Date of airing: October 5, 1999 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 16.16 million viewers, 11.4/19 in Households, 4.6/12 with Adults 18-49
written by: Barbara Hall
directed by: James Frawley
I do not know a lot about Barbara Hall's autobiography, but I know enough to say that her writing on JUDGING AMY may have paved her way to her conversion to Catholicism in 2001 after studying Eastern religion before. She chose to depict a different form of religion on broadcast television, deciding to connect spirituality with science, and never forgetting that it should not be the task of a specific religion to tell the people to believe in "their" God. When Hall would create and write for JOAN OF ARCADIA between 2003 and 2005, it became clear that she was using her Catholicism not to preach to her audience, but to show the way, even if the preaching sometimes does happen and then gets undercut by a character reminding the audience that science also exists. The lunch scene between Greta and Amy, in which the former revealed that she was thinking about going to Thomas and hoping to get healed from her cancer, showcased that in Hall's fictional universes, religion was never the one thing pulling all the strings, and that maybe, just maybe, God was not necessarily the answer. But God can be the answer when you recognize that religion is not always just religion, and that you have to recognize the physics of your world as well – a theme always repeated on JOAN OF ARCADIA.
It was a solid episode, but I was a little perplexed about the ending. I believe the writers were trying to go through all the twists and turns in family court early in the show, to depict that Amy is not just walking herself through domestic cases that involve the "usual " situations of child abuse that you may or may not have seen on your medical TV dramas already. It seems like they did not quite know how to bring in sensible and realistic storylines and make them exceptional and interesting for an audience that has not had the opportunity to watch such kind of storytelling before, not to mention that it is not easy to write religion-specific stories in shows that are not defined by their level of spirituality, with none of the central characters openly discussing their religion.
Amy was dealing with a jury trial in the previous episode, a thing unusual by itself for Amy because she prefers making judgments by herself. In this episode, she was dealing with a complex case that could lead to an even bigger case in front of a bigger court that plays out something like this: religion versus the court system. Of course, that would have been the case if Amy had been given the opportunity to rule over the case and Thomas's well-being, but because the episode needed to get political (because religion always becomes a political issue in the United States), the case was taken from her, and she was made to be the fall guy.
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| This 49-year-old woman just wants someone to love. |
And here is where I came up short: Why exactly was Amy made to carry the heat? Was there a reason for the case to be judged a certain way, and did the superiors in the Connecticut court system not trust the judge they gave that case to make that “certain” ruling? And if they did not trust Amy yet (because she was still new in the field of family law), then why give her the case in the first place? Hand it to a judge you know will rule a “certain” way (least alone a judge who was experienced) and this would have been a more easy case to handle for the state. But for some reason, the life of Thomas landed in Amy’s hands, and it was she who became the victim of political play between a religious organization and the state itself.
I understand why the writers decided to cop-out the ending though – the opportunity for a great “religion vs. government” storyline cannot be part of this show, because it cannot be part of the premise of a series that wants to be family entertainment (that airs at 10 p.m.) and surprisingly turned into a ratings hit for CBS from the get-go. Plus, it would have taken away time from other, smaller storylines that involve the Gray family members, as the religious overtones would have ultimately overshadowed Vincent's romantic entanglements.
Without the cop-out ending, the case was intriguing enough to keep me captivated, because of the possibility that Thomas was being abused by her grandmother (and therefore this episode giving me proof that all forms of religion are built on abuse), so she can live out whatever crazy stuff her religion has put in her head, and continues to put in her head, thanks to the media coverage of the case. Sometimes, the latter part was more intriguing than the actual story at hand, but I am talking as someone who is more interested in the media landscape than religion (I myself am an atheist, so religion in scripted entertainment is a hard pill to swallow – although I loved JOAN OF ARCADIA back then).
Also, the case gave Amy the opportunity to be front and center as a judge, basing her potential ruling on more than just the words of the attorneys that are in her courtroom. Being new in this job, she is observed by (probably) unhappy higher-ups at the state level, and now she had to deal with cameras in her face and in her front yard, and people forming uninformed opinions about her. It gave her a profile in the press that might be of interest in later episodes, now that her name is "out there" and she is being watched by more people than just her superiors.
I would have liked for this case to build a stronger connection between Amy and Lauren though. The questions were floating at the beginning of the episode, as Lauren asked multiple questions about religion, but the answers were not ready to be delivered by Amy. Maybe a two-minute-long scene of Amy dealing with the topic of religion with her daughter at the end could have done the trick, but I guess the visual of Lauren holding a porcelain angel in her hands while sleeping showed the audience that you can make an issue out of religion, but you can also stay quiet about it, so that the general audience is not being alienated by random preaching. Or maybe a religiously themed conversation between Amy and Lauren was too dicey to write, so it was left out of the script altogether.
Maxine’s story was good as well. I liked seeing her in her natural element as a social worker, even if it was the first time we saw her like that, essentially establishing her not just as a character who comes out of retirement, but also a character who works in the social service field full-time. I liked that she instantly created conflict, told the audience that DCF is as understaffed as any other government-run organization, and that removing a child from its family and putting it into foster care might be the easiest thing to do for social workers stressed for time, but is never the correct thing to do. I know how stressful the job can get – I have a few experiences of my own in this area, which is why I loved that Maxine went the road of perfect opportunism, even if she was almost crass to the woman who was about to lose her kid. And the story established that Maxine knows what she is doing – she knows the job too well to not risk it to make it absolutely certain to a somewhat terrible parent that, if they do not change their act, they will lose their children.
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| Is this where the line is drawn with religion? |
Vincent’s fling with Chris was okay, even though she ended up kind of a weird character, with her very aggressive way of flirting, as well as the fact that she did not tell Vincent about her daughter. I cannot speak of experience here (since I am too asexual and socially anxious to flirt, date, or have sex), but I would love to know if you have children before you decide to invite me to your bed, just in case they suddenly show up while I make breakfast in the morning and you are in the shower or something like that.
Plus, Chris’s general
aggressiveness (“Or we could just date”) weirded me out. I know, she
was probably desperate and needed a companion (who knows
what she went through before this, maybe she just needed to get her mind
off of things), but I would love some time between the first
meet’n’greet and the first instance of “we should just date.”
Preferably, three months of time. On the other hand, she might have seen
that Vincent is a man different from the other men she has had in her life, and
she wanted to close in on him before someone else snatches him, or because she wanted a relationship with a deep connection and
she instinctively knew that Vincent would provide that connection. Meanwhile, I like the notion of younger characters dating older partners in scripted media, even if Kathryn Harrold, then 49 years old, still looked like an attractive woman who could easily get a starring role in a TV drama. But the last leading role she had was in 1991 in I'LL FLY AWAY. Hollywood ageism...
