Touched by an Angel

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Episode 617: “Here I Am”

Episode 617: “Here I Am”
Original Air Date: February 27, 2000
Written by: Ken LaZebnik
Directed by: Joel J. Feigenbaum
Produced by:

Martha Williamson
Jon Andersen
R.J. Visciglia, Jr.

Guest Cast:

 

Bud Edward Asner
Antonio Giancarlo Esposito
Constance April Grace
Morgan Robert Bailey, Jr.

 

 

 

Monica, Tess and Andrew find themselves in a New York art museum, each assigned to a different individual. The museum is full of visitors of all ages, including a class of young children on a field trip. Keeping a wary eye on these youngsters is Bud, an older security guard whose retirement begins at the end of the day. Bud has emotional walls between himself and the rest of the world, and it is Tess’s assignment to help knock them down. Monica is talking to Antonio, an artist who despises his displayed painting, a modern art piece comprising of yellow above black whose dividing line is flawed by a solitary bump.

In another wing, Andrew has revealed himself as the angel of death to Constance, a woman who has just discovered that she has cancer and is trying to determine what she has contributed to the world. Tess discovers that Bud is obsessed with a painting of a little girl holding flowers. Bud protects this painting more than any other in the museum, and even makes the children move to another section when they almost damage it. As the field trip relocates to the modern art wing one little boy, Morgan, pauses to look at Antonio’s painting and then catches up with the class. Antonio complains that a quick glance like that is all his painting ever gets. When Monica picks up his sketch book, she finds that he has hidden a knife within it. Antonio tells her he wants to use it to destroy his painting because it doesn’t seem to create any emotional response from people, and the failure of this work seems to be a continuation of neglect he has felt. Monica makes Antonio that God has a message for him, and he agrees to wait for fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, Tess finally persuades Bud to open up and talk about why the painting of the girl is so important to him. The girl in the picture seems to be asking him if the world is as beautiful as the flowers in her hand, and Bud tells Tess of a harrowing experience in Vietnam that has kept him from seeing the world as a beautiful place for the last thirty years. He further reveals that this painted child has been his only friend for those years, to which Tess responds that God loves him and has living friends for him. Fifteen minutes have passed, and Antonio is about to destroy the painting when Monica reveals herself as an angel to him. She tells Antonio that God inspired him to paint what he did, though His purpose may not always seem clear. At that moment, Morgan approaches and shows Antonio a picture he has drawn. It is Antonio’s painting reproduced except now the black bump has a plant growing out of it. Morgan tells him that the painting reminds him of how he has grown from his mothers seed into a plant, and Antonio realizes that his painting does have the ability to stir emotion in others.

Watching this are Andrew and Constance, Morgan’s mother. Constance realizes that her son is the gift she has given to the world. Their assignments finished, Andrew and Monica rejoin Tess, who is still trying to get Bud to open up to other people. As they all approach the painting of the young girl, they see an older woman with a young girl who strongly resembles the one in the picture. It turns out that the older woman posed for the painting when she was young, and Bud’s friend on canvas has suddenly become the living friend Tess spoke of. A now happy Bud does his last closing of the museum, and the angels disappear.

 

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