Joan of Arcadia, With Spoilers
Hi, I’m Barbara Hall, creator of Joan of Arcadia.
Now, in case you didn’t get it when Ryan Hunter, the guy with the red jacket and mysterious red hood came down the mountain with Adam (that’s ‘Adam’) Rove, who had been thought lost and possibly suicidal, but was found safe - symbolic death and rebirth, if you missed that bit - and then had a bit of a stare-down with God in the form of the park ranger type, and then turned up in a sketch Adam (that’s ‘Adam’) was making when Joan walked up to him as he reclined in a low tree with his scarf hanging down looking vaguely ophidian (from the Greek for serpent-like), I had them play ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ when Joan wondered who that guy was.
Get it?
Okay, I’m not really Barbara Hall. It’s me, Barker. I really like Joan of Arcadia, and I’ve been wondering for a while when Old Red Eyes was going to make his appearance. There’s more cliches about the devil’s appearance in stories than you can shake a stick at, so she (Barbara Hall, the real one) must have known that there was no right, good, easy, subtle or new way, to introduce him, so she just did it. (I was almost expecting Snake or Ned Flanders to show up somewhere. Almost.)
When ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ started up - I already knew, hard to miss, see above - I started to clap and laugh. ‘Oh, man, Joan’s ticks are shifting into overdrive…’
It was funny and contextually ominous at the same time.
It ain’t Battlestar Galactica, but, funnily enough, they’re cousins.
April 21st, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Ok, so I admit it. I’m dumb, and the whole thing went completely past me. I won’t even dare tell you what I was thinking. When Reid told me what was going on, I didn’t believe him, and he had to go back over the bits and explain it to me, just like I was a 2 year old.
I still didn’t believe it, and said “Well, I’ll see what David says”. And, well, you said it.
I didn’t know that song had anything to do with the devil. I’ll have to actually listen to the words one day!
April 22nd, 2005 at 10:05 am
Not dumb. Never dumb.
I’m probably wrong anyway, because the TV mag says Ryan is another student who talks to God too.
However, I remain skeptical. There *was* the song, the scarf, the tree, the Adam and the red hood.
April 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 am
Post season finale last night : It’s definitely the Adversary.
Visual Buffy reference near the end, but it ain’t Buffy.
May 16th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
I thought it was the Devil also, until the season finale. Now, I think it must be a follower of Satan!
June 2nd, 2005 at 6:59 pm
Can someone PLEASE Tell me what happened in the series finale?! I missed it and it’s really getting to me. PLEASE, PLEASE!!
Thanks so much!
~Jamie