AMC Spoiler Commentary by Kate Brown

May 28, 2007

I can be a bitch. I can be cynical. I will even admit to having certain misanthropic tendencies. Still, I am never callous enough to rejoice at others’ misfortunes. Fortunately, this column isn’t about real life, it’s about AMC, so, come join me as I celebrate a schadenfreude moment from last week.

Yes, my soap loving heart did a little happy dance when Greenlee took the Fusion shares back from Babe. Fusion exists because Greenlee had the desire to beat Erica at her own cosmetics game, Kendall had the building lease, Simone showed a flair for guerilla marketing and Liza had the start-up capital. I don’t see Babe’s name anywhere, do you? Babe did not even acquire her shares in the time honored soap tradition of trading sex for stock. Nope, Greenlee transferred those shares to Babe because of her part in the Mirabess mess. Greens knew the best way to punish Kendall was to force her to deal with Babe each and every day. How best to accomplish that? Give Babe a partner’s share of Fusion. Not only was Babe never really punished for the Mirabess Mess, she was rewarded with stock!

Anyone else roll their eyes when Babe called Greens, “Miss High and Mighty”? Oh, how soon everyone at Fusion has forgotten Babe’s smug and entitled attitude when she announced her good stock fortune at a company celebration. Babe, with her lackey JR at her side, let it be known Kendall would have to suck it up and deal, because Babe was at Fusion to stay. Especially irksome was Babe’s attitude that Kendall was just a big meany who, for some unknown reason, could not stand the sight of sweet Babe. (I do not know if it is the directing or the actress herself, but Babe often has an unwarranted smug expression which renders her slap-able instead of sympathetic. Sarah Brown, GH’s original Carly, had the same problem. It’s hard to feel sympathy for characters when they are acting inappropriately smug.)

Seeing the shares yanked back from Babe was gratifying as well as funny. Babe clearly knew it was a possibility, yet never thought Greenlee would actually do it. I guess Babe expected Greens to adhere to the inexplicable “Babe is love” doctrine.

Yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I also enjoyed Krystal returning the CE shares to Adam because she believes Babe can support her. The thought of the Careys having to take responsibility for themselves warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart. Yes, I know that being a single parent is incredibly hard, but Mona Kane showed Pine Valley how to do it with grace and dignity, qualities the Careys lack.

It’s not as if Krystal and Babe are left without resources. Tad and JR have their faults but neither would let the mother of his child go without food and shelter. And everyone who suffers from Carey worship will continue to suffer from that affliction. The Careys will continue to have a good life, just on a smaller scale.

Still for a few brief moments this week, I reveled in their misfortune.

Greenlee’s actions towards Babe are making it easier for me to accept the recast. One, because it’s a completely believable Greenlee move and two, because now Erica is not the only one in town who doesn’t believe Babe is a walking, talking miracle. Being a recast is not easy. An actor has to strike a balance between honoring viewers’ memories of the character and making the character her own. Greenlee was not an easy character to love, but it was easy to love to hate her. Hooking her up with Leo was a brilliant idea, because if the beloved Leo found something to love about Greenlee, there must have been something there to love. Meeting Greenlee’s horrible parents gave us an understanding of how Greenlee came to be the little bitch she was. My interest in Greenlee started to waiver when she became besotted with Ryan. It was a sad day when Greenlee married Ryan to “save” him from Kendall. Remember the demeaning scene where Greens dared Ryan to think about Kendall while standing so close to his wife’s La Perla clad body? It was humiliating. Why did Greenlee have to return still obsessed with Ryan? Wouldn’t it have been more fun if she had returned totally over him? Ryan could then stumble around totally perplexed as to why Greenlee now barely acknowledges his existence.

Greenlee was a self-proclaimed bitch, but at the core of her bitchiness was passion. Greenlee’s scenes with Ryan, both then and now, were passionless. It would be wonderful if Greenlee and Annie realized within moments of each other that Ryan is not such a great catch after all. Wonderful, but unlikely.

And since we are having all these re-done flashbacks, how about throwing in a few Greenlee/Roger scenes? A little bit of Mark Pinter never hurts.

What else. What else.

Kendall, for the sake of the unborn Hart/Slater, please stop letting Babe touch you. Babe is likely to be carrying something worse than Toxoplasmosis (insert your own contaminated pussy litter joke here).

“I don’t want to freak out Lily.” Sean’s concern for his cousin is always sweet, but doesn’t he ever wonder what’s going on with his sister Molly?

Speaking of missing relatives, there was another Jeff-less meeting of the Martin clan this week. Are Jeff and Brooke somewhere having hot sex even as I type this?

“Want me to get you a beer? Beat someone up? Coldcock my father? Steal a baby? Drug a nanny?” If only Jamie had enough self-realization to actually say all that.

Remember when Adam and Arlene owned the Roadside bar? Good times.

“I kissed you because you were hurting.” “And we’ll be married again.” This merely reinforces what I said last week, Greenlee is from Venus and Ryan is an ass.

The island on LOST has the ability to cure cancer and paralysis. Divorce Island has the ability to mutate breasts. During the island scenes, Greenlee’s dress looked to be painfully cutting her suddenly large breasts in half, yet once back in the Valley, her breasts looked normal (though the dress still looked a bit uncomfortable).

Ruth babysat Jenny and Lil’ A while Joe, Tad, Jamie and Opal got to hang out with Krystal. Ruth certainly got the better end of that deal, didn’t she?

Jonathan and Ava scenes make me want to take a shower. Not because the scenes are hot, but because they have a certain man-in-a-darkened-theater-wearing-a-trench-coat-watching-porn quality to them.

“It’s just bleeding my soul dry.” Oh, Hannah, we hardly knew you and now you’re gone. Hannah was interesting, due in no small part to Stacy Haiduk who gave a compelling portrayal of a woman on the edge of doing something unfortunate. That said, are we all in agreement that we don’t want a Hannah/Zach/Josh “who’s the daddy” storyline a few months from now?

“You have no rights to Spike.” Babe saying that to Greenlee would be ironic if it weren’t so damned pathetic.

OK, who set up the divorce donation to the Miranda Center? Jeff? Barbara? Dimitri? Mike Roy? Erica?

“I’ll have a Kir Royale.” Krystal ordering that drink at the Roadside seemed so right and oh so wrong at the same time.

“What’s a girl gotta do to feel welcome in this town, kill a few people?” Everyone looked appalled that Greenlee said this, yet no one seems appalled that Jonathan is living in Edmund’s house. Sigh.

“Most of us have flaws, Jonathan. Most of us are human. I mean, I would expect you to understand that, more than probably anybody.” Poor Di, she still doesn’t understand that the Laverys have no flaws.

“What do we need?” “More glitter.” Why, yes, we do, Kathy. I have always believed that more glitter makes the world a much nicer place.

Will this week’s spoilers leave us needing a glitter fix or not? Let’s see.

It’s a Carey filled week on AMC.

Krystal asks Tad to help pimp her assets.

Tad’s helping Krystal sell the gifts of bling Adam gave her.

Babe does not tell Krystal about the lost Fusion stock for fear of upsetting her mother.

After all, if Bianca can say “when Miranda and I lost each other” instead of “when those Carey bitches conspired to keep Miranda away from me” then Babe should be able to say “when my Fusion stocks were lost” instead of “when that big old meany bitch Greenlee took back my Fusion shares”, right?

Greenlee is mean to Babe at the office. Greenlee lets everyone know that Babe never finished high school. Babe quits her job.

Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t trade sex for grades unless I was guaranteed a diploma. I am glad Bianca is gone so we don’t have to watch her lecture Greenlee about how to treat Babe.

Babe tells Jamie all about her Fusion woes. JR walks in as Jamie is hugging Babe.

“Tell me, James, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Once he is brought up to speed on Babe’s financial woes, JR offers Babe top dollar for her Chandler stock. Babe accepts.

Helping his soon-to-be-ex-wife out of a financial jam, further proof that JR is just an evil SOB. (Or since he has sided with them, does the Carey/Martin clan no longer consider him to be evil?)

Babe finally tells her mother the truth. Krystal tells her not to worry because she has a plan. Krystal’s plan? The Careys will buy the Roadside Bar.

Considering we only see the Roadside a few times a year, this works for me.

The Careys rename the bar. New name? The Cum-back.

OK. OK. So they really spell it “The Comeback.”

Derek toasts Krystal’s new venture one too many times and pulls her into a drunken kiss.

When this scene did not happen last week, I had hoped it had been deleted. Now I’ll be the one drinking Ever Clear with a moonshine kickback.

The bar runs into trouble and Adam raises a glass to Krystal’s newfound problems.

What causes the problems? Poorly repaired fire damage? Or the Public Health Department notices posted on the front?

Slamming Babe isn’t the only thing keeping Greenlee busy this week.

Greenlee smells blood in the water when Annie tells her to stay away from Ryan.

Annie is about to learn that one should never show weakness around Greenlee.

Trapped in the elevator with Josh, Greenlee has a bout of claustrophobia.

The big question is, will Greens and Josh pass this chemistry test?

Greenlee gets an unpleasant welcome when she crashes Spike’s birthday party.

Millicent and Woody would be very disappointed with Greenlee’s display of bad manners.

Greenlee gets depressed when she realizes that Annie, Babe and Kendall are mothers and she is not. Yes, people may call Greens “a mother” from time to time but they mean something different.

Hey, Greens, a word of advice. If you want to avoid seeing mothers with their children, not crashing a kid’s birthday party is a good place to start.

Other stuff happens, too.

Amanda refuses to help JR destroy Adam. She changes her mind after having sex with him. And by “him” I mean JR, not Adam.

Although next week Amanda could have sex with Adam and then decide to help him destroy JR. Seriously, just about anything that keeps Amanda from Jonathan pining is a good thing.

Jack surprises Erica with an anniversary present on live TV. Erica is less than pleased.

Erica tosses her hair repeatedly while Jack looks on bemused.

Sean falls for the old “have sex with me or I’ll tell the person you really want to have sex with that we are having sex” ploy. Colby stumbles across Ava and Sean having sex on the Chandler Yacht.

“How could you, Sean? This is our place to have meaningless sex!”

Ryan asks Jonathan to work with him at his new venture capital firm.

Well, dare I venture to say that with Jonathan on board, the new company cannot help but make a killing?

Here’s to another week in the Valley!