![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/Sv8lCAifzJI\/AAAAAAAAAfw\/iPof-H6VFOA\/s320\/GracePolk\")
<\/a>There\u2019s little flaw in the design of \u201cThe Uncertainty Principle,\u201d for my money, one of the best season-1 episodes. First, a confession: Grace Polk (Becky Wahlstrom, left with Amber Tamblyn as Joan) is my favorite character in the series. A rebellious rabbi\u2019s daughter and Joan\u2019s disaffected pal, she dresses tough and talks tougher. Most kids in school think Grace is a lesbian. \u201cThe Uncertainty Principle\u201d is her coming-out episode.<\/p>\nWe\u2019ve been waiting four or five episodes for Luke to invite Grace to be his partner for the school science fair. At the beginning of this episode, he finally asks her. She thinks he\u2019s asking her to the prom, \u201cThe Crystal Ball,\u201d and retorts with her usual gracelessness, \u201cWhat is it with these sanctioned mating rituals that make everybody drool over each other like zombies?\u201d When Luke says he\u2019s talking about the science fair, Grace says she has already agreed to that. <\/i>Luke suggests they develop a project based on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And\u2014pretty rare for a TV show about teens\u2014he explains in simple terms: \u201cThere\u2019s no way to know where a nucleus is with any certainty. The observer is always changing what we observe. Reality itself is indeterminate. And atoms, the very building blocks of matter, are mere clouds of possibility.\u201d Grace answers thoughtfully, \u201cQuit eating my grapes!\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke\u2019s friend Friedman (who has already accused Luke of being gay because he is attracted to Grace) says to Grace: \u201cGuess we won\u2019t see you at the dance tomorrow night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace: Based on what?<\/i>
Friedman: Based on the assumption that you won\u2019t wear a dress.<\/i>
Grace: Well, guess what, Galileo? Your assumptions suck. And we\u2019ll see you at the dance. Now, beat it, before I give you a wedgie.<\/i><\/p>\n
At the dance, Grace, fed up with Friedman\u2019s taunts, throws off her leather jacket, rips off Luke\u2019s jacket, and wraps the happy seventeen-year-old boy in his first passionate embrace. For the rest of the evening, Luke and Grace boogie up a storm\u2014to Friedman\u2019s amazement. <\/p>\n
I am not a physicist and cannot tell you whether Luke\u2019s is a fair summary of the uncertainty principle. But it is a pretty interesting view of reality, in a divinely created world of free will, one in which one of the most important choices is what we look at<\/i> and where.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Both Joan and her father choose to look in dark places. God, as a pierced Goth youth, tells Joan to invite the meanest, saddest, most antisocial kid in the whole school, Ramsay, to The Crystal Ball. Meanwhile, Dad, as police chief, decides to look where no one has previously dared: into the chain of corruptibility in Arcadia\u2019s city government that reaches all the way to the mayor\u2019s office. Both of these instances of observation <\/i>have far-reaching consequences. Dad\u2019s investigation leads to an FBI raid and (in later episodes) job troubles for Dad. Joan\u2019s inviting Ramsay to the dance plays out with more interesting twists.<\/p>\n
The d\u00e9nouement is set up by the first of two conversations between God and Joan. Goth God enters the school library to find Joan reading a book on self-defense.<\/p>\n
God: I wouldn\u2019t worry about self-defense. <\/i>(God pulls out a book entitled \u201cLost Souls.\u201d) Joan, have I ever endangered you?<\/i>
<\/span>Joan: Well, you never told me to ask evil out on a date before. <\/i>
God: Evil is not a word to use lightly. It\u2019s only the darkest end of a broad spectrum. <\/i>
Joan: You mean like light? <\/i>
God: Exactly like light. Nobody is born in total darkness. Most of you live on the grey end of the spectrum, a lie here and there, jealousy, wrath. But you only get to absolute evil by doing one thing after another till eventually you\u2019re transformed. <\/i>
Joan (looking at the book \u201cLost Souls\u201d) Like . . . into a monster?<\/i>
God: A monster is a creature with no consciousness. They\u2019re extremely rare, but they do exist.<\/i>
Joan: Have you watched the news? I\u2019m not sure they\u2019re so rare.<\/i>
God: Almost everybody has some light somewhere. And light is always worth fighting for.<\/i>
Joan: Ok. So I\u2019m supposed to find Ramsey\u2019s light?<\/i>
God: I just want you to listen and observe. Be present. <\/i>
Joan: That\u2019s it?<\/i>
God: (No answer)<\/p>\nAccosted at The Crystal Ball by vice principal Gavin Price for carrying a bottle of whiskey in his pocket, Ramsay flees the dance. The DJ at the dance (God again) tells Joan to follow him. What seems to be another melodramatic ending, as in the previous episode, leads to a great concluding scene. Joan hops in Ramsay\u2019s truck; he drives to a junkyard, pulls a gun, then has an armed stand-off with Joan\u2019s dad, who finally talks the boy out of his pistol and leads him away to custody. Joan is saved; so is Dad; Joan is grounded; and then . . .<\/p>\n
The following day Joan meets Old Lady God in the school corridor. God is holding a tray of cupcakes and wearing a button that reads: \u201cHelp Soccer. Eat More Cookies!\u201d Joan is upset: Ramsay is going to jail.<\/p>\n
Joan: What do you want me to fail at this time?<\/i>
God: Now, what makes you think you failed? You did exactly what I asked you to do. You observed.\u00a0<\/i>
Joan: What good did that do?\u00a0<\/i>
God: Observation is a more powerful force than you could possibly reckon. The invisible, the overlooked, and the unobserved are those that are most in danger of reaching the end of the spectrum. They lose the last of their light, from there anything can happen.\u00a0<\/i>
Joan: Fine, I observed Ramsay, his life is still ruined.\u00a0<\/i>
God: His life wasn\u2019t the only one at stake.<\/i><\/p>\n
Then in a chilling evocation of the Columbine shootings, God shows Joan in a vision what would have happened if Ramsay had not <\/i>been arrested. He was preparing to open fire at school, and students, teachers, even Ramsay himself would have died if Joan had not observed <\/i>and been present <\/i>to him.<\/p>\n
God: For each of these there are twelve more that would have been altered irreparably, people alive today whose lives were altered by you\u2014by the simple fact of being present\u2014by entering the light\u2014by joining the dance. <\/i>
<\/span><\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/Sv8gTB3fwdI\/AAAAAAAAAfo\/pcOZw_Y08fQ\/s200\/JoanFamily\")
<\/a>\u201cDrive, He Said\u201d has a good trigger and an explosive climax, but it\u2019s little more than melodrama, lacking the meaty exchanges between Joan and God that make the best episodes compelling. Older-brother Kevin, confined to a wheelchair following a car accident and now working as a fact-checker at the local daily paper, has okayed an editorial accusing his police-chief dad of racism. Dad leaves the house determined to prove to his son that he is anything but and promptly pulls over a speeder he thinks is an important white official. The car does belong to the official, but the driver is a white punk who has already shot and killed his parole officer and has now stolen the car. Punk takes Dad for a ride, a drama that preoccupies the rest of the episode. God\u2019s contribution to the plot? He (as a plumber) and She (as a test administrator) tells Joan to (a) get her driver\u2019s license today and (b) take the new license for a spin in the country. This leads to a climactic scene in which Joan and younger brother Luke come upon their kidnapped Dad, who has already contrived his escape from the felon, on a dark country road. God has only a couple of interesting comments:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6738513599344023043-3877814787419814009?l=yimcatholic.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"