Alias, Rimbaldi, and Redemption

“That’s the word he used. Prophecy. Does that sound good or bad?” –Sydney

So many great science fiction shows have an underlying mythology behind them. X-Files and their alien mythos. Fringe and “The Pattern”. Lost and their “what the hell is going on?” mythos. Alias had its own mythos, the Rimbaldi mythology, which often threatened to overwhelm the precarious balance of the themes of the show. Many of Sydney Bristow’s (Jennifer Garner) missions centered around the search for and recovery of artifacts created by Milo Rambaldi, a Renaissance-era combination of Leonardo da Vinci and Nostradamus. Rimbaldi was an artist, inventor, and Pope Alexander VI’s chief architect whose advanced designs got him labeled a heretic. The Rimbaldi scavenger hunt often felt reminiscent of the Da Vinci Code and like with Lost, early on in the show, one might have had the impression that the writers were making up the mythology as they went along.

“Do you believe in redemption?” –Sloan

To SD-6 supervisor Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), Rimbaldi was a prophet and through his journey, he might find eternal life. Sloane was always a complex villain, which is what made him both so charismatic and interesting. As is the case with all well rounded villains, he believes himself to be the hero of his own story. In him we can learn a few things about the perils, cost, and necessities of being a disciple. He was a simple man of faith pursuing the object of his faith with his entire heart, sacrificing all in pursuit of the ultimate Truth.

It began with an epiphany, a moment of truth or an end of self moment of clarity. An encounter with Rimbaldi changed his life, giving it meaning and purpose. It was ancient text he and the other Rimbaldi followers were asked to put their faith in; an ancient text with a vitality for modern times. Through it they managed to divine patterns of hidden meaning in ordinary things. He immediately abandoned his old life, the life of a patriot serving his country, and turned away from people he loved. His friend, Sydney’s father, Jack (Victor Garber) even confronted him about it: “I used to feel sorry for you. Couldn’t you sense it? You’d been abandoned. Left for dead. Disgraced. I pitied you. That you needed Rimbaldi to fill a void in your life. It was like a religion for you.”

“I should never have heard that man’s name.” –Sloan (speaking of Rimbaldi)

Like many disciples, after a difficult path, full of sacrifices, Sloane comes to a place where he regrets becoming a disciple. Jesus once warned his disciples about counting the cost of being a disciple:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple...In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-35)

The path of a disciple is marked with hard choices fraught with peril and errors in judgment. As Dietrich Bonhoffer argues, "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ … costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light.""

Sometimes people come to a point where they feel betrayed by their faith. Many a time, Sloane was left wondering was it all worth his, his own brand of a dark night of the soul. Some folks simply walk away. I’m reminded of the passage in John 6 starting in verse 60, when many of the disciples deserted Jesus. “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” they grumbled. And after Jesus questioned some of them (“Does this offend you?”) many turned their back and no longer followed him. So he turned and asked the rest of his disciples “You do not want to leave me too, do you?” Sometimes we may feel like the remaining twelve disciples. “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

“I don’t know what your beliefs are. If you have a faith. If you expect that something follows this life. You might have none. But if there is a chance that there is something else, that we face the consequences of our actions in this lifetime … this is your last chance to do what’s right.” –Sydney

Jesus never claimed that his purpose was to come to have a personal relationship with us. He did, however, say that He came to build his church and called for the church to go forth and make disciples. I’m reminded of this quote from identifying a disciple:

Following Jesus as a lifestyle isn’t a matter of do’s and don’ts as much as an expression of a new identity in Jesus. This identity as God’s image bearers gets expressed toward specific audiences – toward God we are worshippers, toward other Christ followers we are community and towards the very world of people Jesus came to earth on mission to rescue – we join him on mission. While we all sign on to the same calling, God is big enough to creatively invite each of us to a personal pursuit of following Jesus.

Spiritual journeys are difficult. Some people persevere, realizing the importance of questioning and investigation. It’s frighteningly easy to go off of a path as Sloane so tragically found out. Perhaps the object you were following wasn’t meant to be followed, perhaps you made an idol out of something which was good. It can happen in degrees, a slight deviation, and then further down the road you are left lost. What should you do in the face of feeling betrayed? What do you do with your questions and doubts? How do you remedy that? What can you do to prevent veering from the path we’re called to? We’re not called to ignorance. Each of us has been gifted with a will and intellect of our own. The only true betrayal of faith is to abandon thinking about it and seeking to know God. The path may look different for each of us, but the journey must be persevered.

Alias and Compartmentalized Spirituality

Before J.J. Abrams become a pop culture phenomenon (Lost, Cloverfield, Star Trek) he helmed the series Alias. The premise was simple: newly engaged, brilliant, beautiful college student, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), believes she works for a division of the CIA known as SD-6. Working alongside her estranged father, Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) and under her pseudo-father figure Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), they foil the plots of evil intelligence agencies. Well, turns out that SD-6 is exactly the agency she thinks she’s fighting, after they kill her fiancée, so she goes to the real CIA. Her ''handler,'' Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), sends her back into SD-6 as a mole where she will team up with their other inside agent, her father. Oh, and it turns out the mother, Irina Derevko (Lena Olin), she believed was dead the whole time was actually a KGB agent who betrayed her father and often seems set to either reunite and bond as a family or kill everyone. Then there’s her long lost sister, but that’s another story.

Simple enough of a premise.

So each week Garner essentially got to play new characters with new looks, a living doll for the writers to dress up and play with (which became a blue print of sort for shows like Dollhouse, though Eliza Dusku couldn’t quite pull off the same feat due to her thin acting and with the inherent flaws of the show). The thrilling, over-the-top missions, provided the adrenaline rush while at its heart, the show was about family tensions (taken to the extremes because there’s nothing like a family of superspies squabbling over Thanksgiving dinner).

“The truth takes time.” –Irina

The life of a double agents is a mercurial one. By necessity they have to lead secret lives and while at first or on the surface it may seem exciting, it takes its toll. Living with the desire to tell their friends and family, be honest and real with them, about who they are. Only allowed to tell the truth when convenient or absolutely necessary. And when the truth comes out in drips and drabs, their friends are left with a sense of betrayal, not knowing if a single thing said was true, and leaving them feeling like they were only dealing with a stranger.

It was an exhausting box for Sydney Bristow to live in. She had to constantly be on guard, to be one step ahead of her enemies, her friends, and her family as she led her double and sometimes triple (quadruple?) life. The series explored what it meant to be obligated to conceal who she was, to compartmentalize her life and live in the shadow and fear of secrets, even as she assumed multiple aliases to carry out her missions. Trained to constantly conceal part of who she was, blocking off parts of herself, she was the quintessential double-minded woman.

In the same way we can compartmentalize our spirituality as well as our lives. Our duplicitous lives lead to a sort of spiritual dissociation. This is the way of how (secret) sins work, how they infiltrate our lives and we manage to continue to function. They may start small or innocent enough, manageable enough that we can put it away, lock it up in a box in our heart. Boxes we can control and keep hidden. But those boxes stack up, become bricks in a wall eventually sealing us off from God’s rebuking and restorative voice. We rot behind that wall.

Our scalded souls become numb to our sin. We can read the Bible, hear sermons, and not truly want or feel convictions of our sin. We become trapped in a cycle: attachment, attraction, sin, guilt. Lather, rinse, repeat. So we instead choose to walk around with a band-aid, self-medicating ourselves enough to continue as we always had. Such that the bandages are so thick, they further block your relationship with God and hear His voice. Pretty soon a band-aid isn’t enough to keep us together and soon our wounds are wrapped in a bandage. Then we’re hobbling on crutches. But we keep treating the wound, even as all of those accumulating scars metastasize into a cancer.

It’s the cost of compartmentalization and dissociation until truth pierces the darkness and all of the rot can be brought to light and dealt with.

“There’s rarely an end to the story.” –Jack

Alias had a cinematic quality to it which essentially provided Abrams with on the job training for shooting the movie Mission: Impossible III. “As a (dysfunctional) family drama set in a hyperreal world,” as Abrams once described the show, Alias was almost hobbled by the Rimbaldi mythology (a thread of the show’s premise left for another review) which made the show wildly uneven as the writers didn’t seem to know which theme the show should revolve around. Thus the frequent tinkering designed to make it more accessible as the show constantly re-invented itself (nearly as often as Sydney did).

Still, for its flaws, the show offered constant thrills to gloss over it: from Sydney seduces intelligence out of a Russian aboard a plane, escaping just as he gets sucked into the engine; when Sydney has been captured and tortured and the torturer is revealed to be her mother; when Sydney realizes that her roommate has been murdered and replaced with her genetically altered arch enemy. Episodes ended with a bang, seasons ended with cliffhangers, and mysteries deepened and further entangled (often teetering under the threat of collapse). And when in doubt, Jennifer Garner was easy on the eyes and talented enough to make us buy into her house of implausible lies.

Mission: Accomplished.

Homicide: Life on the Streets – A Review

Premiering on January 31st, 1993, right after the Super Bowl, Homicide: Life on the Streets was one of the best written, best acted, grittiest, smartest dramas to hit the television airwaves. It used cinema vérité techniques (handheld cameras, jump cuts), had convoluted continuing storylines, and paved the way for shows like The Shield and The Wire (the only shows truly in the conversation of “best cop show” ever).

“I believe in justice. I believe in life.” –Pembleton

The show was brought to the screen by Barry Levinson (Diner, The Natural), Tom Fontana (St. Elsewhere, Oz) and David Simon, who wrote the book the show was based on, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. They created a police procedural completely new to the television landscape. It focused on the bleak realism of the job. Repetitive, focusing on the interaction between the detectives—during the long, boring stretches of paperwork and stakeouts—and how they go about solving the cases; and how spiritually draining, but socially necessary, the work was. This was in the pre-C.S.I. era, without flashy visuals and before terms like DNA or trace evidence entered our popular lexicon. To recap, jittery camera work, ill cut scenes, character centered, non-flashy visuals, set in Baltimore and airing on Friday nights. Needless to say, the show never became a breakout hit.

“Some things transcend normal logic.” –Howard

As the series opens, we’re introduced to rookie detective Tim Baylis (Kyle Secor) as he joins the Balitmore homicide team, an ensemble including Richard Belzer (whose character, Det. John Munch, is now in the Guinness Book of World Records for having been on the most television shows, currently a regular on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), Yaphet Kotto (Alien), Clark Johnson (The Wire), and Ned Beatty (Deliverance). In a lot of ways, Homicide is the story of Bayliss’ journey from wide-eyed rookie (haunted by his inability to close his first case, the murder of a young black girl named Adena Watson) to world weary (as he explores his dark side and his sexual nature) to spiritually numb.

“If you had a worldview, you would see that by solving this little conspiracy it might tell us something about the human condition.” –Corsetti

He is partnered with cocky (“I’m proud of my pride.”), brilliant Frank Pembleton played by Emmy-winner Andre Braugher (Thief, Frequency). This cast was also unusual in that it was predominantly black, a rarity on television. But while Bayliss is the connecting thread of the series, Frank Pembleton anchors the show through Andre Braugher’s gravitas. Through their partnership, like with the rest on the series, the series explores how the volatility of the partnerships, many like marriages, allow them to work through the horrors they face every day. Ultimately, that’s what the show is about the worldview it requires to navigate the (dark side) of the world.

“Let me … box with God. Because in this line of work—be it mutilated priest or overdosed drug addict—faith only gets in the way and twists you up.” –Pembleton (Something Sacred pt I)

Police officers stare more intimately and more often into the face of evil. They deal with the worst of what society has to offer on a regular basis, observing and cleaning up after the evil that men do. It takes a psychological, emotional, and spiritual toll on them. Frank Pembleton most brazenly challenges and questions his worldview.

One of the great things the show did was examine the very humanity of the detectives. Just like the exploration of Tim Bayliss’ bi-sexuality was handled with subtlety and aplomb, so was the examination of Frank Pembleton’s spiritual life. Over the course of the series we see his faith challenged, extinguished, and slightly rekindled. As his wife Mary (played by Andre Braugher’s real life wife, Ami Brabson) observed: “When I first met you, you believed in things other than yourself … [like] God.” But after all that he had seen, as far as Frank was concerned, “God had become ‘the great light show’, too busy in the next county making hunchback babies.” Faith had become a lie, “blind faith is the crutch of fools.” But it bothered her that he lost his faith and belittled hers, and his crisis of faith impacted the cases he worked and their marriage. Cursed with not only an intellectual curiosity, but also a need to find out the truth, Frank continued to seek and challenge his world view and those of everyone around him. Because he needed something to help him navigate through the darkness.

Any choice of a worldview requires a leap of faith, to believe that your worldview is the “right” one. I believe quest/knowledge journeys begin with a leap of faith, that is, what we choose to put our trust in. For some, it is ourselves (the individual or humanity). For some, it is science (the determination of our senses). For some, it is the spiritual (under the assumption that there is more to this life than presented, both in terms of the spiritual and in terms of after this life). To quote from the blog of my friend, Rich Vincent:

“Christianity does not consist in a series of verifiable and interlocking hypotheses. Nor is it a philosophical system consisting in satisfactory, mutually consistent propositions… the way that truth is sought and engaged with is not through detachment but through a living relationship of faith and love with the object we seek”. The Christian seeks more than “objective truth,” facts, or information. “The goal is not to find information, or even to discern fact, but to bring ourselves, as living subjects, into engagement with reality, culminating ultimately in a participation in the ground of what is real”.

“You don’t leave any room for something good to happen. A moment of redemption. You don’t believe in anything.” –Bolander

Widely considered the most realistic cop drama ever aired (and Andre Braugher being perhaps television’s finest actor), Homicide: Life on the Street gives viewers a different view of detective work. During the course of its run it garnered two Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, three Television Critics Awards, two Writers Guild Awards, and was named to TV Guide's "The Greatest Episodes in TV History" and "TV's Greatest Characters" lists (as well as their list of “The best television shows nobody is watching”).

The show rarely followed the rhythms of an hour long drama and definitely showed no sentimentality. When it did go for an emotional moment, such as when Pembleton—who had refused to attend the funeral of his fellow detective who had committed suicide—gets in his dress blues to salute his fallen comrade, it resonates with power. As an example to how tight the writing was, one of the episodes which won an Emmy, "Three Men and Adena" , took place in a single interrogation room. Another award winning standout was the episode “The Subway,” wherein Vincent D’Onofrio is pushed in front of a subway. The story unfolds in real time as he is pinned under the wheels and once they lift the car from him, he will die. [One of my personal favorite episodes was “Black and Blue”, again featuring Pembleton in the box, eliciting a confession from a suspect he knows to be innocent.]

Put simply, this was one of the most influential, cutting edge, ahead of its time police procedurals in the history of dramatic television. The star-turning performance still mesmerize (and many of Hollywood’s finest show up in guest turns). Were it to air today, it would be found on cable, much like its creative inheritor, The Wire did.

House - “Broken” (Part II)

(continued from Part I of An End of Self Confession aka “Physician Heal Thyself”)

“I’m out of plans.” –House

Only after a terrible tragedy, House begins to realize how much deeper his emotional problems lie than a Vicodin addiction. This marked his final stage of fully bottoming out. To finally reach a place where he is tired of fighting, worn out by the struggle to do better, losing hope that you’ll ever find wholeness or the light. Feeling broken, beyond repair, as if something is fundamentally wrong with you and you don’t know if you’ll ever be fixed. Afraid to be around others for fear of saddling them with all of your baggage; or worse, letting your disgust and anger with yourself pour out over them. You’re not where you wish to be, realizing the clash between what you believe and say you are about versus how you are living. Your life and circumstances not playing out the way you had imagined. Hitting bottom means we would rather die that continue to live the way we’ve been living. Reaches the end of his self, sense of independence and need to control when he admits that “I need help.”

“I want to get better. Whatever the hell that means. I’m sick of being miserable.” –House

Only from this place could he face his demons, or put another way, sometimes you have to lose everything to find the “ground of your being.” For one thing, he had walled himself off from everyone one around him. The thing about walls is that you can’t live behind walls and love as you should. Feel loved like we should. People can’t experience you loving them from inside your walls. You can’t living behind them grow closer to God. But you have to come to that conclusion on your own and decide that you want to risk living life in a broken and fallen world that could hurt you. You have to risk experiencing the pain that comes with that world. And that’s a scary proposition. You have to risk knowing and being known. And the more you experience someone who knows you, especially in your sinfulness, it exposes the lie. And that’s a scary proposition.

There is also the core belief that we can’t live without the self-medication. Life shifts. Gaining and losing people, places, and things leaving feelings of resentment, anger, self-protection, and abandonment in its wake, losses remind us that all isn’t as it should be. They remind us that life is painful. How do we experience and react to that pain? Sometimes we numb ourselves, medicate, act out sexually. Old wounds, be they lies we’ve come to believe about ourselves or quietly trying to please a distant father (because his opinion of you has shaped who you are and how you are) need to be confronted. Expecting something from certain relationships that never materialized, disillusioned with losses. Each loss presents a choice: passage to anger, blame, depression, resentment or passage to a greater life and freedom. Growing in love.

“You need to get better.” –Dr. Nolan

The thing is, brokenness can be redeemed. Real love risks and offers redemption and when loved well, we’re taught about God. In all of our brokenness and (self-) deception, in all of our brokenness and desperation, we can come before the Lord and be fully accepted. Fellow writer, Carole McDonnell, said this about laying things at the cross of Christ: “I've learned to not ask God to make me what I would've been if life hadn't gone as badly as it has. In Christ, we are restored from whatever pain we had...but the restoration is not to bring us back to the great might-have-been self. True restoration carries the pain and brokenness still, but also Christ's light. For those in dark to know that we understand some of their pain, and that God-with-us.”

There is a power to putting our feelings to words through prayer, sharing our stories of woundedness, and finding healing as we push one another forward. Moving forward is the key. As Dr. Nolan reminds him, “You’re not God, House. You’re just another screwed up human being.” Apology and confession allows him to acknowledge his failure, move on, and maybe begin feel better about himself.

So he sets out on the path of figuring out how to get from the place where he is to where he wants to be. It’s like starting life all over again: learning how to trust people, how to open up to people; trying to make connections rather than deflecting. Because as House raps (yeah, you read that correctly) “if you don’t make connections, then your whole life is a mess.” Because he can’t do it alone. Eventually he will need the support of others to walk alongside him along the path (not the false piety that comes from an inability to let go of past griefs and hurts).

And even as he goes through the process of shedding the lies he’d wrapped himself in and other people’s expectations of him; at the same time, he (re-)discovers who he is and what he was meant to be: a healer. The thing about wounded healers, is that they understand the pain so intimately. They know what to ask and they know when the “pain meds” aren’t working. They are living reminders to not let the past define you, but to always be working toward who you were meant to be. And that there is hope of becoming whole.

“We’re proud of him, we wish him well, and we hope to never see him again.”--Dr. Nolan

In short, “Broken”, which feels a lot like House M.D.: the movie, may be the best episode in the show’s five-plus season run. And that’s quite a bar that it’s clearing.

House - “Broken” (Part I)

An End of Self Confession aka “Physician Heal Thyself”

From its debut, House M.D. has been a great show. It’s medical mystery plays as in as formulaic a way as any episode of Law & Order or C.S.I. and on that level of procedural, it’s been fine. But it has always been the character of Dr. Gregory House himself, played by Hugh Laurie (Black Adder) who makes the show remarkable. He’s been a fascinating character study, a blend of arrogance, brilliance, charm, wit, and selfishness; a man in pain, who heals others pain.

The two hour opener of season six makes for an interesting departure episode for the show. Other than a brief appearance by Robert Sean Leonard as Wilson, Laurie is the only regular cast member to appear. There isn’t a medical mystery, per se, to solve. There’s just two hours of watching one of television’s most fascinating characters at his most vulnerable and finally facing up to his brokenness.

It's easy to play armchair psychologist as his wounds keep piling up. He has long term unresolved issues with his father. He’s in constant pain due to his leg and has been self-medicating (drugs, porn, and prostitutes) for years. He’s lost the love of his life and hasn’t figured out how to open himself up enough to love. Broken mind, broken heart, broken body, broken spirit, broken sense of self … sometimes you have to realize the level and depth of your brokenness before you can begin to heal.

At the close of season five, we see House bottoming out. It had been coming for years: the Vicodin abuse, risking jail, his license, a downward spiral of self-destructive behavior. By the time he checks into the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, he was suffering delusions (including a sexual encounter with his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein)). As the season opens, House is going through drug withdrawal. Once the meds have cleared his system, and the accompanying hallucinations gone, House is ready to check out. However, despite his voluntary commitment, it isn’t as easy for him to leave as he thought.

As the episode is directed by longtime "House" producer Katie Jacobs, she brings in the star of her previous medical drama Gideon's Crossing, the great Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Streets), as Dr. Darryl Nolan, the head shrink at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. House needs Nolan's support to get his medical license reinstated and Nolan wants House to get truly well. The two begin a spectacular game of cat and mouse--that much greater with two powerhouse actors going up against one another--with House plotting con after manipulation while Nolan lets him know that he can’t con a con man.

“You need to stop fighting the system. You need to let me do my job.” –Dr. Nolan

“Broken” is a journey towards redemption: the first step in a very long and non-linear path. It’s a risky gambit because part of the appeal of House has been all of the things that make him so dysfunctional, his woundedness is part of what makes him tick: his emotional unavailability, his inability to love and the denial of his own problems, all of which his colleagues put up with or gave him a pass on because he did such good work.

A lot of folks don’t know what to do with folks who are truly hurting. They are quick to label them crazy or drama queens, accuse them of self-aggrandizing behavior. To be fair, condition not always easily recognized, hidden behind walls, and people who are hurting aren’t always the most cooperative of “patients.” Often scared or indifferent and stubborn, or whatever else their posture of woundedness, they are unable to give voice or words to their state of despair or hopelessness. Burdened with the weight of guilt and shame, and self-contempt, they might pull away from people, not wanting to let others see our wounds believing them to be too ugly.

“They didn’t break me. I am broken.” –House

House needed to bottom out in order to get to a place of true, restorative healing. However, this came in stages (and throughout the series his friends often wondered “is this is? Have you finally hit rock bottom?”). When he first arrived at the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital and even after he had kicked the drugs, he hadn’t reached his bottoming out point. He was still an open wound spewing wherever he went. An uncooperative patient more content to scheme and get out on his terms in his way, constantly alienating people with his arrogant behavior and pushing them away before they could abandon him (not trusting them to be there because that’s what his father and life had taught him).

This is where House had found himself. Narcissism and anti-social behavior were just a few of his self-destructive behaviors, often screwing up relationships as if that was the goal. That’s the thing about addicts and addictive behavior: they scheme, lie, and take others down. They take advantage of their friends, seemingly valuing failures more than his successes, not quite being able to get out of their own (self-destructive) way, and never quite being honest to those around them. And in House’s case, he trusts in his intellect and ability to read people over making actual connections with them; using his intellect as a defense as he pulls away from people.

So House keeps trying to do things his way, finding a measure of healing in dealing with his own pain by helping others ... as he schemes. He develops a close relationship with his new roommate, Alvie (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and a frequent visitor, Lydia (Franka Potente). Alvie helps him uncover incriminating information about Dr. Nolan for a blackmail scheme and convinces Lydia to loan him her car to sneak out a delusional patient, Freedom Master, in an attempt to undermine Dr. Nolan’s course of treatment.

Easy to wallow in lostness, trying to fix rather than move on; or become caught up in machinations and manipulations, creating scenarios of crisis so that one can swoop in and play the hero. It’s still about trying to maintain a sense of control, to manage something in order to create the illusion that things are still okay.

to be continued ...

The Deep End – A Review

The television landscape needs its steady supply of the big three shows: cop show, legal show, and hospital show. The cop show is in a curious place. Where not too long ago it was defined by Homicide: Life on the Streets and NYPD Blue, one now has to go to cable to get their fix (The Closer, The Wire, The Shield, even the network show, Southland, is now on cable) or else sift through endless Law & Order and C.S.I. iterations. The hospital show, in the wake of ER has had its void filled with everything from Grey’s Anatomy to recent entries Mercy and Trauma. For a dose of navigating the quagmire of legal morality, we have Raising the Bar (on cable), The Good Wife, and now The Deep End.

Obviously The Deep End has taken its cue from Grey’s Anatomy, focusing as much on the sexual hijinks of the cast as their cases, without the heart or insight or sharp writing. The show moves quickly from interview, to office politics, to plunging the new arrivals into cases, the proverbial deep end. These first year associates—grunts or newbies—are quite analogous to medical interns in that they do the scut work of their superiors as a part of their learning process. So they are finding themselves even as they are learning, overworked and underappreciated, too caught up in the race to realize that such pursuit of career over everything can lead to an empty way of doing life.

“Stop looking for a Savior. They don’t exist.” – Beth Branford (Leah Pipes)

As they live, eat, and sleep with cases, the new associates seek out mentors to help them figure out the life and path. For most of them, they have Rowdy Kaiser (Norbert Leo Butz), who the writers still aren’t sure how to write, in the role of nurturer and guide. Instead of a McDreamy, we have a Prince of Darkness (Cliff Huddle played by Billy Zane) with his mercenary, all business approach, and we have the partner with a heart—and let this be an indication of the level of writing we’re talking about, the partner’s name is Hart (Clancy Brown).

“Every man has a come to Jesus moment when he asked not what’s gonna get him paid or laid but what he knows to be true.” –Rowdy

As such, the show is about discipleship, about trying to find the best way to live out their mission’s call. What we can't escape is the power of learning in community. We've lost the idea of journeying with our teachers, that teaching and knowing have a relational component. The master-student relationship is an important one when it comes to the idea of "making disciples". In a lot of ways, people have gotten away from what the picture of making a disciple looked like. It called for a teacher to walk alongside their disciples, live life with them. The master/teacher embodies, incarnates if you will, the teachings and faith is lived out in the context of a community.

“It’s what we do in the worst of times that tells the world who we really are.” –Hart
Right now, there’s little to differentiate the cast of interns as they are straight out of central casting when it comes to clichés. Just like it’s hard to care about their endless goo-goo eyes and bed hopping when 1) a few have already declared themselves in love within a couple of episodes of learning each other’s names and 2) Grey’s Anatomy has already illustrated that you can quickly exhaust the possibilities of partner swapping pretty quickly, to the point of ridiculousness. This is a law show for the ADD and easily titillated set.

Ally McBeal – A Review

"I've been down this road / Walking the line, displaying my pride / And I have made mistakes in my life / That I just can't hide…I believe I am ready for what love has to bring…I've been searching my soul tonight / I know there's so much more to life / Now I know I can shine the light / To find my way back home" --Vonda Shephard "Searching My Soul"

From the first time you hear the familiar piano strains and Vonda Sherhard’s vocals, you immediately recall Ally McBeal like an old friend remembered fondly. It was one of those water cooler shows, or in my case, one of those shows I dissected either later that night or the next day with my female friends. After all, it was about the trials and tribulations of a modern single person trying to find happiness and contentment in her professional and personal life, sort of a Mary Tyler Moore Show for the nineties.

What made the show unique wasn’t only its lead being a single girl in her late 20s trying to find empowerment wherever she can, but how her inner thought life helped her muddle through her day and various life situations. Her secret life of Walter Mitty-esque escapades were filled with dancing babies, swelling heads, tongues sailing across the room to lick the face of a man she finds attractive.

David E. Kelly had a formula he’d been perfecting over the course of his long, often critically acclaimed career. From L.A. Law, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, The Practice, Boston Public,to Boston Legal, he created sympathetic (if often … eccentric) characters and plopped them into either questionable/hot button issue moral dilemmas or ludicrous plot twists.

“Here I am, the victim of my own choices.” –Ally

Obviously, there are various issues surrounding the reality of singleness, from loneliness to unrequited love, and Ally McBeal wrestled with all of them. The main thrust of the show was about finding contentedness in her situation. It is about discovering herself, finding her own independence and self-reliance rather than (continuing to) make life choices based on a boy or defining herself through the ideas of what men want. It’s important to be content in your circumstances (Philippians 4:11), but some people define content—in terms of singleness—as relinquishing their desire to marry (read: given up). It’s not an either/or: you can both be content with your singleness and desire marriage. The danger of being discontent is that frustration and impatience can lead to forcing things and settling.

The thing about Ally McBeal is that there’s a reason we remember it fondly. The first season was great, after that, the series suffered from a roller coaster of quality. When it was good, it was very good; but when it was bad, it careened completely off the tracks. The second season was hit and miss at the best of times, with the show often becoming a caricature of itself. This is the danger of shows built on such well defined eccentric characters. If they stick around too long, they become one note jokes. Which only led to more ridiculous situations from Ally falling into a toilet and having to have firemen come to rescue her; or propelling herself down a bowling alley after throwing a ball that was stuck to her fingers. [Though the second best season of the show came in season four as the show found its center again with the casting of Robert Downey Jr as her love interest].

Ally McBeal redefined a lot of things (besides fashion, as short skirts were described as being “Ally McBeal short”). It fit neither the mold of the hour-long drama nor of the half-hour sitcom, thus paving the way for shows like Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty. And it never hurts to visit with old friends.

Nip/Tuck (Season 5.2) – A Review

“Deeply Superficial”

Nip/Tuck is what it is. It’s an over-the-top look at our culture’s fascination with physical beauty, how it defines (and traps) us, and how no pretty the outside it, there is no covering the deep scars of untreated wounds. The season 5.2 DVD set picks up right after the events of the (mid-)season finale, picking up right after Sean McNamara’s (Dylan Walsh) attack from his former agent. The season continues to mine the lives and characters of this broken collection of folks. Not ready to face his life, Sean decides to fake his recovery, pretending to be paralyzed below the waist. All too ready to face his death, Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) seeks to find his replacement to help Sean and pursue a marriage with their lesbian-except-to-marry-Christian anesthesiologist, Liz Cruz (Roma Maffia). In the mean time, would be true love to Christian, former drug addict and porn star Kimber (Kelly Carlson) returns with Christian’s grand-daughter in order to have plastic surgery done on the toddler (injections of botox to correct her “thin, villainous lips” so she can pursue a modeling career).

“Now you are perfect.” –Kimber

We live in an image based culture. From the moment we turn on the television, pick up a magazine, turn on the computer, or step out the door, we’re told what is pretty, what is the sexual ideal, what is stylish, what is beautiful. We forget that there is truth and goodness in beauty, one that we recognize without having to be told (much less needing it plastered all over magazine covers). Beauty should touch a primal chord within us, captivate us, and spur us to adoration, even worship.

“If I could just find joy in my life. Or maybe one day feel human again.” –Budi Sabri (Chi Muoi Lo)

A lot of people live their lives never fully convinced they are loved as they are. Never be able to love or unable to receive love, or allow ourselves to feel and accept love without strings attached or pre-requisites. They are so starved to be loved, they go to desperate lengths to fill that hole. Time and time again, the characters try to stave off the travails of the human soul, the loneliness and sorrow; and fill a hole, desire, and thirst only God could satisfy. They looking for affirmation, validation, appreciation, affection from friends, family, or fans; not realizing that they can’t look for their true self there.

“Even I, in this body, am a true expression of God.” –Budi Sabri

One particularly interesting case the doctors are presented with is that of Budi Sabri, a man with a virus that causes warts to break out all over his body. “All he’s known is pain and isolation” and his condition (and his hope) touches a chord in all of them. He is a reflection of what they all feel (and perhaps what they look like) inside. So the doctors take it upon themselves to try to get him to look and feel human again.

It is critical to not be defined by the past, but to always be working toward who we were meant to be. And live in the hope of becoming whole. We’re all wounded healers, broken or rather, incomplete. In the midst of pain, agony, and infection, we are to encourage one another as a fellow patient and in so doing become part of the healing. When our spirits are wounded, we speak words of resurrection. We offer new hope and new life. We invite one another to live a new kind of life, one where we are continually surrounded by Jesus' transforming love.
As Nip/Tuck prepares to enter its final season (again, another show guilty of sticking around at least one season too long … Smallville says what?), the storylines and surguries only continue to get stranger as the characters have all but been exhausted. In what episode, the writers all but concede that they didn’t know what else to do with Christian besides kill him off. Despite its multitude of flaws, it has just enough left in its tank to limp to its finish line.

Grey’s Anatomy (Season Five) – A Review

So my Thursday nights are taken up by a group of hot, young surgeons in training at Seattle Grace Hospital, the top teaching hospital, in competition with one another. Each dealing with life,love, and loss on a daily basis and whose problems and lives seem more intense in their life and death world. The doctors of Grey's Anatomy struggle to be great professionally and personally, the two rarely coinciding due to their overly complicated personal lives.

“I’m leaning into the fear to get a happy ending.” –Meredith

Because all of the doctors are hot, and where would we be without hot docs, the show revolves around their bed-hopping, I mean, relationships. Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) explore the idea of a long term relationship. Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) and Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) explore their budding lesbian relationship. Also in the sprawling, ever-changing cast, Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) joins as he and Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) explore a tentative relationship as he deals with his demons and history of hurts.

“Reality is so much more interesting than living happily ever after.” –Meredith

The reality is that they are all learning how to deal with the pain of living in a fallen world. They use alcohol and sex to bandage the hurts within them, eventually forging friendships and becoming family as they learn to lean on each other to get through the harsh hands life deals at them. In the process, “little pieces of you get chipped away” or you “shave pieces of yourself” so that you fit better with one another.

They, as well as the cases they encounter, learn that there are no warranties on friendships or any relationships. Friendships can be betrayed by wrong, stupid, and selfish decisions or pride and using people as balms for internal hurts. That no matter how much one might have thought of themselves as good, a person can come into their lives and reduce them to “that crazy person” as a consequence of the wounds people do to one another in relationships.

“I forgot about God.” –Bailey

They also learn to listen with their hearts, to forgive and make things right. Always striving to love better. To be each other’s “person”: the people who know us “darkly, really knows us.” Or, as Meredith sums things up, “it’s important to tell the people you love how much you love them while they can hear you.”

Despite its convoluted romantic storylines, the show is designed with intelligence. The cases comment on the characters, and the characters often comment on the show (like when the chief says, "We've been resting on our laurels. … It stops, and it stops now”; and acknowledgement that the show rights itself, as it had rather meandered through the previous season). And it digs deeper than most, getting at some truths about humanity and relationships.

Private Practice (Season Two) – A Review

“Our family takes care of your family.”

Following Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) moving to Los Angeles, Private Practice has an identity wholly separate from the show it spun off from, Grey’s Anatomy. The show has its share of bed-hopping madness. Dr. Sam Bennett (Taye Diggs) and Dr. Naomi Bennett (Audra McDonald) are still confused in their friend-ex-marriage relationship. Dr. Cooper Freedman (Paul Adelstein) and Dr. Charlotte King (KaDee Strickland) are involved in their sex romp threatening to become a relationship. Besides dealing with the clinic teetering towards bankruptcy, the show focuses more on the human issues revolving around their cases as well as the interpersonal relationships of the staff.

“Patients come to see us because we take care of all of them. Body, mind, soul.” –Dr. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman)

The private practice in question focuses on a more holistic approach to their patients. We all seek wellness and wholeness, though like many of the doctors in the practice, we use (on their face, good) things—chocolate, shopping, relationships—to fill a hole inside us. As we go about on our spiritual journeys, we often get locked into our modern mindset, the Greek ideal of perfection; tormented by the guilt of failure because we couldn’t reach this goal of perfection. What we often translate in the Bible as perfection actually should be read closer to the Hebrew idea of wholeness because being complete is something that we can attain.

“You ever miss the good old days when life and death was decided by God instead of doctors?” –Charlotte

Hearing the Good News that we are beautiful and made in the image of God. People of worth. That we’re not quite whole, our feelings, spirit, will, and mind not working in concert as they should, with sin disintegrating what’s normal and desired, unraveling our lives and goodness. We want magic, not spiritual discipline, a more holistic dimension. It becomes about seeking wholeness, humans to be restored in all the dimensions of humanity, being fully human.

As Henri Nouwen says, “in the spiritual life, the word discipline means ‘the effort to create some space in which God can act.’ Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up.” Part of what it means to follow the way of Jesus is to put on his characteristics, like a coat. It’s all a part of our journey.

“It would be good to not be in control. To let go and let God.” –Charlotte

The thing about journeys is that more times than not, the journey is the destination. It is through the struggles that we learn a lot about who we are. Yes, we may stumble, fall down, fail, but it’s what you do after that happens that’s the important thing. Do you quit your journey? Do you find an entirely different path to take? Or, do you get up, dust yourself off, then continue on your way? Wholeness can be found in continuing your battles, despite the occasional setbacks, as we speak wholeness, life, hope, faith and love into each other’s lives. And though some are “pathologically allergic to human relationships,” that’s what the dysfunctional family that forms the private practice do.

“Life is not assfat.” –Violet

The show’s ensemble cast remains intact and unchanged, the writer’s strike truncating Private Practice’s first season as we were getting to know the characters and how they related to one another. Each character, however, is fully realized despite the familiar territory the show treads in. The show is essentially comfort food, likeable characters doing nothing out of the ordinary. It’s pretty but forgettable.

Ugly Betty (Season Three) – A Review

“Get Ready for Betty”

Ugly Betty enters its third season on a familiar trajectory. The first season being a breakout hit, the second kind of wobbling (partly because the writers hadn’t fully thought through the second season as they were too busy surviving the first; partly due to the writer’s strike), and the third season being a make or break kind of season as the show tries to re-coup some of its lost viewers. The fashion world backdrop of Ugly Betty continues with its fascination with physical beauty and style even as the eponymous lead character, Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), continues to evolve.

We still have some of the ridiculous office shenanigans as Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) schemes for power and the Meades—mostly in the form of matriarch Claire Meade (Judith Light) and heir apparent Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius)—try to maintain the reins of control of Mode magazine. Daniel also attempts to balance his “just wanting to have fun” mentality with the realities of being a new father. Betty’s sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz) is still dating the married coach and after the grief of losing Santos. Throw in the comings and goings of the other superficial Mode employees and we have a cast of mostly twenty and thirty something teenagers, people who are emotionally in their teens but in big people’s bodies.

“I’ve created a plan for myself.” –Betty

Betty has returned from a trip around the country and has returned to New York, and Mode Magazine, rejuvenated and with an agenda. She wants to be about experiencing things: change, growing up, and discovering herself. Armed with her “empowerment animal” (a dove, symbol of her feminine energy), she braces herself for new challenges as she seeks her independence. She has even made a life checklist: 1) more responsibility at work, 2) get her own apartment in New York City, 3) no more romantic entanglements. Well, two out of three isn’t bad as Betty has to deal with her romantic entanglements with Henry Grubstick (Christopher Gorham), Giovanni 'Gio' Rossi (Freddy Rodríguez), Jesse (Val Emmich), and Matt (Daniel Eric Gold).

“I can fix this.” –Betty

It’s funny: we come into the world completely dependent on them (and our parents know EVERYTHING); we start to make noises of independence and doing things our way (and our parents know NOTHING); and then we start to brave the world by ourselves (and our parents know SOME things after all). But at some point we have to try to get our crap together. We can’t be afraid to change and grow and cutting the apron strings is a rite of passage as you carve out your own direction. It’s about growing up, dealing with the decisions you’ve made, and picking yourself up no matter how many bowls of ramen noodles you have to eat in the process.

“It gets better.” –Betty

Even our spiritual journeys hit bumps as we mature, with the journey inward being part of the progress. Some people compare this time to God actually "giving" you more responsibility by not guiding you by the hand any more. Allowing us room to go and explore where we need to go, but continuing to be present or being a guard rail. The signs of maturing include an increase in humility and teachability; the acknowledgment of the need for help.

Ugly Betty rights itself with season three, after the lamentable season two. There’s a less over-the-top quality to Season Three, as it has found its footing. Less ridiculous and more natural feeling storylines, less celebrity cameos, and a less one-note quality to many of the characters. Betty remains a fantastically lovable character, strong, capable, and independent; living in "BettySuarezland" which isn’t such a bad place to be.

Supernatural Season Four – A Review

“The Journey of Two Brothers”

I’m playing catch up on season four of one of my favorite shows, Supernatural, as episodes of season five stack up on my DVR. As the inheritor to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel brand of television horror, the season opens with the episode Lazarus Rising, with Dean (Jensen Ackles) returning from Hell (reminiscent of one of Buffy’s season cliffhangers and openers). His brother, Sam (Jared Padalecki), recipient of special powers due to the blood of a demon, hadn’t kept his promise to not train his special abilities. Sticking to the formula, the season builds towards the confrontation with the “big bad,” in this case, Lucifer himself.


Caught in the world of angels and demons, the brothers find themselves suddenly aware of the reality of angels—since demons were a given in their world—thus front and center of the battleground of spiritual warfare. In this cosmological battle between good and evil, the angels (Castiel and Uriel) as well as the demons, as spiritual, free moral agents, also make choices and have actions which have consequences in our world. This spiritual aspect to evil takes on a personal dimension in the form of Lucifer, aka, Satan.

"The adversary" is a force not equal to God, not God's shadow self, nor the demonic-in-Yahweh as some people try to explain him. He would be a created being, the most powerful of the spiritual "principalities and powers," the highest of what some cultures would call a god. Boyd then takes it one step further: what we see as evil is the collateral damage of humanity and creation being caught in a cosmological battle of spiritual forces. The reality of this war sends the brothers on two different journeys.
“This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.” –Sam

For Dean, faith is a tricky thing. He becomes a living testimony of how as much as our rational minds demand proof, we can ignore what we’ve seen or intellectualize it away. For example, in three seasons, Dean has fought demons, been to hell, seen the miraculous, the transcendent dimension to our reality intruding upon our normal world quite often. Yet he struggles with the idea that angels exist. Why? Because that would definitively indicate that God also exists. Which raises an entire host of questions he’d rather not wrestle with.

“If there is a God out there, then why me?” –Dean

Like how he doesn’t believe he should be saved. That God would care about him at all, much less send an angel to snatch him from the pit of hell. Or the idea that he has any significance to God at all, much less that God has work for him to do.

“It doesn’t matter what you are. It only matters what you do.” –Sam

Sam has a different set of issues with these smite first, ask questions later, style of angels. He struggles with the thought that he’s simply a nice guy with something evil in him. Like the rest of us, he struggles with his dual nature, his fallen/cursed aspect vs. the man he’s trying to be and knows is capable of being. His powers represent a slippery slope of temptation into sin. Since this dual aspect of himself is something he has to deal with, his goal is to take a curse and make something good out of it. And he’s not alone. He has his brother, his fellow hunters, and other folks who speak into his life. Together they participate in a mission from God, a mission Dei, to help and save people from monsters.

Supernatural is filled with genuine terror moments. This season seems especially taut and focused on character. With Ben Edlund (The Tick, as well as a veteran of Angel and Firefly), Supernatural is easily the best horror and one of the most entertaining shows on television. None of that sparkling vampire crap everyone seems so fond of these days.

Gossip Girl (Season 2) – A Commentary

I may be completely missing the boat on the whole Gossip Girl thing. I hear folks describe it as a guilty pleasure, full of wit, and trashy fun. I just don’t see it. Maybe I’m taking Josh Schwarz's teensploitation soap a little too seriously. It’s Dynasty for today’s teen set, rich people looking good while behaving badly. The kind of night time escapism that will never go out of style. The plotlines are practically beside the point—endless revenge, back-stabbing, and hooking up—with viewers needing a scorecard to keep up with the shenanigans. As I said in my review of season one, “maybe watching lily white, privileged teens cavort and struggle doesn't do it for me.”

It’s easy to grant that some people are disadvantaged, but more difficult to admit that some people are privileged. Privilege would be the set of advantages that are enjoyed by some people beyond those commonly experienced by other people in the same social, political, and economic class. Something of value possessed by certain members of society, some sort of social, political and cultural advantages accorded. This privilege is “an invisible package of unearned assets” as Peggy McIntosh defined it, denied and protected.

Privilege is the shiny coat on a culture of oppression which had became ingrained in some peoples’ souls, part of the character of who they were. A mentality which insinuated itself as part and parcel of their identity; a part of a systemic evil of financial ascendancy, money, power, and politics. Money can be a means of oppression. At the same time we need reminding that God is for the oppressed, the marginalized, and the forgotten.

The Gospel speaks to the disinherited, the poor, the disenfranchised , the oppression of the weak by the powerful. The Gospel is an offense to the rich and powerful. It’s the death of their ideas of wealth and power, those priorities. Part of the societal pathology that has us sweeping the poor under the rug. If we’re going to be judged, it will be on how we treat, in Jesus’ words, “the least of these”. The poor. The disadvantaged. The non-privileged.

So another season of Gossip Girl is upon us, as if teens couldn’t be portrayed as even more vapid, self-involved and obsessed with surface beauty and trends. With an air of campy ridiculousness with no shortage of teenage and emo nonsense, I’m sure some folks will enjoy.

ER (Season 11) – A Review

Gone but not forgotten, ER continues to roll out the DVD releases of the venerable series (and by “venerable” we mean now creaking along, but not so far gone as to put out of its misery). By now, the show is like an old friend that you don’t mind hanging around. We’re used to its familiar rhythms:

-unusual cases: we see an aquarium worker with a live shark latched to him, a blind woman and her guide miniature horse, a college boy with an arrow in his stomach, etc.

-notable guest stars: Ray Liotta (Unlawful Entry, Goodfellas) plays Charlie Metcalf in the episode Time of Death, which played out in real time (the last 44 minutes of Charlie’s life) – garnering him the 2005 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Red Buttons returns as Jules “Ruby” Rubadoux, a role he reprises from Season 2, a widower still blaming Carter (Noah Wyle) for his wife’s death.

-cast turnover: Dr. Corday (Alex Kingston) and Chen (Ming-Na) try to balance the rigors of both work and family, with Elizabeth departing in the episode Fear and Chen in Twas the Night. Carter leaves, ostensibly to join Kem (Thandie Newton) in Africa. Ray Barnett (Shane West) joins the cast as a young doctor by day and a rock star by night. Every bit as ridiculous a character as he sounds.

-complicated relationships: Abby (Maura Tierney) has finally realized her dream of becoming a doctor, but her journey is overshadowed by the usual mix of tangled love lives that play such an integral part in ER. Sam (Linda Cardellini) and Luka (Goran Visnjic) continue their shaky relationship. Neela (Parminder Nagra) gets closer to Gallant (Sharif Atkins). And on and on it goes.

We all suffer the pain of our infirmities, our handicaps should remind us of our own weakness. Along with these broken bodies we need to seek cures, seek doctors. Doctors aren't here to help the healthy, but the sick. People go to doctors because they are perceived to have the knowledge to treat what ails us, yet they are no more healed than the rest of us. They have problems, health or personal or otherwise, and are every bit as wounded. Yet we still go to them, these wounded healers. The thing about wounded healers is that they know what to ask for. They understand the pain so intimately, they know when the pain meds aren’t working. This mission statement is true of all of us: We are not sent to be served but to serve. In the midst of the pain, agony, and infection of life, we encourage one another as a fellow patients and become part of the healing process. Besides, which warriors do you trust: those with clean armor or those who are battle scarred?

We have a love and fascination with our doctors. The medical drama is part of a longstanding tradition and one third of the trinity of television genres: medical shows, legal shows, and police shows. With 6 discs and over 1,000 minutes of episodes, there’s plenty of ER for those in need of a fix.

The Community of Building (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) Pt. II

[click here for part I]

“You remember the story of Nehemiah?” Rev. Martin asked. “Before he got there, no one was doing anything. But when he got there, the whole city got together and started working. The people had a mind to work.”

The spirit of community and mission appealed to the best in the Hoosier community. There was a holistic approach to restoring the neighborhood and you didn’t exactly have to twist arms to get folks to participate because the virus of generosity spread quickly as folks got caught up in the “what can I do?” attitude. There were can food drives to stock food banks. Different vendors pitched in where they could, from J. Ennis Fabrics donating fabric then wanting to go on to teach sewing lessons at the donated community center; to AV Framing Gallery donating pictures to be hung inside the home.

Though prepped by the producers a few weeks earlier, no one knew for sure which house would be selected. All they knew was that the streets would be blocked off and folks would be given the option to stay in nearby hotels during the duration because of the noise and inconvenience. Mark Smith, a student at Martin University, had lived in neighborhood for four years. “At 6:30 in the morning, our house was shaking when all the people marched down the street. It’s been a positive impact and will hopefully be an incentive for people to keep their property up.”

Some residents had been in the neighborhood for over 32 years, seeing things like this on television but never expecting to see it in real life, much less in their neighborhood. Everyone pulled together to continue to improve the neighborhood. The Estridge led crews landscaped the property of Martin University. Wheelchair ramps were built for houses who needed them. The entire neighborhood was equipped with wifi and Dell donated computers to all of the IPS students who live there. Marian College will be providing tutoring and literacy training at the local elementary school in Martindale-Brightwood (IPS School #51) and also at the new community center. Crews painted some of the surrounding houses, paved the alleys, and cleaned up the trash. Over 1200 trees, six miles worth, were planted.

“Thank God for the Rain”

This experienced even changed how people spoke about neighborhood. Everyone had stories. Neighborhood children baked cookies for the production crew. There was a story of a little girl bringing her “Jesus money” to donate to the project. Even inclement weather became an opportunity to serve. That Sunday, the weather was awful during one of the “hurry up and wait” moments before the volunteers could do their “Braveheart march”. The Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church opened its doors and welcomed the volunteers in from the cold and rain. The crowd filled out the balcony, the choir section, and the basement. Jessie Hickman admitted that they were “caught a little bit off guard, but the people were so friendly and then they wanted to hear some singing.” The church stopped teaching their Sunday School class and started a prayer service for them which included prayer, dancing, and singing. Everyone was invited to tap along to a rendition of “Let it Rain” which gave goosebumps to the listeners.

“I think the church had a profound effect on them,” Jessie Hickman went on to say. The collection plate was a little fuller than usual. The church remained open all week, servicing the needs of whoever walked through its doors. The Estridge group re-sided it and also did some landscaping. Says another parishioner, Kathy Griffin, “they were an answer to prayer. It’s truly a blessing coming down from God.”

Reverend Martin summed up the experience this way, “God is a God of restoration. He’s restoring hope in this neighborhood. He’s restoring lives. He’s restoring dignity.”

All of this started with one man, Bernard McFarland, a school teacher going about his business, trying to make a difference one child at a time. His life caught the attention of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition production team. Their mission coincided with Paul Estridge’s and a community was forever changed. As the wave of beautification extended out from the McFarland home, everyone’s hope is that it continues to spread. No one wants things to stop with this project but want to see it replicated in other neighborhoods.

“With the revitalization that’s going on, you’re seeing a spark. People want to try to do what they can for the neighborhood. It can’t help but rub off,” Jessica Hickman said. “I know people are going to keep up. If you see it beautifying, what are you going to do? You’re going to pick and help at least maintain it.”

“Shout all you want to!”

April 4th, at 2:45 p.m., Bernard McFarland, his sons, his family, and his neighbors yelled “Move that bus!” and finally saw the results of a community pulling together. It was a cathartic celebration, the payoff moment, for a community rally and neighborhood family coming together. Not only had Bernard leapt out of limo at his return to his neighborhood, but ran up the street once he saw his new home for the first time … so that he could high five his neighbors. “Shout all you want to!” some cried out. At one moment it looked like Bernard was going to runoff with Paul Estridge. Then came his grand shout: “Thank you community!!!”

The house at 2356 N. Oxford St is like the proverbial city on the hillside, a light in the darkness. It serves as a beachhead to reclaim the rest of the neighborhood. Both a point of pride and a symbol of community cooperation, it illustrates the power of transformation.

In many ways, we’ve lost the community spirit of sitting out on our porches. It seems like we are determined to keep moving away from each other (in the name of “escaping the crime” and “those people”); and if we can’t move, we build fences from one another. Maybe we ought to answer our own question of “who is my neighbor” by sitting out and getting to know them; learn the comings and goings of our neighborhood and maybe keep an eye out for each other. We need to take ownership of our neighborhoods, even in the tiniest of ways.

Caring about our neighborhoods means spreading a viral concern to “love thy neighbor.” Not just keeping a vigilant eye, but having a proactive mindset, one that fixes problems as we see them. If we are truly to be lights in a world of darkness, the least we can do is start by fixing a broken window and being a good neighbor. That’s the work that Paul Estridge and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition began and the residents of Martindale-Brightwood hope to continue.

The Community of Building (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition)

[Remember when I was tweeting from the set of Extreme Makeover? This is the unabridged version of the article I wrote about the filming of the episode filmed in Indianapolis which appeared in the May/June issue of Indy Magazine.]

The school bus rumbled along, carrying the next groups of spectators and volunteers from the State Fairgrounds down to the staging area. Though hot and cramped, there were no complaints. Instead, the ride was filled with pleasant chatter. “What are you doing?” one passenger would ask. “Whatever they tell me,” another answered.

Such was the spirit that charged the site of the latest episode of the highly rated television show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. For those unfamiliar with the show, it typically featured a race against time to finish a complete renovation of a house, from its redesign to landscaping to decoration, with a team led by Ty Pennington. Usually changing the lives and fortunes of the families they touch, its viewers were left in shared tears or heartwarming uplift. In its 6th season, the show filmed its season finale with an unusually ambitious project. At its heart lay a forgotten part of our city in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood, the home of Bernard McFarland and family at 2356 N. Oxford St (re-dubbed McFarland Drive) around a new home and its (new) Pack House 2000 library, not to mention all of the changes in the surrounding area.

While Extreme Makeover gave them the means, most of the vision came from one man. Paul Estridge, president of the Estridge Corporation, is the patient zero, the Typhoid Mary spreading a virus of generosity. Befitting the nature of the project, the orchestrating had to have been an organizational nightmare (“organized chaos” was the phrase of the day). All about the staging area walls were various Estridge mottos: Serve and Enrich. Continue to Grow. According to Biblical Principles. We Build Together. Time. Talent. Treasures.

There have been a couple of places where Extreme Makeover had painted a few additional houses, but no one had done anything on the scale of what Paul did in terms of a whole neighborhood. With the redressing of alleys, manicuring of streets and lawns, repainting of homes, and demolition of an abandoned home, over 198 acres were affected by the revitalization. With his greater vision of investing in neighborhood and community, his heart for the city rallied community leaders from councilmen to businesswomen, from artists to clergy.

The business philosophy undergirded by Christian values—to give back and be a blessing to the community—may partly explain why the community responded the way it did. Over four thousand volunteers descend upon this part of the city most would have avoided any other time. Carpenters, dry wallers, and unskilled hands, running the gamut of races and ages, volunteered their time, passion, and sweat. Some volunteers arrived from as far away as Texas. Some volunteers worked days that ran from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., with no job being too small for them to lend a hand.

Fueled by a sense of mission and a camaraderie of common purpose, crowds gathered to literally watch paint dry. Everyone pitched in and become involved. Neighbors hosted dinners. Neighborhood folks picked up brooms to sweep up adjoining areas. The common cry was that “we’re supposed to give back” and “we’re either going to be a part of the problem or try to be a part of the solution.” The renovation of a house, of a neighborhood, transformed the volunteers as well as the community.

IPS School #37 was gifted to the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood association to serve as a community center for the neighborhood. Amy Harwell, a member of the neighborhood association, loved the fact that School 37 will be put to good use as a community center. “School 37 is a landmark and I’m glad there’s someplace for neighborhood kids to go. Mr. McFarland has been taking kids into his house forever and now he’ll have some help. We’re proud of our neighborhood.” Built in the 1920s, the 50,000-square-foot school building had 20 classrooms, a gymnasium and food service area (but no air conditioning).

Before, the neighborhood was neglected, if not written off. People had given up on the neighborhood because it seemed that everyone else had. Pizza places wouldn’t even deliver to it. For your safety, you had to pick and choose the streets to carefully travel. “A lot of the crime and the drug selling came from people outside of the neighborhood,” former resident Jessie Hickman said.

Some streets had older people living on them, so they were fairly quiet. Other streets, however, had trouble brewing. You couldn’t even drive down the street without people running up to your car asking if you were looking for drugs. “I wouldn’t be caught up in here by myself. When you roll through you better lock the doors and roll up your windows.” Reverend John W. Martin, Sr, of the Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church said. “but for the first time ever, this week I walked down this street.”

As Mary Catherine Grau, director of marketing for Estridge, admits, “Estridge has always been a pretty philanthropic company, but when this opportunity presented itself, it was a wonderful way to do what we’ve always done except do it on a much grander scale.” Paul Estridge had two conditions before he decided to partner with Extreme Makeover: 1) he wasn’t going to do a home so grandiose that families in the area couldn’t aspire to build one also; 2) it couldn’t just be the home, the project had to be much more involved in the neighborhood.

[to be continued ...]

I Really Didn't Just Go Randomly Nuts Over the Weekend

For those who follow me on Twitter and thought I was having a random breakdown and became fixated on large motor vehicles, here are some accompanying pics from the site of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition season finale (as it was being filmed here in Indianapolis):

At the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition site. The limo's about to pull up ...11:59 AM Apr 4th

We're waving to Ty! (well, not me. I'm strictly media, you know)12:32 PM Apr 4th

Move that bus already!12:56 PM Apr 4th

And now ... some cheerleaders are performing (because this day hasn't been long enough)1:01 PM Apr 4th

For the record, me and my film crew would have had this shot by now. Granted, there would be some random dance sequence in it.1:02 PM Apr 4th

I'd have Ty and Paige in the background doing the robot ...1:03 PM Apr 4th


The times are a-changin': First a black president & now black folks move into a neighborhood & the property values go up!1:06 PM Apr 4th

Countdown to security wrestling a Paige stalker to the ground.1:13 PM Apr 4th
Normally when you see this many white folks in a black neighborhood ... they're preparing to move away.1:22 PM Apr 4th

I'm convinced: this bus is never moving. In fact, I think I see the McFarlands unpacking their stuff in it.1:23 PM Apr 4th

I'm really starting to hate this bus.1:54 PM Apr 4th

All the writers are herded together. No, no ... we're definitely not gossiping about our papers...2:15 PM Apr 4th

Media secrets: "It's the last day with the catering tent. Bring the big purse."2:36 PM Apr 4th

The limo's FINALLY here.2:37 PM Apr 4th

MOVE THAT BUS!!!2:39 PM Apr 4th

No, seriously ... move the @+!%#!# bus.2:41 PM Apr 4th

Dear Extreme Makeover, if you know black folks talk in the movie theater, what'd you think would happen when you're filming live?2:45 PM Apr 4th

OMG ... tell me the family didn't just sprint up the street! (with a pack of white cameramen trying to keep up)2:47 PM Apr 4th

Ty's ass didn't move.2:48 PM Apr 4th

You can't stop us from having church out here. "Shout all you want to!"2:50 PM Apr 4th

From Bernard McFarland: "THANK YOU COMMUNITY!!!"2:51 PM Apr 4th

As a member of the media, I neither whoop nor hollar.2:55 PM Apr 4th

"Go on in your house, man. Make all them folks take off their shoes first."2:56 PM Apr 4th



Although, half the fun of my tweets are the fact that they're mostly context free.


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