Good Christian Belles: Series Premiere

In approaching the gossip-infused antics of Desperate Housewives with the lighthearted satire of Suburgatory against a backdrop of staggering affluence comparable to Revenge, ABC’s midseason replacement comedy Good Christian Belles appears to derive from a relatively benign formula for success.  But wait—did they say Christian?  Heaven forbid.

It’s always a delicate matter when depicting religious people in a less than flattering light, and writer/creator Robert Harling only amplified any potential controversy by initially introducing the pilot under the same title as the Kim Gatlin book from which the series was adapted, Good Christian Bitches.  “Bitches” was quickly changed to “Belles” in response to the apoplectic outbursts of various communities, but perhaps ABC should have changed “Christian” to “Texan” as well to help quell some of the religious controversy that continues to surround the show.  In fact, “Good Texan Belles” probably offers a more accurate representation of the series’ satirical focal point, and it’s rather ironic that the religious component of the series has aroused such contention given that Good Christian Bells cares about the values of Christianity itself only as much as it relates to the comical characters within the world it has created.

Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb) is forced to return to her affluent hometown in Dallas with her two children, Laura (Lauran Irion) and Will (Colton Shires) when her husband, who had been running a Bernie Madoff–type Ponzi scheme, dies in a car crash with his mistress and all her assets are subsequently frozen.  It’s a past life she clearly had no previous intention of revisiting and one she’d rather forget.  But with nowhere else to turn, Amanda finds herself moving in with her mother, Gigi (Annie Potts), with whom she has not spoken in eight years.

The “estranged parent” storyline is one that can easily fall flat as we’ve seen it time and time again, but Harling manages the difficult task of balancing comedic contrast with a cogent mother–daughter rapport.  When Amanda, who is 18 months sober, scolds Gigi for teaching her young teenage son how to make various mixed drinks—drinks that Gigi then herself proceeds to enjoy despite it being a Sunday morning—Gigi replies that learning such a skill will help him to “be employable some day.”  Scenes such as this are almost vaguely reminiscent of Arrested Development (albeit with a distinctly different tone) simply in terms of how these two characters can appear to have such opposing values and mannerisms, and yet not for a moment do we doubt them to be mother and daughter.  This of course is as much a testament to Bibb’s and Potts’ performances as it is to Harling’s writing.  The two ladies fall seamlessly into their roles, so much so that one wonders if the show was written with these actresses in mind, given that after only one episode it would seem implausible to imagine the show functioning (at least at it’s current level) without either one of them.

Part of the appeal of Amanda and Gigi as characters derives from being two of the few characters relatively grounded in reality within a world that, for the most part, is not.  Not to say that the world is wholly unbelievable, but rather that Harling consciously augments certain caricatures for the sake of humor and satire within a world captured through the classic ABC comedy aesthetic of soft lighting and vibrant and colorful set designs (think Happy Endings,Suburgatory, Pan Am, or the retired Scrubs). Of course the most outlandish of all the characters we’ll find in GBC is our primary antagonist, Carlene Cockburn (Kristin Chenoweth), whose devilish antics within a “Good Christian” façade are a likely reason why the show may rub certain religious folks the wrong way.

Carlene is the Queen Bee in town, the leader of the church choir and the alpha dog of the social hierarchy.  She also happens to be a girl whom Amanda wronged back in high school—she cut her from the cheerleading squad for having bad skin, a problem that Carlene has long since solved with tons of Botox and plastic surgery—and although Amanda feels remorse and would wish to move past it, Carlene has anything but forgotten or forgiven, and she seeks her revenge on Amanda (with some help from her three cronies) from the moment she arrives:

Amanda’s son asks the meaning of the sign outside the church that reads, “You reap what you sow,” to which Amanda replies, “that’s Texan for karma.”  Yes, Amanda certainly appears in line for some Texan karmic retribution, and she knows it’s not going to be pretty.

On Kim Gatlin’s website for Good Christian Bitches, she states, “For Heaven’s sake, don’t let God get in the way of a good story!”  The same could be said of GBC as a series.  When we hear Carlene talk about Googling commandments, or when Amanda says, “even Jesus hung out with whores and thieves” and Carlene replies, “not in my neighborhood he didn’t,” or even when juxtaposing the apparent hypocrisy of Carlene’s spiteful antics against her purported “Good Christian” values, these are all meant to add dimensions to a character, not condemn religion itself.  Religion is such a pervasive element of our nation—particularly in certain southern towns like Dallas—and we need shows like Good Christian Belles to keep us grounded.  If we can’t laugh at a show that pokes fun at a group of characters that clearly fails to grasp the full moral scope of Christianity itself, if such a show offends us simply for implying that one can be misguided in their religious followings, then we’re failing to appreciate the complexity of religion itself; and that is far more offensive than anything you’ll see in GBC.