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My DVR hates me. This past week it recorded only scattered AMC moments. (No, that isn’t conclusive proof that the DVR hates me; the fact that it recorded the entire Celine Dion segment is.) Unfortunately I didn’t discover the problem until Friday. I didn’t panic. I naively thought I could watch the AMC marathon on SOAPNET. Just like the last time the DVR turned on me, which was about a year ago. Silly me. There was no AMC marathon on SOAPNET. True Wednesday and Monday’s episodes were shown hours apart but Tuesday’s episodes were nowhere to be found. There was a GH maratho n. There was a repeat of a two (three?) year old GH Sweeps story. There were approximately 1100 repeats of A Very Soapy Christmas pimping last year’s CD release A Holiday Affair. There were repeats of October Road’s first season. I am fairly certain that episodes of Port Charles were also on the schedule. “Port Charles” AKA “The last soap Brown and Esenstein killed.” I thought ABCD merely hated AMC and its viewers. This weekend I realized ABCD barely remembers that AMC even exists. Is this indifference AMC’s death knell? Sigh. Awkward segue. I am going out on a limb and guessing what happened during the segments I missed. Ryan shouted. Greenlee whined. Babe was love. Kendall freaked out. And Jack continued to take Greenlee’s side and no one else’s. Jack. Jack. Jack. More and more Jack reminds me of David Hayward and not just because they both look damn fine in jeans. Both men are burdened with parental guilt. By the time Jackson found out about Greenlee she was in her 20s. Babe was already a felon by the time David was revealed as her father. (This seems like the best time to acknowledge the mistake I made last week. I should have said “pre- Carey David” instead of the “pre- Megan McTavish” David. Thank you to the readers who politely pointed out my mistake.) True, David had a Ph.D. in situational ethics long before the Careys arrived in town but his behavior, good and bad, had been fairly consistent. David was loyal to the people he loved. Others? Not so much. He was a good brother to Leo and a good cousin to Maggie. When Erica needed help with her plan to get rid of Michael Cambias, David was there for her. When Bianca discovered she was pregnant, it was David who talked her off the roof. After the fateful DNA test David was loyal to Babe and only to Babe. He would have done anything to help Babe, ever if it meant hurting Bianca and by extension, Erica. It didn’t help that Babe always played the “Do What I Want or You Are No Longer My Father” card. David’s loyalty to Babe cost him his medical license and his few friendships. Yet he probably would do it all again just to prove his loyalty to Babe. David was more complicated and more interesting before he was saddled with his daughter Babe. (We’ll pause for a moment while I picture Vincent Irizarry wearing a saddle and little else.) When Jack discovered his bio connection to Greenlee, he wanted to make up for all the years they had lost. He wanted to do his best to be a better parent than Mary or Roger had been. (Not a hard task considering that Greenlee would have been better off being raised by wolves than by the Smythes.) Unfortunately Jack made the same mistake David did, letting his loyalty to Greenlee overshadow everything else in his life. Jack always takes Greenlee’s side because while the Smythes were happy to take their daughter’s trust fund they never took her side. Jack’s loyalty to Greenlee is going to cost him dearly. Yet he probably would do it all again prove to Greenlee that someone is on her side. Jack was more complicated and more interesting before Greenlee’s return t o PV. I may understand Jack’s motivation but I still want to slap him. Yes, Jack, in the real world Kendall would eventually be punished for setting up Greenlee. Just as in the real world, Greenlee would have been punished for kidnapping Spike. I n Pine Valley that counts as a draw. I missed the Kane/Montgomery Thanksgiving dinner. The writers may not care about that AMC tradition, but I do. I missed seeing Myrtle and Palmer. ( I am not blaming their absence on the writers, I am concerned about the actors more than anything else. What else. What else. “If you can’t talk to the Face of Fusion who can you talk to?” This line made Ava tolerable for a minute or two. Color me surprised. “I’m so sick and tired of everyone in Pine Valley thinking the law doesn’t apply to them.” Replacement Derek delivered this line perfectly. It’s the first time in years Derek has sounded like a real cop. This Derek doesn’t just say his lines, he actively engages with the other actors in the scene. Derek is behaving like a L&O policeman which isn’t a bad thing at all. “Colby would be crushed if she didn’t spend the day with Adam.” Of course she would Krystal, Adam is her father. Opal! Ruth! One line each! It’s a sad, sad day when Celine Dion has more lines than Tad’s mothers. If only Opal and Ruth had a CD to pimp… Winifred! No lines! If only she had a CD to pimp… Speaking of pimping, something shocking happened this week. AMC plugged a non-Disney movie, The Mist. It was a nice shout-out to AMC fan Stephen King. A few summers ago he listed AMC among his guilty entertainment pleasures. At the time his comments made me inordinately happy. “You steal my family, you ruin my life and then you hunt me down like I’m some sort of animal.” Yes, and your point is what exactly? Wasn’t it sweet how Babe made Thanksgiving plans for Lil’A that didn’t involve JR? Babe really is love, isn’t she? “Get off me.” I bet that’s the first time a woman has said that to Zach.
I have a policy of not letting psychotics who may have committed murder
into my home. I guess I’m just not as “After I killed Braden and Edmund…” What about the bodyguard? Are we supposed to forget about the bodyguard the same way we were supposed to forget about the nanny Jamie drugged? Where’s Mr. Novak? Does he know Richie is in Pine Valley? Or have the writers forgotten that Annie and Richie have a father? “You think some lame apology makes it all right?” Silly JR. Only the Laverys and the Careys are allowed to set things straight with a lame apology. That’s because you are EVIL and they are not. “I-I was the underdog (when I first came to PV).” I remember those sad, sad days, don’t you? Poor Babe. Jamie and JR were in love with her. Paul, her legal husband, was in a position to change DNA tests to suit her fancy. JR freely shared his wealth with her. And Bianca was her BFF. Makes me weep just to think about Babe’s early days in the Valley. It’s sweet watching Josh hanging around the hospital nursery. Really it is. Is there some reason they can’t show Josh doing that as well as keeping an eye on Hannah? “I fought like hell to turn my life around.” Babe really is living on Planet Crack isn’t she? Who builds a fallout shelter in the middle of the woods? People built their fallout shelters right next to or under their houses. Not in the middle of the forest. “Now where was the entrance? It was fifteen steps due north from some tree. Where is north anyway? Hey, anyone know if moss grows on the north or south side of a tree? You kids stop screaming right now. Between your yelling and the noise from the siren, how am I supposed to think?” Will we see the scary man in the woods again? Will he the one who rescues AMC’s new BFFs, Zach and Greenlee ? Sure, you laugh now…. “Celine, since our conversation is the most awkward one in the history of soaps, why don’t you go ahead and lip synch your song for us right now?” True, that’s not what Erica said but it is what I heard her say in my head. Will this week’s spoilers have us looking for the nearest fallout shelter or not? The holiday spirit is nowhere to be found in the Valley. Jack is none too pleased when he learns Erica forged Mary’s signature. He is even less pleased when he finds out Erica forged Mary’s signature on Greenlee’s commitment papers. Jack does have a point but so does Erica. I wonder if they will talk about this on He Said/She Said. Does that show even exist anymore? Or are its days as a plot device over? Jack tells Erica that he no longer loves her. At least we know Jack’s reasons for leaving Erica. We never quite knew Erica’s reasons for leaving Jack. It was something about finding herself and wanting to have sex with a man who owned a plaid jacket from the 70s Things are happening at the back of beyond: Richie finds Zach and Greenlee. He promises to help them. Richie closes and locks the cover to the fallout shelter. He covers the lid with leaves. Richie and Babe are perfect for each other. Babe does things out of love and so does Richie. Love for themselves. Zach gives me fever in the morning. Fever when we kiss we good night. If only that’s how the spoiler read. Zach’s fever gets worse. How much worse? He mistakes Greenlee for Kendall. It could be worse. I don’t know how but it could. While delirious with fever, Zach talks about stopping Kendall from confessing to setting Greenlee up. Ahh, that’s how it could get worse. And by worse, I mean giving Greenlee another reason to whine. Richie cause more distress when he returns to town. Hearing that Richie was admitted to PVH, Babe rushes to be with him. The diagnosis? Richie has a major case of psychotic sexiness. He also has pneumonia. Babe is love. Babe is also stupid. Stupid enough to get herself get killed? We can only hope. Richie confesses all his crimes to Annie. He gives his sister a vial of poison and asks his sister to put him out of his misery. First Richie drowns a child in a lake. Now he is setting Annie up for his own murder. It’s AMC’s homage to Leave Her to Heaven. With Richie as the femme fatale ! Annie refuses to do Richie’s bidding. Annie is doing the right thing, but you must admit that Richie’s plan was brilliant (except for the part about him dying). Other stuff happens, too. Amanda’s visit with her mother is more upsetting than usual- Janet’s medication is working but it’s also causing memory loss. Just like Brooke, if Amanda didn’t have bad luck she’d have no luck at all. She finds her father frozen in a freezer. She is the only one who really works at Fusion but she never gets credit for it. She is loyal to JR but he prefers Ava. And now this. Having a schizophrenic parent is hard enough but a schizophrenic mother who doesn’t remember you is even worse.
It’s not too late to buy both books, Oakdale Confidential and Charm, in time for Christmas! You may think I am kidding but unfortunately I am not. JR tells Derek that he had a blackout the night Zach disappeared. JR admits he may have run Zach down during his blackout. Derek arrests JR. Confessing to Derek is further proof that JR is EVIL, I tell you, EVIL. Tad visits JR in jail. Tad tells JR he is very proud of his stepson for taking responsibility for his actions. “JR ,you are more of a man than I am. I never took real responsibility for burying Greg Madden. In fact I let Zach take the blame. Of course if you repeat this to anyone I will deny it. I’ll claim you’re having one of your drunken hallucinations. And remind everyone that you are EVIL.” Well it could happen like that…on Planet Crack.
Here’s to another week in the Valley!
Kate's AMC Spoiler Archives For 2007 |
