I thought I had a witty header to start a Joan of Arcadia post, but it's go now and we'll just have to dive in.

One of my nitpicks with it is with Fat Tony's (aka Will Girardi) story arcs, since they sometimes have the grim tone of ye aulde police procedural, which is in my regard somewhat mutually exclusive to the bulk of the show -- a witty, sometimes incisive and usually upbeat concept show about the Judeo-Christian God. While in theory I agree that the show should be balanced between the high school melodrama and the solemnity of police work to emphasize the butterfly effect premise of the show, I think that sometimes the two can be a poor match.

And a few thoughts on tonight's episode.

Amber Tamblyn might be reaching critical mass re: her acting ability.

Nice to see some humility and acceptance from Kevin.

And and and the most underutilized character in the bunch is Luke! (Surely named after Skywalker, I'm positive now.) I may just be projecting myself onto him (e.g. meganerd, an attraction to manly women, and so on and so forth), but there's something infinitely refreshing about him -- seeing such a young person whose philosophical and scientific knowledge is so expansive and before his time -- he actually reminds me of a male version of Lisa Simpson (of course I mean back when she was the show's conscience, not the show's whiner) -- that is, we see right before us the meek, who shall inherit the earth. Unfortunately, the writer(s) often dress him up as comic relief when in fact he warrants a heavier storytelling load. So Barbara Hall (hello google!) if you're reading this, you know what to do.