February 18, 2007

Now I am going to share with you something that every male who met me between the time I turned 18 and married at 37 already knows: I’m easy.  Yep, I’m easy like Sunday morning. Easy like a Keith Carradine Oscar winning song, that’s me. All it took was a well written, well acted and thoughtful Valentine’s Day episode to make me feel all warm and fuzzy about AMC.  (Yes, I had a few quibbles, but those will come later.) 

There were so many things I enjoyed. One thing was Jamie’s comments about his time with Babe (I don't know what she meant to me. I got so twisted up all the time. I loved her. I loved her enough to do things that I still can't wrap my head around. And then, one day I was done, just like that, in a heartbeat. I was done.) were a perfect description of being crazy in love. Crazy in love in the Leslie Coulson/Lisa Nowak kind of way.  Jamie sounded positively adult about the whole thing. Now if Jamie would just give the drugged nanny a portion of Phoebe’s estate, he and I could make real progress. 

How could I not love the Slaters’ scenes?  Zach is positively dopey and giddy when alone with his wife.  Alone with her husband, Kendall is relaxed and delightfully non-strident. What’s a little thing like the Cambias Curse when the man calls you his princess? A husband who says that is to be treasured (I speak from experience on this one). Bowling as foreplay, who knew? 

Color me shocked but I even enjoyed the JR and Stuart scene.  I enjoyed it because it was realistic. Those moments, hours, days after someone dies are quite often spent in shock. Everything except the fact the person is dead, falls away. Every anger, hurt, and annoyance seems petty in the face of death. Eventually, reality sets in and a more balanced view returns. JR’s more balanced view of Babe will most likely return about a week after she reappears, if not sooner.   

How enveloped in good AMC feelings was I? It did not even bother me when Emma called Ryan, “Daddy.” Again, Emma doing that is realistic.  It doesn’t mean she did not love Terry.  Little kids do not understand what death means.  A friend died unexpectedly at home on his daughter’s 8^th birthday. As the paramedics were carrying the body bag down the front steps, my friend’s daughter asked, “When are we going to get a new daddy?”  That comment did not negate her love for her father, it just showed a child’s lack of comprehension about what had happened.  

I was concerned that the whole “sending Valentines to dead people” would be cheesy. OK, it was cheesy but cheesy in the right kind of way. The kind of way that can make even a cynic tear up (just for a moment, I swear!).  All the Valentines sent were sweet, but three really touched me.  Whose heart didn’t melt when Aidan sent one to dear little Leora?  Tad acknowledging Jenny has always made me go soft, even more so since my brother’s death last summer. Call me crazy but the Valentine that truly did me in was the one Amanda sent to Harold. Harold, the most wonderful dog in soapdom. Oh, it was sad when Trevor had to put Harold down.  Harold is always on my list of characters-that-should-come-back-from-dead.  (Although I fear that should he return, Harold would spend most of his time barking out, “Babe is love.”) 

Valentine’s Day in PV wasn’t all sunshine for me.  There was the annoyance of having Jonathan in the same room while Julia made a heart for Edmund.  Even more annoying was Ryan telling Annie the stables were “rebuilt last year” as if they were rebuilt due to termites as opposed to being burned down by Jonathan to cover up Eddie’s murder.  Who would have guessed the Laverys could be that annoying, eh? 

Still, I enjoyed Wednesday’s episode so much that I watched it twice. Happily. 

It was a good solid episode. It was reminiscent of what AMC was, and what it could be again, if only TPTB cared enough to make it so.