TV is the new reading

'Saving Grace' returns to TNT for second soul-searching season

When you create a character as deeply complicated as Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko, who lost a sister in the Oklahoma City bombings and has some of the most colorfully out-of-control daddy issues – not helped even remotely by the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her priest – what you’ve done is set the stage for some truly unique reactions to things.

Grace, played magnificently by Holly Hunter, is the title character in TNT’s summer drama “Saving Grace,” airing Mondays at 9 p.m. The second season opened where the first season left off, with Grace tracking down and confronting Father Patrick, her abusive childhood priest. The stage seems set for her to either forgive him, or to execute him.

The scenes leading up to this showdown explore the impact this abuse has had on her entire life. She’s never sustained any kind of relationship, she’s out of control sexually, carrying on with half the police force and the townspeople, she has substance abuse issues and she can’t ignore the role her recklessness played in her sister being in the line of fire the day of the bombing.

Mostly she copes by copping a “who cares?” attitude. Her rock-bottom moment happened in the series premiere last summer when she experienced a vision of running someone over while drunk. She – a very lapsed Catholic – called on God to help her, and Earl – a tobacco-chewing last-chance angel played by Leon Rippy – stepped out of the shadows and opened a dialogue with her, showing her signs and wonders and generally making it hard for her to maintain her disbelief.

Not that she experiences an epiphany and becomes a reborn believer. She still gives her brother, a priest, grief about church doctrine and continues to find her own way and live her own life.

The dialogue being open, I think, is the reason why Father Patrick is still alive at the end of her confrontation with him. But he is in no way off the hook. While the community is trying to figure out whether Grace is a hero for nabbing an FBI most-wanted criminal while off-duty, or a discipline risk for endangering lives while doing so, Grace has Father Patrick tied up at home in her trailer while she figures out what to do with him.

The story explores her relationships with God and her family and friends and coworkers as well as the investigation she opens on Father Patrick, and other people who aren’t willing to take such a nuanced view of his activities. It gets the second season off to a great start and in general keeps the questions of theology, justice and right-living in play perfectly. Grace is a twisty theological puzzle as well as an exciting and well-drawn dramatic character, and it’ll be fun watching where Hunter and the writers take her next.

“Saving Grace” airs at 9 p.m. Mondays on TNT.