Saving Grace Starring Holly Hunter Begins 2nd Season

Saving Grace, the religiously themed police drama starring Holly Hunter as the hard charging, hard living, hard drinking Oklahoma City detective Grace Hanadarko began its second season on July 14^th. Grace's road to redemption has hit something of a speed bump.

For those late to the show, Saving Grace's Grace Hanadarko likes to drink, smoke, and have indiscriminate sex with just about every man who crosses her path. She's also a police detective in the best Hollywood style, of the sort who, despite her small stature, can and does chase down suspects twice her size. That suggests that Holly Hunter's character is an adrenaline junky, what we call a :"danger ranger". Along with the sex and general debauchery, that suggests that Grace is trying to forget something.

And that something appears to be Father Patrick "Satan" Murphy, played by Rene Auberjonois. Father Murphy, who was introduced in the cliff hanger episode of season one, molested Grace starting when she was nine. He apparently molested a lot of children in his sordid career.

The whole thing, just summarizing it, seems trite. The girl's a wild child because she was molested as a child. But Holly Hunter is a skilled enough actress to make the whole thing work, conveying rage, bitterness, and outright madness in equal measure. And Rene Auberjonois depicts a man so eaten up with guilt and shame for what he has done that one almost feels sympathy for him.

Almost. But not quite. It would take a more Saintly person than most viewers, not to speak of Holly Hunter's Grace, not to put a bullet in the pathetic little creep.

But here's where Saving Grace shines. Holly Hunter's Grace started the first episode of Saving Grace on the highway to Hell, almost literally. A plea to God after having run down a pedestrian has brought Grace a new friend. His name is Earl, a seedy, tobacco chewing curmudgeon who looks like a refugee from the Red Neck Comedy Tour. Earl is an angel of God. More to the point, he is the last chance angel, who appears to lost souls like Grace and, apparently, like Father Murphy, who can still be saved given the opportunity.