I know this statement may earn me my official “old geezer” card, but I’m going to say it anyway: The plots on many TV dramas these days are just too complicated. So many confusing backstories are hauled from episode to episode that keeping it all straight requires more brain cells than I can spare.
I know some of you are probably thinking, “Go read a book, for Pete’s sake! Why are you wasting time on TV anyway?” That’s a subject for another day, but for now, I just want to know why some TV writers have erroneously equated complication with quality.
A fairly typical evening conversation at our house goes something like this:
ME: “Hey—do you know what they’re talking about? Who is this Al Jehoozie Begatti guy? Is he working with the CIA or for the Iranians? Are we supposed to know who he is?”
JOE: “Uh, I don’t know.”
ME: “What do you mean you don’t know? How come you’re not paying attention? Why do we even have this on if you’re reading Facebook posts on your iPad?”
JOE: “You’re the one who asked me what’s going on, so obviously you don’t know, either. Maybe you should stop playing ‘Candy Crush’ over there.”
ME: “Yeah, well, I’m paying attention, but these plots are too doggone complicated. You miss one little snippet of dialogue and you’re lost. And besides, if I don’t play ‘Candy Crush,’ I can’t stay awake. You know what happens when I sit still.”
Because we normally only watch shows we’ve recorded on our DVR, we could rewind and try to figure out what’s going on with Al Jehoozie Begatti, but we’ve learned that’s usually a lost cause.
You should have been a fly on our wall when Joe and I were binge-watching all the seasons of “24” on instant Netflix. Our living room sounded like the dayroom of the dementia ward.
If I wanted my entertainment to be confusing, I’d pull out my old English Literature textbook and read the poetry of Keats or Coleridge.
I try to be okay with never quite getting a handle on who’s who and what’s what on some shows, but I really can’t be. It drives me nuts to be bewildered.
I am a bit obsessed with finding and understanding the truth, which is quite uncomfortable when there’s so much in this world that is confusing and fake.
But I really wouldn’t trade my obsession, either, since it led me straight into the arms of God.
When, as a college student, a friend shared with me God’s plan for redeeming mankind and what that meant for me personally, my “truthometer” went off and I knew the Gospel was, indeed, the truth. I bought a Bible, dug in, and finally began to understand what Jesus meant when He said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
It was so straight-up and simple, and yet so profound. I’m not sure how I missed that truth for so many years, sitting in church all those Sundays.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Man can do what man does to convolute that incomparably gracious and elegant message, adding a thousand complications to God’s simple truth, but the pure Gospel is easy enough for a child to grasp.
We arrive in this world separated from God, but we don’t have to stay that way. Jesus came to bring us home to the Father. It’s not complicated or confusing, but it is deep.
And in the end, it’s the only story line that will matter.