'Saving Grace' remains determinedly ornery

"Saving Grace" finishes its first season with a pair of episodes running on back-to-back nights next week, but if you think that means closing with a heartwarming holiday chestnut on the order of "The Closer" Christmas special earlier this month, think again.

The thing that makes "Saving Grace" interesting, if not quite great, is its orneriness. Holly Hunter is Grace Hanadarko, an Oklahoma City police detective befriended by a tobacco-chewing, tattooed angel, Earl, played by former HBO "Deadwood" resident Leon Rippy. Yet the most curious -- and entrancing -- thing about Grace is that being touched by an angel hasn't really changed her.

Running at 9 p.m. Monday on TNT, "Is There a Scarlet Letter on My Breast?" finds her still smoking and drinking and dancing, not to mention carrying on her affair with her married partner, Kenneth Johnson's Ham Dewey. She's as self-destructive as ever.

When a highfalutin Los Angeles defense attorney comes to town muddying the waters by looking to sully every police officer's reputation, Grace is unrepentant. When he trots a dozen of her ex-lovers through the stationhouse, Grace deadpans, "Well, that was summer. He brings in fall and winter and we're gonna need a bigger office."

Look, a ruthless lawyer may or may not be able to intimidate me, but I guarantee you if an angel came along and spirited me off to the Grand Canyon in the blink of an eye, I'd be down on my knees the next instant atoning for every misdeed I'd ever done. So Grace's implicit non serviam ("I will not serve," for those not well-versed in Latin or James Joyce's "Ulysses") might defy logic, but it's what gives this series a large measure of its grit and conflict -- right down to the end of Tuesday's season finale, "Tacos, Tulips, Duck and Spices," also at 9 p.m. That's the disbelief a viewer has to suspend to sustain the drama, and on Tuesday it pays dividends.

Imagine an "It's a Wonderful Life" or a "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" or "A Christmas Carol" that drops the main character to the bottom, only to leave him there in the presence of a definite, but incomprehensible God, and that's pretty much what you have here. It's hardly the feel-good episode of the season.

That isn't to say "Grace" is without flaws. Far from it. Monday's episode creates a tense dynamic, as attorney Harper Addison sews self-doubt in everyone to match what Grace is already going through, but then it pulls its punches with a pat ending. (My guess is Addison will return at some point next season, and the writers -- if there are any writers at that point -- will do a better job of dealing with what he does to Grace and her colleagues.)

Then Tuesday's finale goes into the deep waters with something involving Grace's past better left unstated. All I can say is it goes far to explain her willful self-destruction, without bringing her any closer to God.

Religion is a thorny topic for a TV show to address, but to its credit "Saving Grace" doesn't mind wrestling with angels -- or with viewers' own preconceptions about the nature of faith. It also has some just plain nice touches. Johnson is every bit as good here as an out-of-control detective as he was in "The Shield," and the chemistry between Hunter and Laura San Giacomo as her colleague and childhood friend Rhetta Rodriguez is the best thing about the series. The conflict relationship between Grace and Leon ain't bad either.

"Let me ask you something, Earl," Grace says Monday night. "Does your boss believe in justice?"

"We going back to the '06 OU-Oregon game again?" Earl drawls.

That's good writing, rooted in a specific place. (That game turned on a replay call that went against all apparent evidence.) Notice too how, in a sibling photo in the season finale, Grace holds up a picture of her sister, killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. (Hitting another grace note, Steppenwolf's Tom Irwin turns up as her priest brother.)

So, yes, "Saving Grace" sometimes plays fast and loose with believability, and like many an addict it's a little too in love with its own bad habits. But at its best it deals with grief and loss and a God who permits them for some ungodly reason, and so for all its mechanical plot twists it's nonetheless fairly bold by TV standards. Just don't expect Tuesday's season finale to provide any Christmas cheer.

Remotely interesting: "Bozo" Bob Bell heads the list of this year's Silver Circle inductees by the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Also to be honored May 2 are WMAQ Channel 5 reporter Renee Ferguson; director Cheryl Stutzke, who worked at Channel 5, WBBM Channel 2, WLS Channel 7 and WFLD Channel 32; WCIU Channel 26 and WWME Channel 23 General Manager Neal Sabin; Channel 5 and WTTW Channel 11 reporter Rich Samuels; Channel 11 "Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review" host Joel Weisman; and the local Trio Video company. … WGN Channel 9 holds its annual "Morning News Drive-Thru Toy Drive" today until 9 a.m. Toys and donations for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago can be dropped at the station studios at 2501 W. Bradley Place, Chicago. … Fox WFLD Channel 32 holds tryouts for "Don't Forget the Lyrics" from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at the Grand Ballroom at the end of Navy Pier downtown.

Ricky Gervais' "Extras" comes to an end with "The Extra Special Series Finale" at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO. … The charming Christmas special "Olive the Other Reindeer" airs at 8 p.m. Monday on WPWR Channel 50. … NBC airs the reality competition "Clash of the Choirs" over four straight nights starting at 7 p.m. Monday on Channel 5.

End of the dial: WGN 720-AM led all Chicago stations in monthly Arbitrend ratings released this week. WBBM 780-AM was second, with WGCI 107.5-FM, WOJO 105.1-FM and WNUA 95.5-FM filling out the top five.

"Midwest Ballroom" listeners picked "White Christmas" as the top holiday song in a vote taken by host John Russell Ghrist and released last weekend. He'll continue playing holiday songs at 5 p.m. Saturday on WDCB 90.9-FM.

Waste Watcher's choice

After she became a star, Sandra Bullock took maybe too much control of her career, forever casting herself in the role of a feisty sweetheart. But of those films the best of the bunch are probably her "Miss Congeniality" movies. Try the original at 7 p.m. Saturday on AMC.