Joan of Arcadia (TV Series)

The Fire and the Wood (2003)

Joe Mantegna: Will Girardi

Quotes 

• Helen Girardi : If you're not too angry about Kevin's car, do you think we could invite the Wyatts over on the weekend? I really like them, and I...

  [seeing his expression] 

  Helen Girardi : What?

  Will Girardi : Oh, there's something I have to tell you. I know they're really the first couple we kind of clicked with, but, um...

  Helen Girardi : What?

  Joan : I arrested Tommy this afternoon.

  Joan : You arrested the fire chief?

  Helen Girardi : For what?

  Will Girardi : Arson.

  [he and Helen roar with laughter] 

  Joan : What's funny?

  [still laughing, he nonverbally expects her to get the irony] 

  Joan : [confused]  Well, why is that funny?

• D.A. Gabe Fellowes : What have you got?

  Will Girardi : It's all in the warrant package.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Sum it up for me.

  Will Girardi : Well, we can tie him to the device and the accelerant. We can place him at the scene, and we have a motive.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : What motive?

  Will Girardi : Financial gain. Badger Hill Developments. He's a shareholder. And, I believe, so are you.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Are you suggesting I had anything to do...

  Will Girardi : Badger Hill has been after this piece of land for four years. What are you gonna put there? A mall, office building?

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Back down, Chief. I'm a public servant. If I, or any other public servant, own shares in Badger Hill Developments, it's through a blind trust.

  Will Girardi : Sure, it's all at arm's length.

• D.A. Gabe Fellowes : You say you have Wyatt on physical evidence?

  Will Girardi : Yes.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Then there's no need to include Badger Hill in the official evidence package.

  Will Girardi : Except that it is evidence.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : It's irrelevant. Get the conviction without it. It's unnecessarily inflammatory.

  Will Girardi : My people provide your people with evidence. How you use it is up to you.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : I can't suppress anything in the official police report. How would it look?

  Will Girardi : How things look is not my concern.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Well, you've been misinformed. Your job is as political as mine or the mayor's.

  Will Girardi : Well, I don't see it that way.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Have you considered why you were hired as police chief, Girardi? Hmm? An outsider. One who's never held a top position. It's because you have a reputation as a pragmatic man who understands the importance of playing ball.

  Will Girardi : Apparently, we were both misinformed.

• Joan : I think I'm old enough to decide how much makeup is too much makeup.

  Will Girardi : The only way to prove that to me is by wearing too little.

• D.A. Gabe Fellowes : How's the chief of police?

  Will Girardi : Slightly apprehensive when the District Attorney pays a personal visit.

• D.A. Gabe Fellowes : You're a much more hands-on kind of guy than our last chief of police.

  Will Girardi : I take it you don't approve.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Well, there is some concern that when a police chief immerses himself in trivialities, larger questions, such as, uh, budget, staffing, inter-agency relations...

  Will Girardi : When I got there, this department had the worst conviction rate of any city of its size in the nation.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : No one's suggesting you haven't really turned things around.

  Will Girardi : Plus, I don't answer to the District Attorney. I answer to the mayor.

  D.A. Gabe Fellowes : Who do you think sent me?

• Newscaster God : Wait, Joan, don't touch that dial. Please don't freak out. It's me, the King of Kings, the Almighty.

  Joan : God is doing the news?

  Newscaster God : I know, you thought you were done after the last time we spoke. You hoped it was an isolated instance of mental breakdown, and that your life would just return to normal.

  Joan : Yeah, well, I'm talking to the television, so normal works for me.

  Newscaster God : I'll keep this short...

  Joan : [Will enters and turns the TV off]  Oh, my god! What'd you do?

  Will Girardi : [ironically sarcastic]  Yeah, it's a crime against God to turn off the television.

• Lt. Michael Daghlian : Somebody gets burned to a crisp, that's murder.

  Arson Investigator Roy Roebuck : Only if it's arson, and it ain't arson until I say it's arson.

  Will Girardi : [entering]  Is it arson?

  Arson Investigator Roy Roebuck : That's what I'm investigating. And until I decide, you have no jurisdiction here.

  Lt. Michael Daghlian : Nozzle heads got no respect for a crime scene.

  Arson Investigator Roy Roebuck : Nozzle heads? Girl Scouts solve more murders than you people do.

  Will Girardi : That may have been true in the past, not anymore. So you want to, uh, rethink your tone?