Last Chance
by Sarah Stegall
copyright 1995 by Sarah Stegall
I'm getting to really enjoy this show ("Strange
Luck"), as much for what's hiding in the corners as for what's sitting
out in plain view. The quirky minor characters who add depth to the show,
the
melancholy, stark score, the low-key but effective performances are
driving forward a show rooted in absurdity and creating a universe where,
for an hour anyway, I can
believe in "Strange Luck".
In Friday's episode, "Last Chance", our hero
Chance Harper drops in to his local mechanic's to pick up his car and finds
his mechanic in the middle of a suicide attempt. After he rescues
the ungrateful Henry Plume (Jon Gries), we get a wonderful, uneasy scene
as both men try to pick up the thread
of daily life. But their customary roles--customer and mechanic--are
now false and uncomfortable because their true roles are rescuer and victim.
Neither man can forget this and so we get a wary, edgy, funny scene where
Harper isn't sure how to treat this man who owes him a life and Plume can't
figure out how to be angry at the man who saved him. It's a short
but wonderful scene. Driving away (in what is arguably the most wonderful
car on television today--clunky, lived-in, and believable), Harper's brakes
fail him and he bumps into a taxi, acquiring a minor head wound which sends
him to the hospital. There, he again runs into Plume, who now confesses
that his suicide attempt was motivated by guilt. It seems
that several years ago he killed a man, and another man is scheduled
to die for the crime at midnight. For the next 35 minutes, Harper
tries to help Plume "set things right" and save the life of Griffiths,
the innocent but condemned man.
Plume, played with a peevish intensity
by Jon Gries, never shows us why he has had the sudden change of heart,
but we get glimpses of a complex, quiet man who is a mass of contradictions:
in one scene, while Harper is driving him to the district attorney's office,
he solemnly assures Harper that the bad brakes on his car "just need some
time to break in". Plume will confess to murder but not to fraud.
On a less humorous note, a low key but very
well done video montage sequence in the office of Griffiths' lawyer (Jensen
Daggett?) shows us Chance Harper identifying with the condemned man, projecting
himself into the video to literally put himself in the man's place as Griffiths
says, "There are
no accidents. Luck is not a mistake." The video sequence
allows us to get inside his head for a moment, something very difficult
in the medium of television without so obvious a device as a voice-over.
I have wondered what Harper's reaction to his weird life is, what mark
it has left on him:
optimism? resentment? weary despair? We get a glimpse
of an ongoing inner dialogue within Harper on the universe as it appears
from his unique perspective: "I don't doubt I'm meant to be here.
The only question is why?" The word "meaning" or "meant" arises a
lot in this show, proving that it is not
really about luck at all.
Indeed, the whole show revolves around what
in a less cynical time would have been called Providence, the hand of God.
Luck, as an abstract concept, is both more and less than people make of
it. When people say "luck" they mean good luck. Events acquire
meaning only in context and as they relate to us--when Chance Harper watches
a Marine run down a street in full dress uniform it means nothing.
His collision moments later with the taxi seems to give it meaning,
a spurious cause and effect that belies the real meaning of "chance".
Now it appears "significant" that the Marine was running down the street,
whereas Harper's attention could as easily have been distracted by a barking
dog or a falling woman. We are doing what humans are hardwired to
do: finding patterns--significance--in events that may have none.
The ability to spot patterns is a survival trait we have not outgrown,
long after we realize that not all sequences indicate real cause and effect.
So when the long arm of coincidence brings tragedy and joy into Chance
Harper's life, we are still able to identify with a man singled out by
the gods because we identify with his seeking of significance.
Random, or seemingly random things happen
to us, too, and like Harper we would like to think that we "were meant
to be here".
Of course, we are not talking about luck any more,
we are talking about God, the one concept this show will never touch, I
am sure. Writer Michael Cassutt dances deftly around the concept,
never actually using the G-word, but giving the characters "development"
speeches in which they say things
like "I'm meant to be here". If this universe has a purpose,
then it has Mind and Will, and we are smack dab in the middle of a theological
discussion of post-modern proportions. Which means that Chance Harper
is on a mission from God.
Harper could easily be a silly clown, a pinball
in a huge arcade being shuttled back and forth by a freaked-out cosmos.
D. B. Sweeny's low-key but wry performance as Chance Harper humanizes him
and makes him a likable, down-home guy who has not quite gotten a handle
yet on this situation, but who is
game to try. He's a humble hero, unburdened by any ambition loftier
than a desultory search for his brother (a distracting "X-Files" rip-off
subplot I hope dies quickly). The ancient Greeks, who conceived of
their gods as wayward children, would understand Harper's plight immediately.
As seen in earlier episodes, the writers allow
minor characters who might otherwise fade into the background after delivering
their little bit of plot to emerge as more rounded figures, which give
the show depth and reality. The taxi enthusiast brothers, and Wilier,
are not quite as surprisingly eccentric as last week's birdwatching cop,
but they add a touch of the truly absurd, pointing up Harper's essential
normality with their obsessions. Jensen Daggett gives a
straight-ahead, no-nonsense performance as Sarah Coughlin, Griffith's determined
but inexperienced lawyer beset by self-doubt. Bill Croft gives the
condemned man a resolution and unctuous veneer that makes him sympathetic,
if not quite likable. Frances Fisher as Angie is excellent as the
wisecracking waitress with the heart of gold. I'd like her better,
though, if she didn't have "potential love interest" stamped so prominently
on her. In her own right, she is as interesting a character as Harper,
and I would like to see her shine forth a little more in her own right
before she is turned into a reflection of Harper. The only characterization
I didn't like was the governor--what Superman comic did he come out of?
I cannot imagine any governor so inconveniencing himself as to drive several
miles in the rain to rescue a condemned man (are there no police radios
available?) even in an election year. This just struck me as a little
too good to be true, even in a series built on the unlikely.
Some artistic matters I liked: the car.
The car. The Car. This is a wonderful car. Have I said
I like the Car? The bluesy soundtrack adds commentary as well as atmosphere
to the scene without distracting from it. The final scene, where
Plume is electrocuted by a falling electrical line in a case
of justice coming home against the odds, managed to convey both pity
and satisfaction through the images of rain, darkness, and the sprawled
body freed in death from a burden too heavy to bear in life. The
final montage, with Harper imagining himself strapped to the chair, evoked
pity, wonder, and hope all at once in a welter of well-edited images intercut
with a despairing score. Very well done.
Altogether, I'd say "Strange Luck" is off
to a good start, with solid plots which manage to incorporate the basic
premise--a bizarre string of coincidences--without descending into farce
or soap opera. Loose ends could be a real problem with a show where
you never know where your next plot twist is coming from. Creator
Karl Shaeffer will be challenged to keep coming up with episodes in which
the luck does not overshadow the character, and keep us balanced on the
edge of belief in what is really a wilder premise than "Superman".
The show is still getting its feet under it, and has some baby fat on it--again,
we need to lose the silly looking-for-his-long-lost-brother subplot that
everyone is stealing from "The X-Files" these days. But I predict
a growing audience for the show if it continues to deliver this strongly.
This episode gets four lucky stars out of
five.
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