Main cast: David Lloyd Walters (Andy Hill), Bo Corre (Grace Matthews), Lisa Romain (Kate Walker), and Rip Torn (Narrator)
Director: Jeffrey Fine
At 35, Andy Hill finally gets his first job. You see, he’s finally out of prison, and now he’s starting afresh as the night shift janitor in the infirmary of a hospital. Naturally, he has to fall in love with Grace Matthews, a socialite that fell down a flight of stairs and slipped into a coma a week or so ago. It’s not so creepy. She wakes up, talks to him, and even calls him over the phone. So what if he’s the only person that can communicate with her?
State of Grace is in many ways a spiritual sequel to You’ll Always Be Mine—both episodes are meant to be heart-wrenching tugs at the heartstrings, as it features a man going at great lengths for a woman. Unfortunately, it also presents a very unbalanced power dynamic: the woman in question is so, so, so weak and hapless that it costs the man everything just to protect her. His measly prize is her love, which comes at the cost of everything else he has. This one tries to soften the blow by saying that Andy has nothing else to live for anyway, so hey, he may as well throw what little he has just to win the love of a super high-maintenance broad. In the end, my reaction isn’t to sigh at the grand love these two have, as much as I actually cringe on Andy’s behalf and wonder why he just can’t find some nice normal woman instead to be his sweetheart.
On the other hand, David Lloyd Walters is one of the rare cast members on this show that seem to be willing to emote properly as his scenes would require him to. I’m not sure how he ends up in this mess of an amateur hour TV show, but I’m glad. This is because Andy is a sympathetic, likable character thanks to his nuanced portrayal of that fellow, and the episode is so much more watchable because of that. Kate Walker is pretty stiff, but her lines are sarcastic enough to offer some much needed-laughs in what is otherwise a depressing story of how costly it can be for a man to love a damsel in a distress. As for the actress that plays Grace, well, she’s playing a vegetable, so I guess it’s kind of appropriate that she’s full blown amateur hour when it comes to monotonous line delivery.
In the end, this episode is well-acted and well-assembled enough to push it into acceptable territory, but it’s also a depressing episode. If anything, this episode only ends up reinforcing MGTOW sentiments, because a man really shouldn’t have to sacrifice that much just to win a woman’s affection.
