July 13, 1998
Catastrophes and big parties! AMC does them both so well. This week, for the first time since the Crystal Ball I found myself not being able to wait to get home from work to watch AMC. OK, I was secretly hoping that somehow Mateo would end up at Holidays and be a casualty of the blast, but it was more than that. This weeks PERFORMER OF THE WEEK goes to all who were involved in the explosion.. from the cast to the crew to the stunt people. Good job folks! The build up was great, with all those people milling around unsuspecting. Then Adam grabs Camille and won't let her go in. Not that she could have actually prevented the blast had she got in there a minute earlier, but the way he was holding onto her made me sick. He had his hand over her mouth and kept telling Jack to arrest her. When she finally got loose she runs into Holidays to tell them all to get out. Then Adam, smart guy that he is, tells everyone to ignore her. Adam, who was worried about his whole family being in the same place at the same time. Even if he thought Camille was making it all up, wouldn't they have been safer outside anyway?
Wasn't it interesting how a twist of one or two valves could do that much damage. And it was very interesting how Holidays ever passed inspection after Hayley and Mateo bought it seeing how easy it is to get the floor to collapse. Unscrewing one hinge was all it took. That place would never pass code. And other than the fact that the boiler blew Holidays up but did little damage to the basement, I enjoyed it. Considering soap opera budgets, the effects were good, especially when Trevor went flying backwards from the blast and when Stuart and Marian fell through the floor. I just loved all the scenes that Edmund had with Amanda. They were so wonderful. Makes me wish they would have some scenes with Edmund and his own children. I loved how Adrian picked up Belinda and carried her to safety. Oh baby, you can carry me anywhere anytime!! Adam is obviously still in love with Liza which I guess we knew anyway, but he was so caring and concerned for her. What confused me was when David was helping her but had to go help others, he told Adam to start CPR, Adam doesn't know how, so David asks the crowd if anyone knows CPR. Tad comes by and says he does. He's so nonchalant about it. He never said anything about it being Liza or come on Liza wake up. Nothing. He did it, she got a pulse and he walked off.
Ryan was so sweet and caring to Gillian. His true feelings finally showing through. But what is going to be wrong with Gillian? Paralysis seems the obvious guess since she complained of her back hurting. Palmer's whole attitude really is bizarre. He's hurt, bleeding out his eyes and cannot see. He realizes that Allie is treating him and he goes off about how he doesn't want that quack treating him. Since when is she a quack? He knows she only faked the school, not the grades. And what was PC talking about when he said his life would have no meaning if he could never see them again? Who or what is them? Just what is Palmer hiding?? And how did Allie get in the kitchen to help them anyway? No one else seemed to be able to get in there. I guess the same way she got in the elevator shaft to save Marian and Stuart when no one else could. And then she gets downstairs too so she could save Jack. I loved how even in a crisis Marian is sultry. She was cracking me up when she was asking Stuart to continue feeling her bones for breaks. I was so happy to see Albert and Kevin milling around outside Holidays after the blast. I wonder what will become of him now... probably nothing.
Let's discuss my biggest pet peeve, the pig headed creep Mateo. Mr. Do As I Say And Don't Question Me. Mateo and Hayley are constantly fighting because he can't seem to tell his wife the truth. Instead of honesty he decided that becoming a tyrant is a better idea. Protect protect protect! That's what he's doing. He's protecting his wife by being a big overbearing jerk who makes demands. He asks Hayley to trust him, Hayley says why should I, you don't trust me. Then Idiot Boy says, "What have I done to make you say that?" Well let's see... he totally disregarded her when she asked him to trust her about Camille. He follows her, he questions everything she does. Sounds like enough to me. Then when they hear about the explosion, he tries to talk Hayley out of going there when everyone she loves there! But at least Hayley is showing some backbone now, well not literally although you can actually see her backbone if you look hard enough. And the worst part of all this is that now that the explosion is over and he still thinks she's in danger (and yes, Camille is dead so he should have trusted her judgement there), she's probably going to be all moony eyed and say how he saved her life and how she will never doubt him again and then I'll have to hurl.
The return of Dixie happened this week. Dix is looking fabulous! Really I don't think I've ever seen her look better. I admit I don't care one way or another about her return. I don't hate her, I don't love her. Her return was somewhat annoying though. First of all, why does Adam have to tell Dixie the whole story about Joy. Tad told her the whole thing when he called her to help him get Joy's autopsy report from the Pigeon Hollow coroner records. So how does she not know all this? How does she not know who Camille is or that Tad knows her when Tad was just in Pigeon Hollow a little over a month ago to have Joy's grave exhumed? And OK, I understand that Adam is trying to get custody of Junior, even though I don't believe he really wants it. I think he just wanted to get him to Pine Valley to protect him, and didn't care how. I do think that Dixie went a little overboard though. She talks about Chandler Mansion giving her the creeps, and how Winifred must be either a saint of a masochist to still be working for Adam. Gee does she forget where she stayed when she left Tad two years ago? Does she forget who helped her get settled in Pigeon Hollow? Why it was Adam! I just loved when she was going on about all the terrible things he did to her (while never mentioned the good things he did for her) and he said, "It's been years Dixie, get over it." Of course the rehash of their history was for the benefit of those who didn't watch back then and would have some idea of how these two are connected. But why only the bad stuff. Adam is not all evil, although he seems like it sometimes. The thing that really confused me though was when Dixie was saying how she was going to get Brooke and start an ex wives club, and said maybe Liza would join too. Adam says "Fortunately Liza is not vindictive." Since when does Adam think that! That's all he thought of her when Camille was haunting him, thinking Liza staged it. So he's come to his senses? Wow, amazing.
Well Allie is quite the snitch these days isn't she? What a loon. I just don't get her. Sure, I wouldn't be too happy if my boyfriend decided to be a sperm donor for his former girlfriend, but he explained over and over that is was his idea. That he offered. She doesn't believe that. That's a loving trusting relationship destined to be together for the long haul. I don't think Jake was wrong to offer to be Liza's sperm donor but he was misguided. He should have thought how Allie would feel about it. Although when he told her about it, she didn't show any kind of reaction. So he thought it was fine with her. And then he takes a page out of Mateo's guide to relationships and gives Allie the it's my way or the highway speech. So Allie finds her perfect opening and tells Ruth about Jake's plan. Now if Jake were my son, I would have smacked him upside the head for talking to me the way he talked to Ruth. He told her he was a doctor and wouldn't take this kind of talk from a nurse! This week Allie continues her snitch ways and tells Adam about Jake's plan to father Liza's baby. My guess for the coming weeks is that Allie and Adam will team up to stop this from happening. I think that they will pose as a couple and go to the fertility clinic to get Adam's cup full of father making juice in there and somehow switch Jake's with Adam's so that Adam ends up being the father of Liza's baby. Yeah honey, that's the way to hold on to a man.
This weeks I NEED TO BE SLAPPED award goes to Brooke and Dimitri. Dimitri for yet again offering to whisk Brooke and Jamie out of the country, and Brooke for accepting. OK, so Phoebe's testimony was damaging and Brooke did go ballistic in the courtroom. But I always thought she was smarter than that. And what about when Jamie came to the courtroom!? Brooke and Tad take him into another room to try and help him understand what is going on and why his mother killed Jim. Tad's brilliant logic that he explained to Jamie was "Sometimes, unfortunately it's necessary." Can't you just see in another year or so when Jamie is about 18 that he kills someone and uses that very logic? His defense could be, hey, my dad said sometimes you gotta! But Brooke fleeing the country... wow, the pillar of the community. And then all these people talking her into it, even Erica?? What is that all about? I guess Tad's brilliant idea about her having some contagious disease will get her out of that mess though.
Now the confused people part. First Stuart. He's confused about Marian. He thinks that she enjoyed Adam's little party for her. I wonder how long it will take him to realize that things will be going good between him and Marian, then he will mention this fateful night and it all changes and Marian walks off. How long till Stuart puts two and two together? Palmer's confused because he said that Pine Valley Hospital should have never let Dr. Hayward go. So PC would rather have a doctor who tries to kill patients but wants Allie prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I find that really odd. And Mike Roy. He actually thought Erica was going to marry him in his hospital room. So he's either really confused or they are giving him more pain medication than he's aware of. I loved how Erica turned the tables on him and brought in the psychiatrist for him. Too bad she ended up admitting that she loves him anyway. And next week I'm confused because when Jack regains consciousness the first thing he does is fake amnesia?? I thought he was through with all the games. Good for Erica on this one! She's going to tell them both where to go and it's not to Linden for a slumber party!
One last thing... this weeks LINE OF THE WEEK. It goes to Tad. When he and Liza were in Holidays before all hell broke loose, she was complaining and ranting about how she should have listened to him in regards to Jake being her sperm donor. Tad says, "I find giving alcohol to a maniac is never a good idea, but can I buy you a drink?" Tad always cracks me up!