed up while they were shopping: "Then she took us out to this old-time bar downtown for buffalo wings, which were the best thing in the entire world. Of course, Grace couldn't wait to get out of there: something about corporate agriculture and factory-raised chickens." Adam smiles knowingly. Joan wonders what he's working on. She walks around the table to see that it's a painting of Judith in Adam's pop art style. It's a nice painting. Huh. I thought it was going to be something he was making as a bat mitzvah gift for Grace. When Joan sees it, she's caught off-guard. She says quietly, "Judith." He's working from a small black and white picture of her. Adam says softly, "It was the day she died. You know, we were having coffee. She was telling me what kind of flowers to get you for our date." Joan: "Getting a little obsessed, don't you think?" Adam: "No. It makes me feel better. You should try it." She looks at him: "I don't paint." He suggests she try writing about it. Joan shakes her head a bit: "Why would I want to think about that day?" Adam says it helps to look at it and try to make sense of it. Joan starts to walk out: "We can't. It doesn't make any sense. Not even God can make sense of this one." Adam: "Jane, if we could just --" Joan: "Don't. I just meant thatI just meant that this means we have to move on. You know, that's why this bat mitzvah thing is so important. We get to be happy." She claims she has to go talk to Grace about shoes: "She's all into wearing boots. I'll see you later, okay?" Adam makes a little sound of discouragement but doesn't try to stop her.

Nighttime at the Girardi house. Joan's in her room writing in a notebook in very large, angry, letters. The page starts with the word "WHY." She mutters, "You can't give me anything. I did everything you wanted. Why can't you help me?" It's Joan's own little book of questions. She picks the notebook up and hurls it angrily at the wall in front of her. There's a knock on the window. I can't believe Grace still feels the need to shinny up the pipe, now that everyone knows about her and Luke. Joan opens the window and sits on a chair arm while Grace climbs onto the window ledge: "Are you talking to yourself, Girardi? They're not going to have to lock you up again, are they?" Joan: "Doors, Grace. Is that a corporate plot, too?" Hee. Grace hands her a pair of black high heels. Joan says they went so well with the dress: "Just because they don't have steel in the toe" Grace says she doesn't need them: " And you don't have to help me with my hair, either. I'm calling it off." Joan: "What? Why? It's in two days." Grace: "Not anymore. See, you were right. I can say no." Grace disappears down the side of the house. Joan throws the window shut.

Joan's at work, trying to call Grace. She leaves a message telling Grace to call her: "I'm wearing out the redial." Shammy, who's apparently got precious little to do other than harangue Joan -- does Heidi not have a high-maintenance sister (or brother, hey) we could pair him off with? -- asks, "Bat Mitzvah girl still missing?" Frink: "Don't be helpful." Joan: "I just don't get it." Shammy: "She's better off. Religion is the opiate of the people." Says the owner of the bourgeois bookstore. Joan: "Oh, you're a Communist, now." A customer comes up to the cash desk to pay for a book, and Joan says, "Oh, no. No need to pay. What's mine is yours. Enjoy." Dude, I wanna shop at that store. How come that never happens to me? Shammy: "Excuse me while I go dock your pay." Some big bruiser in a leather coat, a sort of Tony Soprano type, comes in and says, "I just finished Wuthering Heights. And I hear that Sense and Sensibility can be a real tearjerker too. You got that one?" Joan: "You wanna read Sense and Sensibility?" He starts looking around the store as he replies, "A tough exterior can hide a tender heart, Joan." Aw. It's GodFella (tm OhTara). Joan bolts out from behind the counter and over to him: "Hey! Almighty One! I have been calling Grace nonstop! She won't talk to me!" He sympathizes: "Must make it hard to figure out what the problem is, huh?" Joan: "Yeah! You could help." GodFella chuckles to himself as he peruses the shelves: "Still after the answers." Joan crosses her arms: "Uh, yeah." He says, "What really broke my heart in Wuthering Heights is that Catherine destroyed her love for Heathcliff by hiding her feelings. That killed me." Joan wants to know how this pertains to Grace and her bat mitzvah. He finds Sense and Sensibility and pulls it off the shelf: "Pretty cover, huh?" He smiles, and walks away, telling Joan not to give up on her.

Lucyfer, with a fluffy new shorter haircut that is some improvement but still not 100% there, opens the door to Will's office, poses herself in the doorway as curvaceously as she thinks she can get away with, and says, "Happy birthday." OhGodwhat now? Will, as dense as a neutron star, says it's not his birthday. Lucyfer, all too seductively: "Well, I got you a little something anyway." I -- I don't think I can look. She walks away, and Will gets up and follows her out into the main area, where a uniform is bringing Ryan in on charges of looking like a suspect in a convenience store hold-up. Lucyfer waves a security camera photo taken of some guy at a bank of lockers. Will grabs it and tells her they're "really walking on the edge" since the guy looks nothing like Ryan. Lucyfer's all crossed arms and "Don't you want to catch the bad guy who killed the little girl?" Oof. "Trust me, I've been down this road before." I'll bet. And it's nicely paved, too. To Ryan: "Let's go, precious." He says she knows this is crap. Lucyfer: "Maybe, but since it's the weekend, it might take a few days to sort out. But meanwhile, you'll have a nice bed and three squares a day and some charming roommates to pass the time with." The uniform takes him away at the gesture of her head. Will looks uncertain about this.

Someone knocks on an unfamiliar door witha very flowery stained glass window? Or is that one of those stick-on deals? It's the Polonski kitchen door. Sarah answers the door to find Joan there. She says what a nice surprise it is. Joan apologizes for bothering her but says she can't find Grace. Sarah, a little wobbly on her feet, braces herself subtly on the counter as she tells Joan that Grace is with her dad and should be back soon. She offers Joan a soda as she remembers the open bottle of liquor on the island and grabs it. Joan asks her if she's okay. Sarah says she's just a little tired as she puts the bottle on the back of the counter, where apparently it's not visible to anyone who isn't drunk. She tells Joan to help herself and that Grace will be back soon. As she unsteadily seats herself at the island, she smiles at Joan, who's beginning to get the picture. Sarah: "Grace is so lucky to have a friend like you." Joan: "Yeah, me too." Sarah: "Hmm. She's always so embarrassed with me. But I think we had a lovely time the other day, don't you?" Joan: "Yeah, sure." Sarah asks her again if she'd like a soda, but she asks like she just thought of it for the first time. Joan declines and decides she should go, and asks her to get Grace to call her. Joan walks out slowly, glancing at the liquor bottle again before she goes, as Sarah struggles to keep her composure until Joan's gone.

Friedman and Luke are now at Skylight Books in search of a bat mitzvah present. Well, now we're getting somewhere. Books are the best gift. After cash. Because with cash, you can pick out your own books. See how that works? Friedman pulls a large illustrated volume off the shelves: "We could go Kama Sutra: you said you wanted personal." He cracks it open and comments, "If that's not personal I don't know what is." Luke, getting fed up: "Friedman, this is a religious event! It should have deeper meaning than" Distracted by an illustration, he comments, "Remarkably limber." He comes to his senses and says, "No." He's drawn to a large coffee-table book on astronomy on top of the remainder table. Friedman: "An astronomy text? Now that's relationship suicide." Luke's not so sure about that: "We met in science class" Friedman grabs the book: "My God, it's used! Grandparents wouldn't give that." No, it's remaindered. There's a difference. Maybe it's damaged, and that's what he means. Friedman is distracted by a nicely bound copy of Hamlet on display. Luke keeps looking through the book as Friedman wanders over and picks up the Shakespeare. He opens it to an illustration of Hamlet and Ophelia captioned, "This is the very ecstasy of love" It's interesting that they had Judith and her friends trying to buy X when she got stabbed, considering they've brought this line up two or three times now. Think that's one of those subconscious things? Friedman reads the caption and says, "Oh, this would have been perfect forJudith." Luke doesn't notice what Friedman's up to; he's engrossed in the book, declaring it "perfect." He tells Friedman: "I found it. There's [sic] no admonitions, Friedman. I am committed." Absently, Friedman says, "You know best, buddy." He's still lost in his memory of Judith, and what he wishes could have been.

That night in Joan's bedroom, she's telling Luke about what she observed of Grace's mother: "It was so weird: the other day her mom was like this regular, normal mom and then today, she was drunk." ["I don't think I understand this line. Joan says they went to a bar; I know she was obliviously focused on the buffalo wings, butbar. Hello? I don't know. Weird writing all around in this ep, very funny but kind of out of character for a lot of people." -- Sars] Luke says he's never seen Grace's mother while she's been drinking: "I've only been to her place a couple of times." Joan says she was a totally different person: "So sad." Then: "If this happens all the time, you should have told me!" Oh, come on. She must know Grace better than that. Luke says Grace made him promise not to tell. Joan: "I'm her best friend! I should have known." Seriously, now. You couldn't even figure out she was seeing Luke, and you've been running around for weeks being "Joanith." How can you qualify as her best friend? By virtue of the absence of competition? Luke: "And I'm her boyfriend." He says he convinced her to go to Alateen. "You have to give her time." Joan: "Time? Luke, she already put off her bat mitzvah." Luke says she's done that before: "Probably for the same reason." Joan says she has to do this. Suddenly Grace marches in: "Why the hell did you come to my house?" Joan doesn't know how to answer. Grace looks at Luke: "Did you tell her, freak?" They both tell her he didn't. Joan says she just wanted to talk to her, and Grace wouldn't call her back. Grace: "And you couldn't take a hint? This is none of your business!" She tells Luke, "And it's none of yours anymore either. We're done." Luke says he's sorry. She's out in the hall already as Joan calls, "I was concerned." Grace: "Just leave it alone!"

Joan chases her down the stairs: "Grace, you have to do this!" Grace: "Why the hell do you care if I chant some stupid prayers?" They reach the bottom of the stairs as Joan says, "Because you care!" Grace: "Ha! This was just for my parents -- and you shouldn't have come over!" Joan grabs her arm and asks her why she's running away: "You don't seem to mind getting in people's faces except for when it matters!" Grace tells her to save it. Joan yells, "You hide Luke -- which, yeah, okay, I kinda understand -- but you hide your mom; you hide all the important stuff, Grace. I'm not Jewish, but it seems to me this whole bat mitzvah thing is about standing up and declaring yourself! Getting in people's faces for real!" Grace just stares at Joan, but with less defiance than you'd expect. Luke, on the landing of the stairs, says quietly, "Grace" She looks up. He says in a small voice, "I already got you a present." Grace still doesn't say anything. Joan sighs. Then we have the bad third-quarter cut to commercial.

Grace is in the closet. Well, I don't know about that one, but she's behind the louvered doors of her bedroom closet getting dressed for her bat mitzvah. From inside, her muffled voice threatens Joan: "You better tell the truth or I'll cancel again!" Joan: "I told you, I will." Grace: "If I hear the word 'adorable,' I'll go postal." Joan: "O-kay. Getting bored and crabby out here." The door opens and we see Grace's feet, in black, open-toed, ankle strap high heels. She's wearing -- not the dress I would have expected, let me tell you. It's black, which is the only part that doesn't surprise me. It has an asymmetrical hem with a floral border print against a widely-spaced pattern of thin white pinstripes. It has a high waistline, almost Empire, with a wide, satiny black waistband. There's a low-ish, draped V-neck. It's sleeveless. Isn't that going to be a bit of an issue at temple? I thought women had to have their shoulders covered in synagogues. I was told as much when I was last invited to a wedding in a temple. Anyway, it's way more typically feminine than I was expecting. Grace's hair is perfectly combed and flat-ironed, parted on the side, and there's a little black barrette pulling the hair back on the wide side. She looks very, very cute. Such a shana maidelah. She steps out of the closet and Joan says, "Wow. Grace!" (Dwell on that sentence for a while, would you?) Grace mutters gently, "Shut up, dude." But you can tell she's sort of pleased, in spite of herself. She starts wrestling with her nylons and says, "Whoever invented pantyhose should be shot." You're not the first to think so, grrrlchik, and you won't be the last.

There's a knock on the door and she turns to see her father come in. He's dumsquizzled to see Grace all fancied up. He leans against the wall: "My little girl in high heels?" Grace: "Cry on the dress, Dad, and they become lethal weapons." He comes over and gives her a hug and tells her that her mother will be ready soon. Grace gives him a look of concern, the type she doesn't feel comfortable stating in front of Joan, even though Joan knows now. Her dad assures her that her mother is going to be fine today: "Because she promised." Yeah, I'll she's hardly ever broken a promise, either. He looks at Joan: "I'm really sorry about the other day. She had help, but..." Grace glances back at Joan and then away again. Joan says he doesn't need to explain. To Grace he says, "I just wish I had an answer forwhy this has to be this way. I don't know." He asks if Grace wants to go over her Torah portion again. She shakes her head: "It's under neural lockdown." He kisses her on the head and she says, "Let's boogie." Let'sboogie? No. Grace Polk did not just say that. She says she'll be down in a minute, as her father takes off. Aw. I love Grace's dad. I like him so much I'm almost willing to forgive him for leaving Grace to deal with her mother alone. Almost. ["I don't get this, either -- why Rabbi P. hasn't looked into rehab for Sarah. (Heh.) Or maybe he has, but I do find the fact that the problem is still ongoing a bit odd." -- Sars] She crouches down and pulls her grandmother's necklace out of the pocket of her jeans. Joan offers, "Do you want me to" Grace smiles: "Yeah." Joan pauses a moment as Grace smiles at herself. As Joan reaches over Grace's head to out the necklace on, we see Grace looking at herself in her cheval mirror, which is draped with her tallit. Could you have pictured this scene a year ago?

Cut to the synagogue. That is one gorgeous spray of flowers up there. Grace and her parents and a cantor are at the front, as the cantor leads the singing. Sarah's wearing a dressy, pale pink (or maybe beige) coat over a mid-calf-length black dress with a small black hat. Grace is still just in the sleeveless dress and is wearing a kippah. In the audience we see Luke, smiling to himself, Adam and Joan, and Friedman in one of his five tallits and one of his five kippahs (actually, I believe talaysin and kippot are the plurals). Joan's wearing a raspberry mousse-coloured top with tiny cap sleeves and a matching hat, or possibly a kippah, it's hard to tell. Where would she get one that matches such a colour perfectly? Everyone finishes and sits as Rabbi Polonski greets them: "Shabbat Shalom. Today Grace becomes a bat mitzvah. She enters a new chapter in her life where she will see the world not through my eyes or her mother's, but through her own." Dude, no disrespect, but not only did that chapter start quite some time ago, but we're well into that book. Friedman: "Who knew the lady was a lady?" Yeesh. Glynis, in some kind of Jackie O hat, nudges him. The rabbi continues: "And this ceremony is about a celebration of that new sight, the awareness of the complexity of life, awareness that she now holds the moral responsibility for her own decisions."