December 21, 1998
Who to slap, who to slap? So many are worthy. Let's begin with the custody storyline. Trevor decides to use the bargaining chip of asking for sole custody, while no one thinks that is at all possible. But since Raquel tried to flee and Trevor caught her, he decides to use it. And amazingly enough, Mateo wins and does get sole temporary custody of Max while Raquel, the only parent the kid has ever known, gets supervised visits! I'm watching this thinking... no way! This could not happen! Then suddenly we see Adam having a big old snifter of brandy with the judge, discussing how he would like the final custody hearing fixed as well. Now it all makes sense. But Adam is only one of the people in this storyline I would like to slap silly.
How about Hayley? AMC gave her a big old stupid hat this week. First Mateo is feeling a little guilty about winning. He never thought he would win sole custody, and then Hayley says, "Mateo, you're doing the right thing." Excuse me? Taking a child from their mother is not the right thing in this case! Now, I don't like Raquel, but there is no way that taking Max from her is right. Then she calls up Dixie for advice on being a stepmom. Hayley tells Dixie that she stole a toy from Sam's Christmas presents to give Max and Dixie says "Brilliant!" The brainy and the brainier. Yeah Dix, stealing from a child is really brilliant. So then Hayley asks Dixie what she should do if Max gets tired, or if he gets hungry. I hope someone tells Edmund not to have Auntie Hayley babysit for Maddie and Sam if she doesn't know your supposed to feed a child if they are hungry! And geez is her martyr act getting old! She's always watching from the outside. She doesn't quite belong in the picture with Max, Mateo and Raquel. But she never says anything, she just agrees quietly and goes about her day.
Then there's Mateo. He's so happy that he gets to have his son. The man finds nothing odd about getting granted sole custody after never having been a father at all. So Max wants his mommy and Mateo calls Raquel and she ends up staying the night. In the morning she gets a call from her lawyer and Mother of the Year Hayley is surprised that she would still be fighting the ruling. When Mateo says, "wouldn't you?" Hayley actually says no! No, she wouldn't fight to get her own child back!! She tells Mateo that Raquel is going to use Max wanting his mommy against them. Mateo has these words of wisdom, "No judge is going to make a decision on the basis of one night." Think there Matt old boy, he based his decision on Raquel's one attempt to leave Pine Valley. Of course, since the judge is corrupt, it won't happen, but still. And again Mateo... call your mother and tell her you have a kid for goodness sakes!!!
While Edmund is on my last nerve for other stuff, he actually seems to be the only one in this whole custody thing that is thinking clearly. It looks to me like he is actually on Raquel's side, which to me seems to be the only logical place to be. There is no way on earth that she should have lost her child. But when he told her "children are a joy," all I could think of was, how would you know Edmund. He's never with his kids. He said he hasn't been a single father for long, but it's been a year and a half! You'd think he was a pro. I suppose if he ever spent time with them, he would be.
Now back to Dixie for a minute. Adam is giving her the third degree on where she's been and figured out she wasn't in Paris at all. When Braden comes to visit, Wooden tells him that he and Dixie are having an affair and she doesn't want anyone to know about. Adam gave one of this week's contenders for line of the week when he said to Dixie, "Your taste in men is as questionable as ever." He should know, she married him! But when he talked to her about robbing the cradle and Wooden being jailbait, I really had to laugh! Dixie was 18 years old when Adam married her!! Besides, Wooden doesn't look younger than Dixie to me. OK, so later Dixie actually figures out that Adam put the fix in on the custody hearing and calls him on it. She tells him she's going to spill to Mateo and Hayley what he did. So he counters by telling her that he'll tell Tad about her and Wooden if she does. So what does Dixie do? She backs down!!! Her own lame ass cover story is more important than the welfare of a child. Nice. So while they all ... Mateo, Hayley, Dixie, and Adam deserve a big collective slap, someone else is more worthy this week.
Now onto the storyline where Edmund should be slapped, the rape story. At the Valley Inn, Gillian is waiting for Rine (that's how she says it) and sees Edmund and Kit having a wonderful time, laughing and carrying on. Well, Gilly in her infinite wisdom decides to go over and have a chat with them. As things get heated, Rine shows up just as Edmund is grabbing Gillian and Rine decks him! I have to say, I loved that moment quite a bit since Edmund has needed it for some time. Well Jack is there lurking in the shadows ready to pounce and asks Edmund if he wants to press assault charges. Edmund says yes he does and Rine is hauled away to the clink! Oh Eddie, I cannot wait to see the look on your face when it's proved that Rine is not the rapist! And then, Kit and Edmund go right back to their happy go lucky little dinner as if nothing ever happened.
Rine is thrown in front of a judge. As Gillian rants about his innocence, the judge gives us another contender for this week's line of the week when he says to Trevor, "Counselor, why have I suddenly entered the Tower of Babel?" Then, as I wonder who fixed this hearing, Rine's bail is set at $500,000 for punching Edmund! That seems mighty high to me. Gillian vows to get that money, $50,000 is what she needs. She goes straight to David for help since Dimitri is no where to be found. Once she realizes what David has in mind in exchange for the money, Gillian tries to call Hayley for help. Hayley totally blows her off which irks me to no end. So, knowing that David wants sex for the money, Gillian reluctantly agrees, thinking she has no other choice. So for turning Gillian into a prostitute, David gets this weeks I NEED TO BE SLAPPED AWARD. The man is a slime. I don't get it really. What is his game? I'd be willing to bet that now that he gave Gillian that money, he'll blackmail her into sex whenever he wants to in exchange for not telling Rine about it, even though she goes to give the money back. And he really enjoyed himself even though she was disgusted the whole time. He was so cold and careless. It was really quite sickening.
Jack goes to the jail cell to see Rine and is totally out of line! He tells Rine he will drop the assault charge if Rine gives him a blood sample for a DNA test. Rine says no at first, since Trevor told him not to. But as Jack rants about notoriety and how the bad publicity will effect Gillian so Rine gives in. Jack calls in Kyle the lab tech to get a sample of Rine's blood that they can compare to the DNA sample that was found on Monica's... I mean Kit's dress. Just then Gillian shows up and thinks that they are giving her Rine a lethal injection! Rine just watches Gillian go on and on, amused and touched by the whole thing. Once they finally get a blood sample from Rine, Kyle tells Jack that it will take about 10 days to get the results. Wow, it only took Jack 5 minutes to get the results of his DNA test. Maybe Jack should have called Jake to the jail to take that sample!
So there was Gillian, arriving at the jail to spring Rine after selling her soul to David for the money and Rine had already cut the deal and got himself sprung. After they leave the jail, they have no where to go, so they head to the Boathouse. Rine and Gillian get this weeks SCENE OF THE WEEK for these scene's in the Boathouse. They are finding their way back to each other. I guess it's pretty obvious that David is going to be a big stumbling block in their road to happiness though. But it seems to me, if Gilly paid attention she could really ruin things for David too. I know she hasn't noticed at all that he's smitten with Liza because she's too busy thinking he's in love with her, but if she somehow manages to tell Liza about her and David, that would totally ruin his chances with her.
Back at the jail, Trevor arrives to see Rine and Jack tells him that Rine was set free for giving a blood sample. Trev is mighty peeved about all this! Then Trevor tells Jack what we've all been thinking since this whole thing started... Jack should take himself off this case! Jack refuses of course, it's not a conflict of interest, no way. Sure Jack. He tells Trevor that he knows Rine is guilty, and when he looks into Rine's eyes, he sees a rapist. That's amazing Jack. Just last week you looked into Kit's eyes and knew she was telling the truth about being raped. Maybe you should join Janet's psychic friends network!
This weeks PERFORMER OF THE WEEK goes to Adam. He was all over the spectrum this week, from buying off the judge, to blackmailing Dixie, to being the caring doting friend to Liza, to enlisting Marian's help in his quest to win Liza back. He may have even convinced Stuart that he's not up to anything devious. It seems like Adam's only obstacle to getting back with Liza is Tad. David thinks he's an obstacle but so far he doesn't seem to be a contender at all. But Tad on the other hand, he keeps reminding Liza how awful Adam can be. When he started in on Liza about her taking Adam with her when she has the amnio Liza said, "Don't you have a show to tape, something to edit, some woman to hit on?" Tad replied with, "Yes, all of the above." But that still didn't stop him from worrying about her. But then Adam almost messed up big time when he was talking to Liza. He was talking about how maybe if they had done these tests when she was pregnant before, they wouldn't have lost the child. But the way he said it, he started out by saying, "The reason our first baby..." Oops!! At least he caught himself pretty quick and it doesn't seem like Liza even noticed. Then, at the hospital when Tad confronted Adam and his sneaky ways, Adam gives us yet another contender for line of the week when he says, "You know, it's really not too late for you to start reading something more challenging than comic books." Zing! My one question about this whole thing is, when Liza is actually having the amnio, why is she in a room that has a window in the door! David came by and peered right in at the procedure!!
I loved how Dr. Joe came out of the woodwork to give grief to Hayward. I knew that was coming. There was no way that Joe was going to sit idly by and accept David back onto the staff of Pine Valley Hospital. You go Joe!! And of course, David is cocky right back at Joe. Cocky seems to have been David's main personality trait this week. From what he did to Gillian, to his confrontation with Joe, to telling Dixie how some other doctor might be able to help her, but he will definitely help her. The only part of his arrogant rant to Dixie that was bearable was when he told her she should tell Tad about her condition. She and Hayley should be duking it out to see who could be the bigger martyr! Sheesh.
Well that only leaves us with a few random comments... Trevor and Janet seem to have this thing about feeding dogs raisin bread. What's up with that? Ok, they did explain that they had no more dog food in the house now, but couldn't they find something better than raisin bread to feed the pooch? And just you watch this week... that cute little dog that Amanda insists is ugly is going to change her mind this week when he does do something heroic, just like I said last week! Damn I'm good!
Jack is off to be with Lily after she was in a rather serious car accident. Jack claims he's a good father to her, but this is the first time I've heard her name mentioned in months. In case you're wondering, Walt Willey is on a 6 week leave from AMC because he and his wife just had a baby in real life. So that is why he'll really be gone.
And without further ado, this weeks LINE OF THE WEEK. There were a lot of contenders this week, but the winner goes to Tad. While talking to Opal at the hospital sun porch, she asks him if he has seen Adrian. Tad, not knowing that Adrian will soon be found out to be his brother, could care less where Adrian is. Opal almost blows it by telling him he should care. When Tad asks her why, she stumbles and says that it was his bag that Adrian tripped over when he broke his ankle. Tad says, "Spies are supposed to have eyes in the back of their heads aren't they? Yours obviously is myopic and cursed with two left feet."