1.6 - “790”
Written by Aurin Squire
Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan
Reviewed by KathM
Sometimes, God sounds like a fortune cookie.”
My new favorite quote.
All right then, it seems that I no longer need to watch the show because this episode has everything going on.
And I absolutely loved it.
First we meet Grace, who the Monsignor has heard may be a Prophetess. David, Ben, and Kristen head over to meet with her, but instead of the expected, “Look at me! I chat with God! Give me $100 and I’ll tell you what He says!”, they find that Grace is a quiet, down-to-earth woman who works in a very loud, busy day care center. It’s like being around Kristen’s children, but cubed. Initially she’s so matter-of-fact and modest about her new friend that she comes across as very believable. Until she sucks some of the air out of inflatable toy because it sometimes helps her hear God better if his side of the conversation is a bit staticky. Which, ick. If you’re in a daycare you don’t want to be picking up random toys and putting your lips on them. Still and all, I believe her, and I think the gang may agree more than they want to admit. She’s has prophecies that have come true, after all. Still, Kristen is skeptical.
Kristen’s faith in Grace is cemented the next morning when the news features a story about a woman’s house that fell into a sinkhole the previous night. She knew it was going to happen because her neighbor told her, and it just so happens that Grace lives right next door!. Has anyone just had a random feeling about something coming true that does? It happens, Kristen. Especially with sinkholes: it seems like everyone has one these days. Then her eldest daughter is going to soccer practice in a red sweatshirt, which she promptly confiscates, and also takes off her own red earrings. Because better safe than sorry.
The DaVinci Code Factor
At some point, I knew there would be something like this. Knew it. Ben is all, “Hey, Monsignor, why aren’t you excited?” when they tell him that Grace may be the real deal. Well, the Monsignor doesn’t want Grace to be a Prophetess, because of The Codex. Let me guess: it’s a document that very few have seen and it predicts something BAD. It’s been a secret for hundreds of years and...never mind, I’m right. It’s a secret document that was written around 1550 and only popes have read it and nobody else has ever seen it expect for the Monsignor, who happens to have a copy of it on his desk, where surely nobody else has come by when he’s not in his office to check it out. Sigh. I don’t do well with the whole “Secret Societies” trope, but let’s see what the show throws at us. I’m a little confused by this scene because while the Monsignor doesn’t want Grace to be a Prophetess (which sounds like a cool job), she obviously is one because a lot of what she says either comes true or has already happened. But the prophecies she’s throwing the Catholic Church’s way are parts of The Codex that predict the end of the Catholic Church. Which, you know, isn’t something the Catholic Church is interested in having happen. But now that they know, can’t they try and do something about it?
How will David become a priest if he has no faith in God?
I’ve wondered about this ever since we saw that he needs to “trip” with Special Tea in order to have God speak to him. Isn’t he supposed to have faith that God will speak to him when He’s good and ready? David’s impatient, and I think more than a bit jealous of Grace, who seems to get along with God like a house, or sinkhole, on fire. I think he feels ashamed asking Grace about the three dots he found in the crystal but can’t interpret himself. She blows his theory about the dots being coordinates and tells him instead that they form a kind of pyramid. So David hurries home and brews up some Special Tea and trips until he sees a Euler triangle. I wanted to link to a page explaining a Euler triangle, but all of them made my brain hurt. Oh, and he’s still Tripping when Kristen comes by. She’s fresh off of a sex dream featuring David and George (just...wait. SO much happens in this episode) and wants to tell David that the drawings Grace gave them earlier in the episode are pieces missing from The Codex. But honey, David is high as a kite and Kristen is kinda uncomfortable about it, so she tells him they can chat another time.
Before Kristen goes over to David’s place she has a dream where she goes over to David’s house and they just start going at it. Passionate kissing and, “We can’t”, “Yes, we can.” stuff, and David’s shirt just flies off. Then suddenly David turns into George, who we’re always happy to see but not right now. Kristen looks at her wrist and realizes it’s all a dream, then banishes George away. From that dream, anyway. As unsettling as the dream was, she still goes over to David’s in the exact same outfit she wore in the dream. Interesting…
Kristen as Mama Bear
This was easily the most awesome thing that happened in this episode. Kristen is late for dinner with Sheryl’s new squeeze and she’s sorry and just a minute let me run upstairs...and then she hears her daughters in their bedroom, chanting a song about the devil. When she opens the door (because Sheryl is the kind of Nana who lets strange men shut himself up in a room with her granddaughters) she finds, to her horror and my surprising amusement, Leland. Who has given the girls diaries. With red covers. And he’s teaching them to draw in them. Kristen snags the diaries and checks them for contraband, since their very existence isn’t wrong enough, then drags Leland through the house and into her office. And she has a knife. A big, sharp knife. And a towel to wipe things up with, because she’s thinking ahead and also doesn’t want the blood to stain the floors.
When The Codex is translated, it doesn’t predict just the destruction of the Catholic Church, but the end of the world. As we know it. Yeah, I had to.
This is a huge difference, so it’s time to check in with Grace to see if God can shed some light on the situation, but Grace has been picked up by ICE! Yeah, I think she’ll get deported, and I think Leland and his creepy cabal have more than a little to do with it. David manages to see her toward the end of visiting hours, and Grace borrows a pen and paper and draws a bunch of things for David and the crew. As she’s led away Grace asks one of the guards to place give the papers to David or her lawyer. Instead, tosses the papers away. Not cool.
Oh, Sheryl!
I’m almost too tired to deal with her. Poor woman. She thinks she meets a nice guy and lets him spend time alone behind a closed door with her granddaughters only to have her daughter cut him up and claim he’s a psychopath.
Because when Leland arrives at Sheryl’s surprisingly nice apartment (did everyone else think that she lived with Kristen and the girls?) and she breaks up with him, he asks for one last kiss. Just one. And he must be wearing some kind of voodoo lip balm because one kiss becomes two becomes some pretty hot sex if Sheryl’s reactions are to be believed.
At one point, the bed was engulfed in flames. It was hysterical and instead of being disturbed I was giggling. Whatever that says about me, so be it.
The end of the episode finds Sheryl getting out of bed and going to her closet to get dressed for the day. In a sea of black clothing there is one red dress, and she reaches for it.
This is brilliant. I loved this episode even if I can’t remember everything that happened. Kristen is such a surprise: who’d have thought she’d actually wound Leland to show him how serious she was about leaving her mother and children alone? She comes across as a buttoned-up academic one minute, then she’s a tiger protecting her cubs. I wonder if her actions are moving her further away from logic and having her become more instinctive and destructive. Leland likes it when people get out of control.
Points to ponder:
When George was in Kristen’s dream they were on a mountain like the kind Kristen used to climb. She has a rope around her waist and George is pulling her towards him, but she can see her husband back in the shadows, too. What does it mean? Where is Daddy?? Will he be coming home in time to hear Laura’s fate?
Kristen had a father. We knew this, but not that she is still not over the divorce. How long ago was it, where is Dad and will we see him sooner rather than later?
Was Ben in this episode? If so, what was his purpose?
Will we get a Very Special Christmas episode featuring Sheryl’s exorcism?
