Joan of Arcadia
Joan Girardi has begun acting a little strange since her family moved to the city of Arcadia. No one knows that various people keep introducing themselves as God, and then giving the teenager specific directions to do things. Unsure of what God wants, and if she's even sane, Joan tentatively begins to follow God's cryptic directives, all the while trying to retain a "normal" teen-aged existence.
Episodes
16 year old Joan Girardi is approached by someone claiming to be God. He gives her a mission, get a job. Will Girardi, Joan's dad and new chief of p...
Joan enrolls in advanced-placement chemistry, after God asks her to stop being an underachiever; Will ruffles feathers during an arson investigation.
God encourages Joan to learn how to play chess; Will must work with a psychic on a missing toddler case; Helen hopes a miracle will enable Kevin to wa...
Helen fears Joan is becoming eccentric when she enthusiastically tackles her boat-building project; Will encourages Kevin to join a wheelchair basketb...
Joan learns from God that she's holding a garage sale on Saturday, which doesn't leave her much time to sort through her family's unwanted belongings....
Joan gets a lesson in popularity when God tells her to try out for the cheerleading squad, and her efforts to impress two pom-pom girls pay off with a...
Joan baby-sits for a 6-year-old boy who is obsessed with death; officers assault a black man at a gas station.
God's mysterious ways once again bewilder Joan, when He asks her to volunteer at the high-school art show, so that she can keep Adam Rove's sculpture...
God wants Joan to score an ""A"" on a test about French saint Joan of Arc. As the teen hits the books, she draws comparisons to the life of the young...
Each of the Girardis deal with crises of varying seriousness, the worst of which puts Will at the mercy of a crazed gunman. The day also finds Helen r...
God instructs Joan to ask a troublemaker to the winter formal. Will uncovers secrets that could prove unfavorable to the former Chief of Police and o...
Joan is saddened when she learns Rocky (Death Be Not Whatever) has passed away, causing her to further question God about life and death. Will loses...
At Helen's insistance, she and Will take a getaway to a spa, but all does not go well when Will cannot forget about his job. And with the parents awa...
God tells Joan to join the debate team, where her partner has a stuttering problem. A new security system is implemented at Arcadia High School. Aft...
Joan's newest mission from God is to work with kids, so she volunteers to help babysit children of abused mothers; Joan becomes jealous when Adam fall...
God tells Joan to learn to jump rope with a group of inner-city teens, one of whom Joan discovers is homeless. Kevin goes on a date, but not with who...
After Joan stands up for one of her classmates being bullied, an embarrassing picture of Joan, taken with a picture phone, is rapidly spread around sc...
God instructs Joan to help out with the a chaotic Girardi household; Adam has his first art show; Will and Toni witness a carjacking. Will and Toni, w...
God tells Joan to take piano lessons; Joan helps her piano teacher deal with her past; Joan learns a painful secret Will and Helen have been keeping f...
Joan joins the yearbook staff, per God's request, and decides to use this assignment as a means of impressing Adam... Feeling threatened that Iris an...
Joan takes a cosmetics class, per God's request, and Kevin doesn't react well to crossing paths with the last girlfriend he dated before his disabling...
After God tells Joan to give Adam a gift, she finds something that leads her to wonder if God's suggesting she have sex with him... While secretly se...
When the hospitalized Joan is diagnosed with Lyme disease, she begins to question if she's been seeing God or merely experiencing the hallucinations t...
Cast
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TMDB Reviews
9 years ago
Gawky teenager Joan Girardi (Amber Tamblyn), who has recently moved to Arcadia, Maryland with her family, suddenly starts meeting with strangers who claim to be God in human form, and who give her incomprehensible tasks. Each task seems to have "good ripples" (as Joan puts it) and she is willing to undertake more of them, but mysteries remain. Is Joan delusional? Or the victim of a huge practical joke? If she really is dealing with the deity, why did He pick an unpromising girl to do His bidding, and what are His plans for her?
Without committing to any particular religious tradition, the show deals with philosophical issues that few other shows touch. There is also a surprising bit of comedy contrasting Joan's everyday existence with her bewildering visions (After "God" assigns her one task too many, Joan asks "Why don't You assign me to get a boyfriend?") There are strong supporting characters, many with ideals of their own: the unhappy rebel Grace Polk; Joan's science-obsessed brother Luke; her father Chief Girardi, a religious skeptic trying to fight crime and corruption; and the unworldly artist Adam with whom Joan falls in love. Surrounded by such strong-willed, positive people, we are still encouraged to wonder: why Joan?
