“Our Lady of Perpetual Grace” Synopsis: James is a failure and he knows it. Unable to commit to anything in his life, he chooses to flee when difficulty arises. He drowns his sorrows at the nearest bingo hall or strip club. This all changes when James meets Paul, the runaway black-sheep son of a reformed pastor, (Pa) and his wife, (ma). Who runs a Church and private rehabilitation center in the small Nevada town of Half-acre. Paul’s scheme is simple. James will assume his identity; while Paul works on removing Ma and Pa out of the equation and faking their deaths. All James needs to do is get addicted to methadone, and assume the role of the addict to gain Ma and Pa’s trust. Which he does. However, appearances can be deceiving as James eventually …show more content…
learns that something is ‘off’ within the family. The Church, Our Lady of Perpetual Grace is a pillar of the community; where a letter from Pa can secure a loan, housing, and supplies within Half-acre. However, we learn that Ma and Pa are not the stereotypical Christian family when they are held in a Mexican prison while fake death certificates are made. The plan quickly fails when we learn that Pa is a hardened murderer with superhuman/supernatural strength, and Paul himself has killed a girl. The pilot ends with James under the identity of Paul, getting questioned for the murder of a young girl. Characters: Nance Misters –Naval officer, interacts with James in the flashbacks from the Navy Karen Hale- the strong single mother; diverse, we learn that James and her have a history and she is pregnant with a child that belongs to James. Hector- Mexican sheriff, wants money to leave his ‘dud’ kids and run away to California, where his mistress resides.
I really don’t think someone would do this, so Ma – Support to Pa, can serve as comedic relief; Phonebook as seat is funny, so is her speeding. James – Really hard to like at first. You see the choices he’s making and the tough decisions he faces. However, still a problem with likeability for the audience. (dishonorable discharge, runs from a fire) Pa- Starts off as a the stereotypical reformed/born-again Christian. Pa and Ma show a willingness to help. (finding James in the street) Ma and Pa seem helpless acts 1&2, however we soon learn that Pa is more than capable of taking care of himself and Ma when he kills the Mexican criminal. Paul- A psychopath. The dialogue and interactions that Paul and James share paint a picture that Paul was forced out of his family because of his love for “magic”. We assume this to be true (stereotypes of religious folks), until James becomes a person-of-interest in a murder of a girl, under the identity of Paul. LPG reads slow, with lots of side stories through flashbacks to establish James, and winding twists. (reminds me of Pulp Fiction) Not a lot of action, but enough. – Drama and Dialogue
driven. Flashbacks, lots and lots of flashbacks. As a pilot, it establishes a lot of generative content that can be built on, for future episodes. The show will be hard to keep up with; its something you’ll have to sit-down and dedicate your attention to, as opposed to background noise. The plot twists and secrets around Ma& Pa, James, and Paul is interesting enough for a strong run. Furthermore, the overall weirdness of the half-acre town, the church, and above all, the weird “I am the horseman of Death” pa line would make me want to see more.
The next morning, Kat and Albert see Paul off on his train. He travels through the villages and cities, observing the scenery. When he arrives at his hometown, Paul is flooded with memories from his surroundings; he recognizes the landmarks of his home, such as the square watch-tower and the great mottled lime tree. He starts to feel like an outsider as if he didn’t belong in the civilized
As the novel goes on, Paul develops and stands up to Erik and Arthur. On pages 263 and 264 of Tangerine,
Unknown, to James at this point he did not realize that he was having a problem with a psychological theory called behaviorism. Now this theory is one that is saying human behavior is developed through learning experiences which in this case would apply to James. His behavior as an adult was reflected by the way he was treated as a kid by his father and mother because they fought all the time. They never truly paid any attention to him, which in terms taught him how to stay out of their way and learn how to steal and burglarize places without getting caught. Therefore, within the psychological theory of behaviorism Behaviorists saw crime as something that is a learned response to life’s situations such as James situation which led him to a life of crime because of his parents. Although, he was never truly mistreated, he did not receive his father attention due to the fact of the way his father was treated as a child growing up an abusive household. Therefore, he did not want to place his son in the same situation. There is also the fact that James could be suffering from the psychodynamic theory which says that a person’s personality can be controlled by their unconscious mental process and that is grounded in them in early childhood. These entire things such as the id, ego, and superego
As previously stated, in the beginning of the book, Paul was super quiet, shy, and lonely. In fact, his only friend was his mom. Paul never tried to change anything, and never made his voice heard. He had terrible self esteem - mainly because he felt it was his fault he was blind, and had to
Paul has an addiction to alcohol that has greatly devastated his life, but he also has a problem with gambling. Paul’s gambling started shortly after his alcoholism and his problems are all related. This is demonstrated when Norman states “… tell my mother and father that my brother had been beaten by the butt of a revolver and his body dumped in an alley” (Maclean 102). His addiction caused a cycle of problems, starting with his alcohol addiction, which led to gambling and from there stemmed money problems. Ultimately his alcoholism left him dead in an alley with his family wondering how it all happened, because he was not connected to them. His life was literally destroyed because of a few thoughtless decisions he made while intoxicated. All of his life problems and experiences are connected by one thing: his need to get a short rush of happiness from alcohol. His past decisions all added up and ended up killing him, and if he would have made wiser decisions in the past he might be still
The 21st century is the age of information and technology and as the human species continues to advance there are growing concerns that the human race is close to its end. Jerry Oltion uses his text Judgment Passed as an allegory for the belief of the Christian salvation and the state of the modern world. In Jerry Oltion’s text planet Earth is depleted, causing humans to send astronauts into space to colonize another planet named Dessica (Oltion). These astronauts are in space for twelve years and when they return to Earth they learn that the end of the world has occurred without them. The astronauts learn through old newspaper articles that Jesus Christ returned to earth and saved everyone. This causes the astronauts to ponder the reason they were not saved like all the people on Earth and the other colonies in space. Throughout Judgment Passed there are metaphors for the Christian belief of what happens after death such as the realm of limbo and then there are the metaphors that are a depiction of today’s world and its possible future such as Jesus Christ representing a hierarchy political figure. Therefore, Judgment Passed is more than a short narrative for entertainment, it is allegory for the Christian belief system and it is a metaphor for the human condition of the modern world.
It causes a drift into their family and it influenced James from then on out. A few months after he died, everything changed. James writes, “She sent us off to school and tried to maintain her crazy house as usual, ranting about this and that, but the fire was gone. In the evening, she often sat at the kitchen table completely lost in thought” (137). When Ruth becomes lost in her own world, her behavior influences James. They both grieved for his death in different ways yet, his mothers grieve influenced him the most. Seeing her slowly fall apart was too much for James. He started skipping school, shoplifting, hanging with the wrong crowd, and he eventually became addicted to smoking reefer or drinking alcohol. Slowly, James is sinking into a hole he can't climb out of with all of his bad decisions. On an afternoon, after James nearly dies, he talks with chicken man, “Everybody on the corner is smart. You ain't no smarter than anybody here. If you so smart, why got to come on this corner every summer? ‘Cause you flunking school! You think if you drop out of school somebody's gonna beg you to g back? Hell no. They won't beg your black ass to go back. What makes you so special that they'll beg you! Who are you? You ain't nobody! If you want to drop out of school and shoot people ad hang on this corner all your life, go ahead, it's your life” (150). After James spoke with Chicken
Paul believes that he was tricked into joining the army and fighting in the war. This makes him very bitter towards the people who lied to him. This is why he lost his respect and trust towards the society. Teachers and parents were the big catalysts for the ki...
Paul believes that everyone around him is beneath him. He is convinced that he is superior to everyone else in his school and in his neighborhood. He is even condescending to his teachers, and shows an appalling amount of contempt for them, of which they are very aware.
Paul's father is a single parent trying to raise his children in a respectable neighborhood. He is a hard worker and trying to set a good example for his son. His father puts pressure on Paul by constantly referring to a neighbor, whom he feels is a perfect model for his son to follow.
...onas which cause him to overlap his personas making him overlap his names with his different personas. Paul who has now lost control feels powerless and obediently listens to Ousia about going to the police serving his time and then coming out of prison to live a happy life with her and Flan.
In the beginning of the story, Paul seems to be a typical teenage boy: in trouble for causing problems in the classroom. As the story progresses, the reader can infer that Paul is rather withdrawn. He would rather live in his fantasy world than face reality. Paul dreaded returning home after the Carnegie Hall performances. He loathed his "ugly sleeping chamber with the yellow walls," but most of all, he feared his father. This is the first sign that he has a troubled homelife. Next, the reader learns that Paul has no mother, and that his father holds a neighbor boy up to Paul as "a model" . The lack of affection that Paul received at home caused him to look elsewhere for the attention that he craved.
Paul is the only white character, in the novel, that truly understands the struggle of being black in the south. We first met Paul in the Bayonne jail, when he is escorting Grant to Jefferson jail cell. After Grant continuously visits Jefferson, he and Paul became closer. In Ed Piacentino paper he notice grant and Paul were becoming more acquainted with each other. Piacentino saw the white community 's segregationist and their oppressive attitude, being an individual basis and not overall. He made an interesting comment about Paul in his paper “Paul 's eyes serve as a window to the essential goodness of his character” (Piacentino 5). By the end of the novel Paul see Jefferson as a human being when he notices the remarkable transformation that Jefferson went through. Paul knowing that Jefferson will be executed soon he treats him with kindness wanting to leave Jefferson with good memories of
James was an authoritarian parent. He was controlling, in-charge and no one questioned him. He would play the role of the doting father. When his children made mistakes, he made a point to criticize them. He often compared them to other kids that he felt were “more perfect.” When his often unspoken expectations were not met he would yell and scream striking fear into his entire family. “He’s not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy, and he’s not going to inspire feelings of intimacy. But when his system works, he can boast about one thing: His recruits tend to obey” (Dewar).
Works Cited "Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam" Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam - "Ad. Lander, a.k.a. The X-Men. Web. The Web.