Just Peachy.

Hi everyone

As promised this is the shiny new thread for all your discussions on the show. Here we can talk about what episode you last watched, what you thought went right with the show and what things didn't quite go to plan.

clueless01

So I guess a good thing to talk about would be the Will/Joan contrast and how well that worked. I'm not a fan of the Will storylines and I felt a little like they were trying to merge two shows together, sometimes.

Gabriela

Thanks for the new thread - good idea!

The will/joan topic is a good one! I agree that it felt like an odd mixture of a cop show meets a show about God. I get them trying to kind of show a contrast between the goodness of God and the bad things Will encountered in his job, but it was almost too much of a contrast for me ...and too much of a blue filter

Just Peachy.

I never liked the Will/police storyline and always fast forward through them. I just find them boring and if I wanted to watch a cop show I've got plenty to choose from here

clueless01

Also, with the fast-forwarding Will's cop stories don't really have that rewatch-ability that the Joan storylines have. They seem kind of like disposible stories, if that makes sense.

Just Peachy.

I know what you mean Anna.

Re-watching the Joan scenes are more special. I was watching State of Grace last night and just the scene when Joan came down into the kitchen (when Will and Helen) were talking she asked Will if he was going to come and kiss ehr goodnight. I just thought that scene was very touching.

Gabriela

I also agree - Will's storylines had nothing to them - there was no extra emotion that made them re-watchable. They were extremely disposable. Even when Will "learned" some kind of lesson from a case, it never seemed to really hit home with him and his character never changed in relation to what he went through on the job, whereas Joan did.

clueless01

Exactly, they were dry when it came to emotional content. There's no rewatch value there.

Will's character never did really change, but I guess I could explain that away in some kind of intentional, show the difference between him and Joan and highlight Joan's ability to learn, maybe partially due to him being older and her younger, but maybe also, the openess and willingness to look around her and see things that she got from Helen.

shadowcrawler05

I wish they would have done more (or anything at all) with Will's half-brother. It opened up the perfect opportunity for Will to learn and grow as a person, even after years of being jaded. I mean, he was surrounded by teenagers that were able to do just that. It didn't make sense to have him remain in the same emotional quagmire. I suppose the point was to show what happens if you keep yourself cynical and closed off and angry for pretty much your entire life. It would be hard to come out of that. But they didn't even show him trying. I feel exhausted enough being angry for a week. I can't imagine going at it for 50 years.

I also never cared for the police storylines, Biggest weak link in the world. They were at their best when they related directly to Joan's plot, like Bringeth It On, or dealt with the rest of the family, like Luke in Double Dutch and Kevin in The Gift. I will say I generally liked the corruption plot in the first chunk of season one. It was fairly well written and tied together throughout the episodes, and real consequences came from it. I absolutely hated how they chose to do an almost exact repeat of that in the second season.

Gabriela

I had completely forgotten about the half-brother storyline! I think it would have been cool to see them pursue that plotline, but only if they had really cooled it on the police storylines then b/c otherwise I think it would have been just too much going on.

I was wondering what everyone thought about Helen's storylines, mainly her pursuing religion again. I liked the idea of it, but it felt like Helen never really got anywhere with it and there was a lot of tug-of-war between her saying yes she wanted religion and then saying no she didn't. Thoughts?

Just Peachy.

Same! I forgot about the half-brother.
I think that sums up the way I feel about it. For me it didn't look comfortable with what Helen was doing, like you said she wasn't getting anywhere and perhaps Helen was trying to find someone who could/would understand her since Will was off doing his police thing.

I don't know, I just felt that the Helen seeks religion wasn't handled very well, it just didn't interest me enough.

Gabriela

i agree that it wasn't that interesting - for me, it got interesting in Silence when we saw it connecting more with Joan. Alone, the topic itself wasn't interesting (and even got frustrating when she kept going back and forth and her pursuing religion despite Will's protests didn't actually make a difference in their marriage) but I think had they geared it more towards Joan's storyline, it would have been so much more intriguing. That also might have taken care of some of the issues JoA seemed to have with juggling too many storylines at once as this would have tied in with the main storyline of Joan talking to God.

Just Peachy.

Question, did you guys think that from the beginning that they were juggling too many storyline or only after the had finished?

For me I'm only noticing it now after re-watching the episodes. I think on first viewing (all via DVD as the network here dropped JoA) I really appreciated every episode and really couldn't fault the show too much, but now I really feel that it was too many storylines and maybe I'd think differently if we got closure, but since the show finished without a proper ending, we are left wondering.

qirjanran

wanted to let you know i made a huge joan picspam @ livejournal- go to fandom_picspams and just find joan of arcadia in the tags. enjoy!

Gabriela

Good question! I don't think I recognized it as jumbling too many storylines, but at the time I defnitely realized that Will's storyline was one I was not interested in seeing. I felt that it was kind of unnecessary, at least the way they did it. But no, at the time I think I was so interested in learning more about the characters (particularly Kevin) that I didn't really consider just how much they were trying to put into each episode.