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‘Saving Grace’ takes a turn for the weird

“Saving Grace” is just getting weird.

When we met Det. Grace Hanadarko of the Oklahoma City Police Department in 2007, she was a very lapsed Catholic who lost a sister in the Oklahoma City bombing and felt responsible. She was also abused by a priest growing up so there was that as well. She dealt with all of that by living what probably most would consider a morally loose life, with smoking, drinking, public nudity, promiscuity and infidelity.

She also seems to have an angel, a “last chance” angel named Earl, who isn’t about the judging so much as he’s about the guiding.

Well, as the show continues he does become more about the judging. And Grace still acts out ... some. Not so much as she has. The most outrageous thing we saw her do last season was some sports-related graffiti. And her indiscretions became focused largely on her partner, Ham. Somehow her coworkers don’t really seem to know about it, but her devout little Boy Scout nephew does, asking her why she’s sleeping with Ham if he’s married to someone else. Also, her best friend, Retta, took out her own rage about being cheated on by her husband on Grace, as some iconic Other Woman, representative of all Other Women.

Recently, Ham broke up with her and is now sleeping with his brother’s ex-wife, so while Grace doesn’t appear to be sleeping with anyone these days – except for some strange dark apparition from the distant past in the third-season opener – Ham is now the one with the problem.

I suppose it’s impossible for a show as steeped in religious themes as this one is to avoid pressures from religious viewers to make the central character as palatable and sanitized as possible. Her brother, a priest, had a vision last season of Grace as a saint, so there was probably even more pressure to make her behave. Even Earl has been less vocal about the many-paths approach to salvation lately. The show seems less and less interested in challenging itself or its viewers.

Season three opens with the reaction to Grace and a reformed drug dealer who Grace spent all of season two pursuing, leaping from a tall building and surviving with no injuries.

It’s a miracle. People start calling her the “angel cop.” They steal her clothes from her hospital room, and Retta is actually handing off photos of sick kids for her to pray over. Earl enlists help from the fates and a sinister character arrives who knows too much about the darkness that follows every true miracle. Grace tracks down a chalice she stole from St. Claire’s when she was 6 and had stashed in her attic. She fills it with tequila and empties it (several times), and tries to open a dialogue with God.

Grace. Grace Hanadarko. The hard-drinking, hard-loving, hard-partying, up-for-whatever, down-with-whatever, wake-up-wherever party girl is meekly returning religious artifacts she stole 30 years ago and is turning into “Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret.”

Where is this going?

The show seems to be reveling in the more picturesque aspects of Catholicism like angels and saints and miracles and relics (Grace’s “miracle clothes”). But having viewed this show from the pilot episode I had no idea this is where they were heading.

At the time I thought the story was about a woman who’d been through harrowing experiences and who, with guidance from a pretty laid-back angel, was just getting a little more direct help than most in finding some peace, hope and redemption in her life.

It seems like now they want to take it all the way to beatification. There’s a new prop, a “Book of Grace,” that has appeared on set, and Grace getting very drunk and sleeping with a guy who died in the 1930s who warns her about the coming darkness -- that seems to be getting more than necessarily mythological. She’s found a little peace with her sister and with her past abuser. If they turn her into a saint I think her biggest risk will be an inability for viewers to relate.

I’m not saying redemption or repentance doesn’t happen, that it’s not an excellent personal goal for people to strive for in their lives in moral, spiritual or ethical rebirth, particularly people with addictive or self-destructive personalities.

However, in Grace Hanadarko, actress Holly Hunter has created a vibrant character who celebrates life in all of its dangerous, disruptive, sinful excesses, and it seems unlikely that she, Grace, will ultimately find fulfillment within the strictures of organized religion, or that the resulting storyline would be especially satisfying.

I imagine we shall see as the third and final season continues. “Saving Grace” airs 9 p.m. Mondays on TNT. It carries a mature rating for usually excellent reasons and viewer discretion is advised.

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