Plot Synopsis:
When Gary rescues an eleven year old boy from the luggage compartment of a bus, he is shocked when said boy, Kevin Miller, reacts with anger rather than gratitude. When Kevin's mother arrives, Gary learns that Kevin has leukemia and was attempting to run away from another round of chemotherapy.
While Gary broods at the bar over Kevin's situation, Cat turns on the television. A news report is airing on Jenny Sloane, a woman with terminal brain cancer whom Sun-Times columnist Howard Banner has made a celebrity. Gary decides then that he needs to get in contact with Jenny Sloane and ask her to speak to Kevin and encourage him to give chemotherapy another go. Gary first attempts to reach Jenny through Banner, but Banner claims that Jenny has a "full plate" and shuttles Gary out of his office. Chuck and Gary then dress up as waiters and infiltrate the governor's ball where Jenny is an honored guest. Gary shows Kevin's picture to Jenny and explains the situation. Jenny seems to be eager to help, but when she discusses it with Banner, Banner is oddly resistant to the idea.
Ignoring Banner, Jenny does show up at the hospital the next day and immediately hits it off with Kevin. When Banner hears that Jenny has gone to the hospital without his consent, he heads over right away to collect her. When Banner arrives, a doctor approaches Jenny and offers to sign her up for a drug trial, but Banner aggressively refuses the offer. Only when Gary urges Banner to let Jenny speak for herself does Jenny get a word in edgewise. She too declines the offer. Later, in Jenny's room, we learn why Banner is acting so strangely. As it turns out, Banner made Jenny Sloane up and is using this woman as a pretty face to bolster his phony story. "Jenny" tells Banner she enjoyed speaking with Kevin - that she was actually good at it - and begs for Banner to let the ruse go on for just a little bit longer. Banner refuses and declares that Jenny Sloane will die the following day. The next morning, Banner heads in to work and starts penning a column about Jenny's tragic suicide.
What Banner didn't expect was Gary Hobson. Gary sees the column on Jenny's suicide in his paper and sets off to stop it. First, Gary tries to speak to Banner, but Banner gives him the bum's rush -- after which he changes the name of the bridge in the column he was writing. While waiting at the Randolph Street Bridge, Gary notices the change in his paper and heads over to the Lake Street Bridge. There, Gary sees Banner tape a fake suicide note to the railing. He confronts Banner at a local bar and learns from Banner the truth: that Jenny Sloane is a fiction.
In the end, Gary tracks down "Jenny," finds out her real name is Lucy, and enlists her help in stopping Banner from declaring to all the world that Jenny Sloane is a fraud in an attempt to save his own skin. Gary reads a piece of one of Banner's old columns and tells Banner that the Banner of years ago would never do something so dishonest and cruel. Banner seems unconvinced - up until, at an awards ceremony in his honor, he hears a speaker give him a glowing introduction. At that point, he finally feels guilty, and when he gets up to speak, he preserves the fiction of Jenny Sloane and declares that he is resigning.
And as for Kevin? He goes back on his chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Lucy takes the next bus out of town.
Overall: 7.3
Though this is a better episode than last season's Psychic, it's still kneecapped by the same screwy message.
Writing: 8.0
Points to Alex Taub for writing a pretty unique cancer kid. It's not often that you see, on television anyway, a kid in Kevin's position displaying genuine anger and frustration -- but of course, most kids with cancer probably do feel those emotions from time to time. Cancer is an ugly disease, and one can argue that the treatment is even worse.
I'm not clear, though, on why Gary would show Kevin the suicide note he snatched from the bridge. It couldn't have been a calculated attempt to bring Lucy out of hiding because Gary couldn't have known that she would be lurking at the hospital - and it certainly doesn't benefit Kevin in any way. The whole scene is just very bizarre. It is, however, the only real "huh?" moment in what is, message aside, a pretty good script.
Acting: 8.0
This episode also has a solid guest cast. Robin Lively is particularly good in her role, and Zaks Lubin, for the most part, handles his material like a pro. John Spencer is probably the least effective of the main guest actors, but even he is far from horrendous.
Message: 6.0
But now to what bothers me about this episode: the decision to keep the lie of Jenny Sloane alive. It is good that Banner realizes he has done something wrong and puts in his resignation; and I suppose it could be argued that revealing the fraud would've done more harm than good to Kevin at least. Still, in nebulously declaring that "people need heroes," Taub makes the same mistake that was made in Psychic: he doesn't tie his source of inspiration to anything true. People need heroes, yes, but if those heroes can be reduced to dust upon exposure to the light of truth, then they weren't heroes to begin with.
Real heroes are those people whose deeds we recognize to be tremendous in spite of said heroes' human fallibility. Take, for instance, our Founding Fathers. When I was in college, I became absolutely obsessed with John Adams. I twice visited Quincy, Massachusetts, and read every single biography that has ever been written on the man. That total immersion laid bare for me many of John Adams' flaws. He was not the best father in the world, for one. He was slow to adapt to the changing political scene of the 1790's, for a second. He was apparently given to fits of temper, for a third. He was, in short, a human being. Did that make me respect his towering intellect and clear contributions to our movement for independence any less? No, it didn't. As a matter of fact, it made me respect them more. If John Adams and the other Founders were perfect demigods, their remarkable achievements would not have been so surprising -- and heroism is defined by its element of surprise.
So, no - we don't need fake heroes. We need real ones. We need heroes who struggle with our same fallen nature and yet rise above it to do something great.
The Benevolent Hand:
Cat turning on the television at just the right moment? That there is God killing three birds with one stone. Putting the Jenny Sloane idea in Gary's head accomplishes the threefold goal of getting Kevin back on live-saving chemo, enabling Lucy to recognize that she is a woman of worth, and forcing Banner to understand once and for all that he shouldn't grasp at celebrity through dishonesty. All in all, this is a pretty good day's work for Early Edition's Benevolent Hand.
Highlights:
GARY: (sticking the note in front of Banner's face) Hey, it's pretty poetic for a suicide note.
BANNER: I don't know what you're talking about.
GARY: Come on, I was there. I saw you. Lake Street Bridge. I saw you tape it to the railing.
BANNER: So, you really thought it was poetic, huh?
GARY: Don't ask me how I know this, but I do: you made the whole thing up, so don't bother denying it.
BANNER: Hey, you'll have to show me that crystal ball of yours sometime --
GARY: Who is she?
BANNER: Some girl. I don't even remember her name. I found her at the bus station. Look, my editor wanted a face to go with the Jenny Sloane story. I didn't have the heart to tell him there was no Jenny Sloane, so --
GARY: So you grab your camera, go down to the bus station, and start propositioning good looking girls.
BANNER: Oh, you make it sound so sleazy. (That's because it is.)
GARY: Where is she?
BANNER: I don't know. (A beat.) Listen, it saved my career. My stuff wasn't good enough anymore. You know they were going to cancel my column before I wrote that Jenny Sloane piece? If my editor knew I lied to him, he'd eviscerate me and boil me in oil.
GARY: So you lie to the whole city.
BANNER: Hey, no harm, no foul.
GARY: You're a journalist. You're supposed to tell the truth, not disgrace it. (YES!)
No comments:
Post a Comment