Jericho

Jericho has never been a feminist show. Sure, Emily (Ashley Scott) had a few big action moments in the first season, but overall, this is a show about men taking back their town and fighting against tyrannical oppression. Jericho is about the rebirth of the Founding Fathers, and in keeping with that tradition, women are relegated to the status of Martha Washington and Betsy Ross.

This is not necessarily a criticism, just an observation. Clearly the action adventures of Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) and Robert Hawkins (Lennie James) are what drive the series.  But only one episode remains in the second season, and looking back through the first six episodes, I'm left wondering: what is the purpose of these women?

Ashley Scott is the prime example, an actress in a thankless and wholly useless role. In the second season, what has Emily done? The answer is nothing. The character was been sidelined, turned into a background player without a purpose. Perhaps this is just a result of a shortened season. Some stories and plots certainly had to be excised, and maybe the writers actually intended to give Emily something to do, but just couldn't find the time.

The same can be said for some of the show's other female characters. Eric Green's romantic life has never been that integral to the plot. His wife was killed suddenly and without reason in the first season. Now in the second season, has he even shared a single scene with Mary Bailey (Clare Carey)?

In the first few episodes, it appeared as if Darcy Hawkins (April Parker) was going to play a bigger part in her husband's crusade to bring down the Cheyenne government, working in Major Beck's office and feeding Robert information. In the past few episodes, however, her role has been minimized.

Heather's (Sprague Grayden) role is to serve as liaison between Beck and the towns of Jericho and New Bern, but again, her only purpose this season is to inform us about Beck's history. This isn't solely a season 2 problem. Since Jericho began, the writers have seemed perplexed as to Heather's role. She appeared to be a love interest for Jake, but that was quickly put aside. Then she vanished for the second half of the first season, and now she's back, but exists almost entirely outside the town itself.

After doing everything she could to take care of her family, Gail Green (Pamela Reed) vanished until finally returning in last night's episode. It was good to see the Green matriarch again, but she was used more as a plot device than a character. The show has largely abandoned the central themes of family and community that made the first season so touching.

Again, I don't necessarily blame the show's creative team, but rather the network. In cutting season 2 from 22 episodes to 7, all the plot points remain, but the heart and soul have been largely ripped out. The exception would be the Richmond storyline, in which Mimi (Alicia Coppola) and Bonnie (Shoshannah Stern) got to act like strong, independent women, getting jobs, uncovering embezzlement scams, and participating in a firefight with Ravenwood.

Great as that was, look at what they've done with it. The heroic actions of Mimi and Bonnie are used not to build up those characters, but to further the plot and to give Stanley a tragedy to work through. Great as Brad Beyer is, Bonnie's stand-off with Goetz was more about Stanley's reaction than her action.

The second season of Jericho has flown by, and now that it's almost over, I can safely say that it was an admirable experiment gone awry. No matter how talented the writers may be, it's impossible to cram 22 episodes of plot into 7 episodes of TV. Sacrifices must be made, and for season 2, that sacrifice was the role of women.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of CBS)