I didn’t think I’d like this show when I first watched ads for it. I’m not into My Name is Earl nor The Dukes of Hazzard, and I thought it would be just a redneck drama. Boy was I wrong. Holly Hunter gives the most stunning performance I have seen on TV in years, perhaps ever. In fact, all the characters are like imperfect people you’ve known; no CSI Miami “rich and/or famous”here. Grace is a single Oklahoma City (?) detective who lost her sister in the Oklahoma City bombing, the most horrible case of domestic terrorism in recent times. That started her on a downward spiral to which her dysfunctional family only adds. She’s involved with a married fellow detective, and she loves her booze and cigarettes. Oh, and she has recently acquired a scruffy, intellectual “guardian angel” (or is it archangel? Like I said, I missed the first epi, so am unsure on some facts) named Earl. He appears several times each epi, usually when Grace is having a problem with a case or her personal life, and the two of them spar verbally and humorously about humankind and religion (all different types are fair game) for less than a minute and he’s gone again. But you come away from each brief encounter thinking about their discussion.
I love Kyra Sedgewick in the lead-in, Closer, but even she fades next to HH’s performance. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess. Holly Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar, as a very staid Victorian (?) woman in the Piano (in which she played her own piano solos – multi-talented, apparently). If the emmys are anything more than politics (and I’m not sure they are), she should win Best Actress, hands down.
I love Kyra Sedgewick in the lead-in, Closer, but even she fades next to HH’s performance. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess. Holly Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar, as a very staid Victorian (?) woman in the Piano (in which she played her own piano solos – multi-talented, apparently). If the emmys are anything more than politics (and I’m not sure they are), she should win Best Actress, hands down.
