By Brandon Nolta
There are lots of books and other media about angels, how they supposedly watch over you and are on your side in daily travails, so on and so forth. Trouble is, as Elias Koteas pointed out in THE PROPHECY, whenever bad juju was on the horizon for something or somebody in the Bible, it was an angel who brought the noise. One would think seeing an angel might not be the best thing for your immediate health, and in this week’s episode of SAVING GRACE, we get just a glimpse of that.
Oklahoma City detective Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) is looking into the murder of a hotel manager at a local fleabag where the working girls like to ply their trade. Despite letting her priest brother (Tom Irwin) in on her occasional visitations from an angel named Earl (Leon Rippy), their relationship is still tense, which isn’t helped when a suspect and only known witness requests sanctuary in a local Catholic church. Grace, whose feelings about Catholicism in general aren’t warm and fuzzy, pushes as many boundaries as she can to get her witness/suspect to talk, but it’s the line she crosses with Earl that causes a little of that ol’ time angelic wrath to show through. It isn’t a big moment in the episode, but it’s a telling one, and one that reminds Grace (and the viewers) that there’s more to worship than just feel-good platitudes.
It would be very easy to dismiss SAVING GRACE one way or the other, either as pandering to the religious right or making a mockery of faith in general. Easy, but not accurate, as the show’s writers and actors do their best to portray a set of characters who are all, in their own fashions, seeking to make sense of events. From angelic visitations that leave physical evidence to the sudden and random-seeming death of a beloved supervisor, the lives of these people are turning randomly in new and unsettling directions, and it’s their struggles to understand these changes that drive the show.
As the conflicted detective at the heart of the show, Hunter is solidly charming, a flawed woman whose natural warmth and easy-going attitude help make her driving perfectionism and deep cynicism palatable. Her battles with the equally charming angel Earl make for entertaining light drama, although there isn’t yet a sense that her soul is walking the fine line he says it is. Rippy slips into this role like a rumpled suit of clothes, and it’s nice to see this grizzled character actor take on the mantle of angelic grace.
While the cast is rounded out with many familiar faces from the Hollywood character actor ranks, special mention must be made of Kenneth Johnson, wrapping up a long stint as Lem on THE SHIELD only to jump into another cop role, albeit one not nearly as gritty and sordid. Following his tragic exit from his last role, it’s nice to see Johnson take on a part where he gets to have a little more sunshine in his life, even if things are complicated by him banging his partner. SAVING GRACE is not for everyone; its portrayal of religion and Catholicism in particular will not be to everyone’s taste, and the writing is a little patchy still with regards to the moral and spiritual struggles Grace faces (the police procedural part is solid and smart, though). Plus, for a woman who has made a name for herself in a law enforcement career, she seems to have a hard time with the evidence Earl provides, especially when considering she’s damn lucky to get any at all. Still, SAVING GRACE has a lot to recommend it, and if the early episodes are any indication, there’s a lot viewers can expect from this freshman series.