Miracles: "The Ferguson Syndrome"

[ealgylden]

Wayhey, I managed to answer one whole comment before LJ started being a jerk again! Great! Well, it's a start.

Anyway, I'd planned to blather about two Miracles episodes at once, ending with "Paul Is Dead" getting its own post (as it should be), but I started rambling about "The Ferguson Syndrome" and eventually I decided I should just post the darn thing before it turned into another albatross post, like my still-unfinished "Bringeth It On" post (will she finish it before Season Two? Let's watch!). Something is better than nothing, I suppose (though actual content would have been nice, but why change my comfy habits?). Thanks again to alvafan for the beautful, shiny episodes and to castalianspring for the so-very-cute icon. You guys are fantabulous.



This episode leapt right onto my list of Favorites Pilot Episodes Ever, beside such worthies as the pilots of Invisible Man, Angel, West Wing, Homicide and the rest. It gets the ball rolling without swamping us in exposition, interests us in most of the main characters, introduces an arc plot without leaving too many threads hanging, and enjoys good acting, great production values and effects, and a very effective score. All in all, a very impressive opening gambit.

Great first sequence. Creepily atmospheric and intriguing, plus the washed-out colors and slightly overexposed look reminded me of Brimstone, always a good thing in my book. The electronic thrumming noise running underneath the workman's first look at poor, unearthed Sister Agnes gave me shivers, because it reminded me of all those accounts of people who've tried to record sounds in allegedly haunted houses, only to find that when the tape is played back, the only noise on it is a low undulating thrum just like in the show and the ghost was there the whole time when they were recording aiieeeeee!!! Um. Aheh heh heh. Yes. Possibly I read too many case file-type books on paranormal beasties as a young person. Anyway.

So! We meet the hero. Paul arrives, bitter and burned out. How does one go about becoming a miracle investigator anyway? Paul seems to have some training in forensics (as per this ep, "Little Girl Lost," and so on) and possibly in therapy, grief counseling or some related field (based on some of his methods and approaches, though if he is trained, he doesn't always remember to behave like it). As for the Roman side of the Force, we find out later that he's a seminarian who never took vows. Maybe he received a television-standard "Jesuits in the Vatican basement rule the world" sort of esoteric education? Alva wants him (on the team) because he's "a good investigator," but where did he learn to be one (never mind how Alva even knows that he is)? I wonder what it says on his resume, or what field he'd have ended up in if Alva hadn't appeared to sweep him away from Poppi and the Church.

I love Paul's little tantrum in the cemetery. The local priest isn't ready to let go of his saint yet, so what does Paul do? Gives him a little "oh yeah?" expression, stomps over to another casket and cracks it open (very rudely, poor dead guy). "Congratulations, Father. Looks like you've got a town full of saints," he snits at the poor priest. Hee. What a brat he can be. I'd chalk it up to his burnout, and that may partially account for it, but it's not like he never gets snitty elsewhere in the series. Skeet does "petulant" quite well, which is good, since Paul certainly can be petulant.

And then we get our first glimpse of Alva in his car, merrily stalking Paul. Awww. Why now? I mean, his timing is strangely convenient for catching Paul on the rebound, unless he normally follows him on his rounds ("Monday: investigate bleeding walls in Scituate; Tuesday: stalk Paul; Wednesday: interview couple in Middlebury; Thursday: stalk Paul...").

Father Calero is an utterly typical Hector Elizondo role, so much so that I bet the casting sheet called for "a Hector Elizondo type." No matter, I like him muchly. He's just the sort of priest I picture having helped Danny Taylor straighten up and fly right, too (though I'd imagine that involved rather less battling with metaphysical evils than dealing with Paul would).

So Paul heads off to work with Habitat for Humanity and get stared at by elderly Navajo women, until Poppi calls and sends him off to meet Tommy. Only of course it isn't Poppi, so who's on the phone and why? Paul's vulnerable and searching, but who's taking advantage of that here? Is the mysterious caller a Good Thing setting him back on his path to balance the bad times ahead, or a Bad Thing sending him off to have his mind somewhat unwillingly opened to Tommy's "darkness" and all that comes with it? The chain of events started by the phone call revives his faith and breaks him out of his stagnation, but it also exposes him to considerable dangers and eventually leads to his (temporary) death. The phone call is equally likely to be from a white hat or black, and the annoying thing is, we'll never know. Curse you, ABC!

More great physical acting from Skeet when he meets the Fergusons- I love the moment after Mrs. Ferguson snaps, "He heals people," at Paul. His shoulders drop slightly and he gets an expression like, "Oh, stellar," and you just know that he's seen herds of would-be healers and nary a one with a true ability (pound for pound, healing is probably first among miraculous gifts. Every saint worth his salt heals, and not a few non-saints do too). And then he sees Tommy and looks just gobsmacked. Hee!

So Paul heads off to interview the formerly blind girl (did she ever get a name? I've watched this ep at least ten times now, and if she has one, it's never stuck), and we get to see him be a dork around a pretty, young woman. Paul's social skills are... uneven. He can be smooth and charming, and he has a knack with kids. And he flirts a bit with nearly everyone, but when it comes to pretty, young women, the overtones tend to be brotherly (Evie, Georgia), dorky (Formerly Blind Girl, Raina Bauer) or creepy and mean (Rebecca, Debbie). There are dark places in his nerdy brain, that's certain.

So Paul's a Red Sox fan? My brother! *g* No wonder he believes in miracles.

Poor Tommy. Most kids don't have to deal with their parents fighting over their miraculous powers and impending deaths. Why is Mr. Ferguson so insistent on Tommy using his abilities, "gift from God" or not? Aside from the fact that if he isn't, the plot stalls dead, Paul moves on, and he and Alva don't get to live happily ever after, that is. Mr. F can't miss how Tommy's health is being affected. Very strong powers of denial? Excessive religious devotion? Never really liked Tommy all that much? Heh. Probably not that one. Um, I hope.

I appreciate the fact that Paul seems unwilling to lie to Tommy, especially since Tommy doesn't seem the type to be swayed by the clowns-eating-cotton-candy rigamarole he feeds to Renata and Gus in "Battle at Shadow Ridge." Unfortunately that leaves him without anything terribly comforting to say when the poor little waif asks him things like, "What happens when you die?" Erm. Paul gets this "oh heck!" expression and twitches just a bit. Poor Paul. His answer is less than reassuring, but what can he say, really? He wouldn't be there in the first place if his faith were still unshakable.

Okay, the rain of blood dream? Cool. Really cool. I'm a sucker for a good rain of blood, and this one was shot particularly well, as that flat, brassy light that comes with hot afternoons dissolves into slow-motion disaster. Man, this show is good-looking. But again I wonder, what's the source of "Poppi's" comment, "Something is wrong with the boy"? Is that Paul's own subconscious piping up, whether or not he's allowed himself to consciously frame the issue in quite those terms yet, or is it an external idea implanted by whatever force was responsible for sending him there in the first place? If it's able to utilize phone signals, it can certainly influence dreams.

Paul hies himself off to throw his crisis of faith right in Formerly Blind Girl's lap, even though they've had a single conversation that lasted ten minutes tops. And oddly enough, she doesn't run away. Good thing he's cute, eh? I suspect part of his reasoning is that there's an element of safety in confiding in a stranger, rather than calling up someone like Poppi, but mostly I think that Paul's just coming unraveled. Which is good in the long run, because it means he's primed to meet Alva (yay!). After all, "miracles are like falling in love; you never believe it can happen until it happens to you." Oy. Don't get your hopes up, chica!

And then the accident. Nice job, quite intense. The results are not surprising- when you introduce your hero to a kid with miraculous healing powers, and specify that those miraculous healing powers come at great cost to the kid’s own health, and then you throw your hero in front of a train, you can't truly expect the audience not to know whose funeral you'll be cutting to. Even so, it was really well done. The accident was appropriately messy, Tommy looked both scared and resigned, Paul's desperate little, "No!" was touching... yep, I was impressed. Two things, though. Paul's accident wasn't accidental- he was distracted by the radio which came on and started roaming by itself, which caused him to swerve around the Fergusons into the train, but was the chain of events triggered by the force that sent him to the Fergusons in the first place, or by the opposition, whatever metaphysical "side" that might represent? Who's manipulating events here? And what about Alva? Is that really him peering in at Paul (he neither confirms nor denies when Paul comments on it in the diner)? I tend to think so, so what was he doing there? Following Paul still? Where does he disappear to, and why? What's with the demon face that Paul sees right after he looks at Alva? What's that bit all about anyway?

Tommy's funeral is so television. This little bitty town has a big church with huge, expensive stained glass windows? Not to mention either an exceptional choir or a really good sound system. Maybe it's a little bitty town filled with particularly rich and observant Catholics, I don't know.

And then Paul and Alva meet. At last! I love the diner scene, I really do (and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" playing in the background is a great touch. Too funny, PTB). Their eyes meet and they both almost, but not quite, smile before Paul remembers, "Wait, I'm moping," and starts to leave. So Alva stops him by using his name (hey, it stops me when strangers know my name) and his whole "I've seen what you've seen... and more!" spiel. Three lines in and he's already doing his overdramatic emphases, I love it. Paul recognizes him from the accident, which impressed me, because I figured he'd mostly be thinking "ow! ow! ow!" at a time like that, not "hey, who's the cute stalker guy?" Paul is made of sterner stuff than I, perhaps. Anyway, Alva exposits dramatically about the six folks in twenty-five years who've had wacky hemographic fun like Paul, and again I wonder about the timeframe. Assuming that none of the extra three experiencers (ooh, X-Files term) mentioned in "Hand of God" fall outside of that twenty-five year window, why then? Why twenty five years? It would have been neat if this particular grouping of the phenomenon coincided with something like Paul's birth, but he's too old (unless Paul's considerably younger than Skeet). Hmm...

And yes, I know it's sad that I obsess over things like "why twenty five years?" instead of accepting that it's a nice, round number and was probably easy for the writers to use. Just think- by most measurements I'm a relatively non-fanatical fan.

Alva cracks me up. Act serene so as not to scare away the new guy before you have him hooked? Pshaw, that's for the weak! “BANG! Who said it was God?" Ha! Or my favorite, "A large... event... is coming." I'm a little jealous of Alva; I don't get to say things like that often enough, and I'm just as big a drama queen as he is. Anyway, Paul doesn't run away from the crazy man (must be the pretty eyes) and heads off to join him to the accompaniment of my favorite section of this episode's wonderful score, only to met at the door by Evelyn instead of Alva. Careful, Paul, she's pretty (though not as pretty as you) but boring! And they all lived happily ever after, because they didn't know yet that ABC was run by soulless hatchet-wielders who were going to jerk them around for a few weeks before casting them out into the cold. The end.

Next up, "The Friendly Skies"! Alva's ex, Evie's brain, and the Cusacks are still the coolest.