Is it wrong to curse the writers of Joan of Arcadia?
I started watching Joan of Arcadia midway through last year’s season, its first. I did so after reading good things about it by Lisa Schmeiser at City Pages. I found the writing good, all the characters complex and that the show had a good sense for where the line of schmaltz was, though it did flirt awfully close with it at times. Plus it has some nice echoes of one of the best teen shows ever, My So-Called Life.
Joan, then, is one of only three non-new-this-season shows that I watch. (The others are Scrubs and The O.C.) I thought last year’s season ender was good, and admired how they brought those issues into the new season. And in the first couple shows of the season, I liked the new character they introduced that Joan had met over the summer at “crazy camp”, Judith Montgomery. We got a little more information about Judith in each episode. She, like the others, was complex, interesting and likeable. I was especially impressed with the writing, when, early in the season they had her drinking at a party till she was sick, but they didn’t kill her off. Oh, I thought, that was nice. She wasn’t just the person brought in for an episode or two so that they can kill her off and give faux trauma to the characters.
So imagine my extreme displeasure, several episodes later, when the writers killed Judith. They made no effort to hide what was coming in the episode. Still I watched in disbelief, incredulous that they would have almost done so early on, then not done so, waited till all the viewers liked her and thought she was sticking around, and then killed her. I wept. And wept. And over the next few days, every time I thought of the show, I thought of Judith, and I teared up. I’m still upset about it. I curse them for snaring me so effectively, even while I admire the skill it took to do so.