Perpetual Grace, LTD’s Tense, Hypnotic Finale Demands a Second Season
No spoilers, and then spoilers.
Photo Courtesy of Epix
Twice a year in Los Angeles, the Television Critics Association holds an industry press tour where studios bring out the stars and EPs of their new series for two weeks of panel Q&As. It serves a variety of functions, but foremost among them is to help us overworked professional TV watchers decide what we should cover for the upcoming season. It’s a strange affair, as eager creators and actors look out onto a sea of glowing Apple laptop logos behind which TV journalists take notes and Tweet and try to ascertain what is worth our (and your) time. After awhile, you start to get a sense of which casts are genuinely interested in their projects and which are genuinely not, and of shows that seem to have something new and interesting to offer versus ones with riddled with problems. Then there was Perpetual Grace, LTD.
A “where is it on the dial?” cable network like Epix has to work twice as hard to get the room to pay attention, because all of us in there know that traffic drives our sites and so, practically speaking, time is best spent on series that have big stars or might become big hits, or at the very least that will have a lot of people watching. But the panel for Perpetual Grace, back in January of this year, did make some of us sit up and take notice. It started off a little rocky; the trailer was hard to follow in terms of what the series was even about. The panel didn’t explain much about it either, but we critics joked that they all seemed so fully enthralled over the work and complimentary of creator Steven Conrad (who is also behind the Amazon series Patriot) that it felt cult-like. It was at the very least unusual. And that, sometimes, is all it takes to pique a critic’s interest.
Despite that fitful introduction, Perpetual Grace had plenty going for it, starting with its exceptional cast (Jimmi Simpson, Ben Kingsley, Jackie Weaver, Terry O’Quinn). But what made them so in love with the series to essentially convey a kind of spiritual transformation while filming? Those of us who have made our way through the season finale may now be able to say we understand it now a little bit.
I wrote about this Wes Anderson-by-way-of-the-Coen Brothers series earlier in its run, praising its strangeness and artistry and compellingly offbeat storytelling. And while there is a part of me that felt like its final two episodes drifted a little too far into languid monologuing and overwrought camerawork, the final scene (which I’ll get to in a moment) was also utterly perfect. You’ve never heard “hey…!” like Jimmi Simpson saying it, and then you’ll never forget it.
Before I get into spoilers, a few more general notes for those curious about the series: it really is impossible to describe. It’s beautifully written, acted, shot, felt. It’s an experience more than a passive act. The dialogue is lyrical, but even if I were to quote so many of its deeply, quietly funny lines they wouldn’t translate here. The score (composed largely by Conrad) and the performances elevate everything. And there is, beneath an extraordinarily thick layer of quirkiness, a true emotional core shared particularly by there men who have all, at one point or another in the series, taken on the identity of Paul Allen Brown.
Then there’s the delight of its theme song “Comet; which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the show until it absolutely and fully does.
Seek it out. Join us. Be a Special Boy (and Girl!)