I Like to Watch

Are you there, God? TV characters turn to the Lord for answers, from Benjamin Bratt of A&E's "The Cleaner" to Holly Hunter of TNT's "Saving Grace."

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: Drama, TV, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, I Like to Watch

July 13, 2008 | In these trying times, more and more TV characters are turning to God for help, but the rest of us seek salvation where we've always found it: At the bottom of a cold bottle of beer, in between the lines of a Gillian Welch song, in the shade of a big oak tree, in the creases of the Sunday New York Times, in the musty corners of our pot drawer, in YouTube footage of hopeless drunks, in an icy jug of water on a walk in 100-degree heat, in the first bite of an Egg McMuffin, in an afternoon double-espresso break, in the summer breezes blowing in the window at dusk.

This is why TV will never provide a true salve for bad moods or existential angst or recessionary doldrums. Because TV rarely takes on the heart-rending dimensions of great fiction. On TV, there aren't enough quiet moments or spaces in between the action where a character searches for something to keep himself swimming against the tide. We don't taste the escapism of a cold sip of sake at lunchtime like we do in the pages of Haruki Murakami, we don't encounter the poolside country club ennui of John Updike or the fickle desires and bleak regrets of Mary Gaitskill. Occasionally a TV writer like Alan Ball or David Milch or David Chase tries to capture these gaps in our experience, these divine lapses and lulls that tear us from our day-to-day lives.

But most TV shows serve up the obvious: characters in crisis, talking to God. And when characters roll their eyes skyward and plead with their makers, the divine is rendered mundane. Why wrestle with a world that holds no easy answers, why look for salvation in odd places, when you can discuss your next move directly with the man upstairs?

Dope on a rope
Nowhere is the limited promise of heavenly dialogue more clear than on A&E's new drama "The Cleaner" (premieres 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 15). It's not that we blame William Banks (Benjamin Bratt), a former hard-living druggie, for turning his eyes to the skies and asking for help. We just don't gain anything from these one-way conversations.

"I don't think I ever ask for anything for myself. You run your numbers and let me know, but I keep a tight book."

"You know, I get the whole 'Give me strength' part, but you're really painting a bull's-eye on my ass right now."

This is God not as savior but as personal buddy, replete with teasing, bitter complaints and incredulous looks. William addresses his pal up above to let off a little steam (and to show us his true feelings -- no small order, we're meant to understand, for a manly man like him). But while William's imaginary God is just a slob like one of us, William himself is a veritable saint, a self-sacrificing public servant who has dedicated his life to saving addicts from annihilation. Not content to work as a counselor or volunteer at a drug treatment center, William has become a recovery renegade who's hired by families to kidnap loved ones on the street and drive them to rehab. He's assisted in these sticky endeavors by a badly paid freelance support staff who nonetheless function as smoothly and professionally as a team of ultra-sophisticated, high-end criminals.

Lest we view William as nothing more than a glorified social worker, his personal outreach program is shrouded in such mystery that new members of his flock practically cross themselves as they approach. Take Aaron, a kid who comes to the surf shop where William works looking for help with his cousin.

Aaron: You know that you're near impossible to find? William: Yeah, well, that's sort of the point. Aaron: (showing a photo) Here's my cousin Zach. Like I told you on the phone, he's in a bad way. I could pay you half now -- if you think it's a bust, then you can walk. But if you think you can help, help. I mean, that's what you do, right? William: Yeah. That's what I do.

Gruff, macho William gets on the phone to his project manager and best friend (played by Gil Bellows): "Mick, get the team together. We've got a kid in trouble!" And so "The A-Team" of drug counselors is mobilized, from scrappy ne'er-do-well Arnie (Esteban Powell) to sexy troublemaker Akani (Grace Park, aka Boomer from "Battlestar Galactica"). How many movies and TV shows have we already seen where the superhumanly cool team leader gets on the phone to various team members as they're on the move, each armed with his or her particular skill or specialty?

But if these dorky team-on-the-move scenes look like something out of "Charlie's Angels," the shiftless-druggie scenes in the show's premiere look like they were pulled straight from an "Afterschool Special" about the dangers of snorting heroin: Kid walks down street, looking adrift and scrappy. School bus drives by -- his old basketball team! A cheerleader waves at him sadly from the back window. Kid cringes in pain and shame, stumbles onward, and then begs a bully dealer for a fix.

But the plot thickens, and so does the cheese: Akani drives up to William's house with our shiftless druggie's unconscious, OD'ing girlfriend in the back seat of her car. Bringing an addict here is against the rules, so as Akani, Arnie and William try to save the girl with various smoothly administered EMS techniques, William lectures them both on their attitude, unrealistically spewing forth back story as he works. "Every one of you, you came to me. I pulled you out of your miserable, dead-end lives. We're not listed! We don't advertise! People find us because they need us. We have a 75 percent relapse rate, 27 percent rate of mortality. Twenty-seven percent! Those are shit odds. You make a mistake here, people die. You call that fun, huh?"

I wouldn't call that fun, but apparently a lot of TV writers would. And as authentic and gritty as a direct transcript of your local AA meeting might be, shouldn't we think twice about romanticizing the plight of the recovering addict more than we already do? Just watch "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" to see how often the addict's favorite subject is just how totally sick and twisted he or she had become right before he or she hit rock bottom. If you're never really free from telling the same melodramatic narrative, are you ever really on the wagon? Because you can only hope that eventually that wagon rolls on to far more fertile territory than suspenseful tales about sadistic dealers and kids who steal their parents' jewelry to score some dope.

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