The Pine Valley Bulletin

Welcome to Pine Valley's only online newspaper!

Established 1998

March 28, 2005

This week the tunes are my own compilation CD of Punk Tunes (it kicks some major ass!), Luscious Jackson "Fever In Fever Out," (what can I say, after hearing them on that Payless Shoes commercial endlessly, I had to dig out the cd!), Big Audio Dynamite II "The Globe," The Donnas "Spend the Night," and Misfits "Famous Monsters."

This Editorial reflects the shows from March 21 through March 25 and may contain spoiler and/or speculations on storylines. Before I get to a recap of the week, I have to say that it occurred to me one day as I was watching Zach sitting in jail brooding for no apparent reason that he would have made an excellent Marick. And while I'm so done with long lost storylines, this character would have been one hell of a brother for Dimitri. His looks, his sexy mysteriousness, his brooding. The whole package. And then the tie in with Edmund and a revisit of the Edmund/Maria/Dimitri triangle. Hmm, sounds much better to me than this Cambias curse nonsense.

We pick up the action with Ryan finding Jonathan on the floor of his Valley Inn room having just been stabbed by Braden. After rushing him to the hospital, and being sedated, Jonathan starts to babble about a bomb. Ryan is beside himself and tries to get a drugged up Jonathan to give him more information about where this bomb might be. Jonathan just keeps mumbling... "Greenlee, Greenlee" Geez Ryan, you can't get that Braden planted a bomb under Edmund's casket at the Wildwind chapel out of him saying Greenlee over and over again? What's wrong with you!

Over at the funeral they are oblivious to the ticking time bomb that is Edmund's casket. Tad is eulogizing Edmund while it just ticks ticks away. After Tad, it's Brooke's turn to speak. Speaking from the heart she says, "He saved me so many times. He saved me from bad decisions, from being too serious, from quicksand once." It's right about here that Joe's vibrating pager goes off and he is called back to the hospital. How weird is it to find that Ryan had Joe called because he wants Jonathan revived so he can find out where the bomb is. Joe passes some smelling salts under Jonathan's nose. Um, couldn't a nurse do that? An intern? Did they really need to call the Chief of Staff out of a funeral for that? At any rate, Jonathan spits out enough information for Ryan to realize the bomb is at the chapel and with his shadow Aidan in tow, they race to the chapel to get everyone out.

Unfortunately they don't get there in time to stop Sammy Bonaduce from slamming Maria all over the funeral to all who will listen. As he starts out nicely talking about how much he's going to miss his father, he quickly morphs into the snot from hell when he tells the whole chapel that his mother wrote Edmund off for another man, the man who killed him. Then proceeds to tell everyone that Edmund is dead because of her. Nice. Finally showing some sense, Anita pulls Sam out of the chapel to finally shut him up. A devastated Maria sits there in shock, thinking that it is her fault that Edmund is dead. She still believes Zach did it. Tad and Brooke are there to try and comfort Maria. And it's here where I have to say again that I want RealMama Santos back!!! She would have been wonderful in this scene. Instead we have silent FauxMama. She never said a word, just gave that stern and disapproving look over to Maria, and left the chapel with Sam and Anita. The Mama we know always had plenty to say and she certainly wouldn't have approved of Sam disrespecting the church the way he did. Whether she believed Maria was at fault or not, you don't publicly attack your mother, especially at a funeral.

Suddenly as if out of nowhere, Ryan bursts into the funeral proclaiming that everyone must leave immediately. My favorite part of this was the barely audible comment by Palmer. Ryan is screaming for everyone to get out and in the background I hear Palmer's voice saying, "Man, have you no respect?" So classic Palmer! But after a small protest from Maria, Ryan tells her that there is a bomb and she leaves the chapel taking everyone to the Wildwind living room. Ryan wants Ethan to help him remove Edmund's casket from the chapel, but as the bomb squad arrives they will not allow them to remove it. Turns out, the bomb is attached to it.

Over in the living room, Ryan comes back to tell them that the bomb squad was able to dismantle the bomb in time and everything is ok. Ethan, like a broken record, declares that Zach did this from jail. Maria, who needs to blame Zach agrees. Myrtle isn't buying it and Ryan is like, "what the hell are you people talking about??" and tells them that it was Braden, not Zach. Ahh did you see poor Ethan's face drop? He was ready to manufacture a way for Zach to have had someone from the outside come and try to bomb the chapel because just killing Edmund wasn't enough. Poor Ethan, I think even he is starting to believe his own lies.

While all this is going on, Erica is at the jail confronting Zach once again with the new information she got from Lily. Seems Zach is not the one that Lily saw kill Edmund. She tells Zach that she knows he's lying about killing Edmund and accuses him of doing it to test Ethan. Well that's just sick and twisted. Then again, isn't that what the Cambias family is about? Erica tries to convince him that this game of his is dangerous and putting others in danger but Zach holds firm to Ethan and Maria wanting him to be guilty so he is giving them what they want. Well Ms. Kane isn't going to stand by and watch this happen any longer. She hightails it over to Wildwind. Uh oh.

Jack is busy grabbing Greenlee's arm for about the fortieth time that day and telling her she can't be around Ryan until Braden is caught when Erica bursts in. You could almost hear the collective "oh no" through the room, even from Erica's friends. Erica goes straight for Ethan and tells him it's time he told the truth, that Zach did not kill Edmund. She practically dares him to tell the truth, but Maria and Kendall are right there to defend Ethan's word. Oy, how naive can you be? After Erica and Maria spar a little more, and having tired of grabbing Greenlee's arm, Jack now grabs Erica and drags her out of the room. Jack is not too pleased with Erica's outburst, that is until she tells him the new information she got out of Lily. Say what you will about Erica, she's not the most subtle and her timing is really off, but she wouldn't make up that Zach was innocent just to get Ethan away from Kendall and hurt Maria on the day of her husband's funeral.

The voice of reason on all things, Myrtle, has slipped out of the room and headed over to the jail. Seems she wants to hear for herself that Zach is innocent. She tells him she knows that he's innocent. This time, Zach doesn't deny it. Not even he can lie to Myrt! But he tells her that he didn't see who killed Edmund, that he was unconscious at the time. He assures her though, that he has an idea who it was and that the police should have him in custody soon. I wonder who he thinks did it. As far as we know, he doesn't know anything about Braden does he?

Kendall is furious with Erica and tells her she won't listen to her lies about Ethan, that Ethan swore on his love for her that he was telling the truth. Now it's Erica who is furious that Ethan would do such a thing. But Kendall tells Erica that this mission she's on to get Ethan out of her life and running over to her with Zach's lies is pathetic. Erica retorts with, "Oh, you know what's pathetic? What's pathetic is your blind need to be loved." Oh that had to hurt. It's true though. Kendall's had enough and tells Erica to get out. Poor Kendall, she is on her way to big heartbreak when the truth is finally revealed. My prediction? She jumps right into JR's bed.

At their office, Aidan and Tad are putting it all together. Aidan is on the track that I had actually been thinking. Braden is the shooter who shot at Ryan during the murder game, Bobby saw him. Bobby was blackmailing Braden and got greedy, thus getting himself beaten to a bloody pulp. Edmund hears this voice on a cell months ago saying that he is going to Pine Valley to kill someone. The voice sounded familiar to Edmund. Edmund knows Braden. But they don't put that part of it together, Aidan believes that when Edmund used Bobby's cell to call the blackmailer, the voice he heard was the same. Personally I like my theory better, that since Edmund knew Braden that is why the voice sounded familiar. Anyway, that's besides the point. So Edmund tells Braden, presumably, that he is taking over where Bobby left off. So Braden, allegedly, comes to Wildwind and eliminates Edmund. Makes perfect sense to me. And wouldn't you know it, they find Braden's fingerprints on the bomb.

Ahh now we get the part were I get a zillion emails saying that Jonathan is really Braden and has a dual personality. I can honestly say that I don't know, which I love, but this is my hope for the storyline... the show is doing all they can to make us THINK that Jonathan is behind everything, as Braden. But I think it would be an excellent twist to have there be a Braden all along. It's like leading one way and then pulling the rug out. Personally, I am really enjoying Jeff Branson's portrayal of Jonathan and I think that if there is no Braden, then how can they keep Jeff on the show? This kind of mental illness, it's not fixable by Dr. House Calls. He will have to be committed. So my fear is, if there really is no Braden and Jonathan is really off his nut, then we lose Jeff. There are tons of unanswered questions and lots of explaining that needs to be done in this storyline. I call this a winner!! It's not all cut and dry and totally clear. It could go any number of ways and that is what I think is the best part of the whole storyline. I do know one thing, there is an actual person playing Braden. But is it really Braden or do we see what Jonathan sees, you know what I mean? Like the movie Identity.

Back at Wildwind, 15 year old Sam (yeah right) and 12 year old Maddie (uh huh, and I'm 21) have declared that they are moving out and leaving the country. It hasn't happened in awhile but I don't know two more deserving of a dual I NEED TO BE SLAPPED award. What a couple of snotty little brats. Maddie, who was calling Maria "Angel Mommy" a short year ago, tells her that she got a passport when Edmund took her to Spain while she was busy in the desert being Maureen with her boyfriend. Maria tries to reason with them, but then Sam pipes in with how if they had any respect for her they would stay. Maria is getting upset and frustrated and tells them she will call the airport and they will not be able to travel. Braddie pipes in with "We'll tell our side. Someone will take pity on us and save us from you!" I can't believe these snots, but once again it's Myrtle to the rescue when she returns to find this all happening and tells those two ungrateful brats to go into the living room, sit down and listen to what their mother has to say. No one, and I mean NO ONE defies Myrt. Those kids grab their bags and go back into the living room. Maria tries very hard to plead her case, taking all the blame for everything that has happened and she shouldn't have. It wasn't her fault. Even if Zach had killed Edmund, which he didn't, it wouldn't have been Maria's fault. But she tells them that Edmund was completely blameless and she has to live with all the mistakes she's made. She takes all the blame and tells them they could be furious with each other, but still love each other too. Maria continues, telling them they need to stick together now more than ever, not be torn apart and tells them that Edmund forgave her. She doesn't expect them to right away, but if he could, then eventually she thinks that they could as well. They finally agree not to leave and skulk back up to their rooms. Can I slap them again?? Can I!?

Back at Jack's, Reggie and Jack want to question Lily further. There is just something missing that they can't figure out. Show of hands, how many of us sitting in the cheap seats have yelled at them to ask her just about Edmund and not phrasing it as "the man in the wheelchair"? Nope, they never get it. The ask her yet again if she saw the man in the wheelchair get hit. She finally expands on her answer of "no" and says that he wasn't in a wheelchair, that he got up and he walked. They're all shocked and continue to ask Lily questions but she gets upset and stops short of telling them who was that clocked Edmund. Reggie takes Lily to school and Jack leaves with Greenlee to go question Ethan.

Maria thanks Myrtle for her help and then rushes out before Myrtle has a chance to tell her about the conversation she had with Zach. She heads over to Jack's, who asked her to stop by so they could go over Edmund's will (the will, when that finally is read, a lot of things will become clearer for Maria). Instead of finding Jack though, Maria finds Erica. Oh my, this is not the best time for Maria to run into Erica. She's still in full on bitch mode and has absolutely no sympathy for Maria. I'm sorry, but to me this is just so unlike Erica. Even when she has a feud with someone, she's human when humanity is called for. Even if Erica believes that Maria slept with Zach, she stills knows how much Maria loved Edmund and would be hurting. So Erica's behavior through all this is pretty annoying. I love her feuds with Maria and Brooke, but this was over the top even for Erica. Well it turns out that Maria is not in the mood for Erica either and is about to leave when Erica hits her with the new revelation that Edmund could walk. Maria is appalled and sickened that Erica would jump on Zach's bandwagon, but here's the clincher, Erica didn't know that Zach knew this! Erica taunts Maria with how Edmund must have been keeping it a secret and what a pain the chair must have been. This is the part I loved, Maria asks Erica if Jack knows how she threw herself at Zach in Las Vegas and begged him to have sex with her, but Zach rejected her because he's not interested in liquored up old has beens and that threw her over the edge. OH that was beautiful even though she totally made it up. But just seeing Erica's reaction to all that was priceless. Erica tells her she knows full well that none of that ever happened. Maria's point is made when she says, just like the lies you say about me never happened yet it never stops you from spreading it all over town. She's got you there Erica. But Erica can't and won't back down and continues to taunt Maria and asks her what her bond with Ethan is that she would just so blindly take his word. This time though, it's not Myrtle to the rescue, it's Brooke. The three spar now, with Erica being Uber Bitch and Maria and Brooke unfortunately being blind to the truth that Erica is slapping them in the face with. Maybe if it were delivered in such a cold and hateful way she would have had more success. But Erica is absolutely torturing Maria with the information, while telling her that she's trying to help her. Brooke delivers this weeks LINE OF THE WEEK when she says, "You are hate and spite with an expensive haircut."

Meanwhile Jack and Greenlee catch up with Ethan and Kendall. Greenlee goes right over to Ethan and socks him in the gut, calling him a liar and how the killer is still on the loose because of him. It's interesting that Ethan's bent on revenge is more important than a killer being at large. How do you fit that logic into your thinking. Oh right, we've already established that Ethan has lied so much he now believes his own lies. Kendall is not at all thrilled to be hearing the same old tired "Ethan lied" story again, but Greenlee takes her inside for a private chat. Yet again we hear Kendall say that she believes Ethan, she stands by him, he'd never lie... blah blah blah. Kendall tells Greenlee that they are better enemies than friends and that she wants Greenlee out of her life. Bad move. And outside, Jack is trying to convince Ethan to come clean, and of course, he plays dumb. Jack and Greenlee leave, having gotten nowhere with either Kendall or Ethan.

At the Boathouse, Maria and Brooke are trying to calm down after being hit by a HurriKane. Brooke tells Maria she wished she had gotten there sooner so she could staple Erica's mouth shut. But Maria tells her that the theory about Edmund walking didn't come from Erica originally, Zach is the one who told her that and how Edmund trapped them in the shed at the casino. The wheels are turning in Brooke's head now. A trap? She knew Edmund was plotting. Maria goes on to say that the trap was to catch her and Zach together, but it never happened. She never slept with Zach and thinks that Zach staged the whole thing anyway. But the look on Brooke's face is definitely a give away. She's got something to say. She tells Maria that maybe Zach was right. Oh this is not what Maria wants to hear right now. She's committed to telling Maria everything now and starts out by telling her that the day of the fire, the day Edmund was killed, she had a very uneasy conversation with him. She said that he was in that dark place they both know he has, and that he was plotting and brooding. She tells Maria that he wasn't the man she fell in love with. He wanted to see her suffer. Maria sits in shock as Brooke continues and tells her that Edmund never withdrew the divorce petition and told her that he was only staying with her until he could nail Zach then he was going to toss her out after one final surprise. And now she's wondering if it was true that he could walk too. Maria is absolutely appalled and starts lashing out at Brooke. Ahh denial, it's a scary thing. Maria is so wracked with guilt that she can't see what an a horror show Edmund was in the end. Unfortunately she lashes out at the one person who has stood by her throughout everything, telling Brooke that the truth really is that Brooke hates her because Edmund chose her not once, but twice and she was jealous. She tells Brooke that she is lying about him now so she can once and for all have him all to herself since she never got over him. The SCENE OF THE WEEK progresses with Brooke telling Maria some cold hard truths. She tells Maria that she did love Edmund and she did hate her for what she did to him, that in the last few months, he changed. Maria tries to blame his changes on the paralysis, but Brooke tells her it wasn't the paralysis that changed him, it was her. He fought for his life with her and even though she may not have slept with Zach, she wanted to and Edmund knew it. She tells Maria that she betrayed Edmund in her heart, after all he did to be with her. Maria keeps insisting that she loved Edmund, but Brooke's final blow had to be the one that hurt the most, "I know you didn't kill Edmund and probably Zach Slater didn't, either, but all the same, he died because of you. All that love and you turned it into hate, and it destroyed him, and the only thing he could think of was getting back at you and Zach. And it overcame him. And in the end, he paid for it with his life. So, yes, you are right. I am the only one left loving Edmund, because you don't love him. You haven't loved him for a long time. You just haven't had the guts to admit it." Yikes. That's a pain that's gonna linger.

Random Comments:

Lily caught onto the guard Aidan hired to keep an eye on her and thinks someone is after her. Um, hello Steve the bodyguard. How would you like to stick around and be Simone's new love interest?

When Erica calls Kendall to talk to her some more about Ethan, Ethan takes the phone and hangs it up. You know, more and more I'm just hating Ethan and I didn't like him that much to begin with. Now he's trying to turn Kendall against Erica and Greenlee, telling her they need her to always be wrong so they can always be right. Yeah whatever. Unfortunately Kendall eats it all up.

Simone is concerned about Greenlee and feels left out because the people she thought were her friends, don't fill her in on what is going on. She didn't even know anything about Braden. Although it was cute when Tad told her about him and she said, "There's another Lavery? Is he just as hot?" Gots to love Simone!

While we're still on Simone, she takes it upon herself to go see Jonathan and question him about being in cahoots with Braden. Jonathan assures her he wants Braden stopped too.

Creepy Jonathan appears at Greenlee's apparent, scaring the crud out of her. But he is just there to assure her that he wants Braden stopped and needs to find Ryan. He tells her how sorry he is for everything and that he wants to make up for all his mistakes. Greenlee isn't buying this, and tells him it's too late for sorries. Greenlee rushes out to try and find Ryan.

Jonathan struggles to leave too, but Braden finds him and grabs him by the neck. Lily sees all this go down.

Sam has decided that he needs to see Zach, the man who killed his father. He tells Zach that Maria hates him for what he did. Zach tells him that she should hate him and that she needs him and Maddie now more than ever. Sam is kind of confused when Zach apologizes to him and tells him he wishes it had never happened.

 

After getting a note from Braden that said "First clue. 'As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.' The game begins. Braden," Ryan realizes that he has to go back to Des Moines, the place they grew up. He finds the old apartment above the dry cleaner shop condemned and goes in. Seeing the place he never wanted to see again and abandoned so long ago brought back a flood of memories for Ryan. As he sat down and watched his childhood unfold in front him, we are treated to an amazing scene of Ryan's pain. He didn't even do anything but sit there but Ryan's pain was so real that he gets this weeks PERFORMER OF THE WEEK award. Before too long, Ryan is brought out of his walk down memory lane when Tad and Aidan arrive. How is it that they not only knew where he went, but exactly where to find him? I don't know, I guess that's why they are PI's and I'm not. Ryan isn't exactly thrilled to see them and wants to handle this alone. But they aren't about to leave and they walk around the apartment looking for clues. Ryan finds an old childhood toy, a monkey that plays the cymbals. As he tells them how much is father hated the toy, a powdery mist shoots out and hits Ryan in the face, knocking him out. How about we call that the CHEESIEST SCENE OF THE WEEK. Ryan hallucinates that Braden is there taking his hand, but when Aidan and Tad get him to come to, there is no Braden there. Ryan realizes that Braden booby trapped the apartment in the ways they used to plan to hurt their father. They find the second clue, "Walk the boards, eat your fill. See the illusion, gamble it all. No escape but to kill." It means nothing to anyone but Ryan. He knows exactly what it means.

At the prison, Krystal is having a pretty hard time. The inmates are not her friends. This Di person, the wigged wonder, calls up JR and tells him that Krystal needs to see him immediately. When she goes to see who her visitors one of the inmates slips a handmade knife on her so when she moves a little too much, which she does when JR pushes her buttons, it falls out of her pocket. JR immediately accuses her of calling him down there so she could kill him. Oh come on Junior, even you can't believe that! But Krystal is taken into custody by the security guards and is about to be tossed into solitary. But before that can happen, Di comes forward and tells them the knife was planted on her and that Chandler overreacted. She saw the whole thing and Krystal never threatened him.

David cuts a deal with Adam that he will get him information about Colby in exchange for JR backing off Babe for good. Adam, in typical Chandler form, agrees because as we all know, the Chandlers are all about the Chandlers. As in JR is about JR. Adam is about Adam. You get the idea. The most hilarious part of this whole thing is when JR comes up with a way to keep Babe from coming to Adam III's birthday party and Adam tells him to stop being so bent on revenge and plots. OMG, pot say hello to the kettle! Even JR isn't buying this coming from Adam. He tells JR to focus on Little Adam instead. HA. Oh... hang on, I can't type and laugh at the same time. JR reluctantly agrees to this. But what he's actually doing is plotting without Adam's knowledge now. And here's the latest scheme. Get ready because this is truly the stupidest thing ever. JR and Palmer rush Little Adam to the ER when they discover that he is ill. They have Winifred tell Babe when she arrives for the party that the baby was taken to the hospital. Babe rushes there to find out what is wrong with Little Adam. Once there, David is on floor scrubbing duty and asks her what is going on. She tells him and they find the doctor on call, but the doctor refuses to give them any information about his patient. Excuse me, custody or not, the mother gets to know why her son is in the hospital They argue with him but then take it upon themselves to don scrubs and masks and follow Adam. Turns out that Little Adam's party is in the board room at the hospital. This is the brilliant idea to keep Babe away? That was the dumbest thing ever. They knew that she would just go there. They refuse to allow her to stay, but then Joe arrives and he tells them to stop using his hospital for their feud and that he he will not allow them to keep a mother from her child. Babe gets a few minutes with Little Adam.

JR sure isn't too bright is he? To me, a more reasonable solution to not wanting Babe to be at the party would be to purposely move it to a kids place, you know like a Chuck E Cheese type thing or something. Wouldn't it stand to reason that the visitation agreement would state that the visitations are at the child's home. If the party were purposely moved without being sneaky and underhanded, she wouldn't have been able to go anyway. But JR proves himself to be a child with nothing but hate to motivate him. Here's a suggestion, maybe people would take JR more seriously if he didn't sponge off his father. This is a guy who is not standing on his own two feet and doing nothing to better himself. He gets Jamie tossed out of college by paying off the Dean. He's never once tried to better himself, he just throws around money and lives under daddy's roof, working for daddy's company. What a pathetic excuse for a man.

This weeks AMC gets a B+ This whole Lavery brothers saga is keeping me interested and it was a long time coming. I've been waiting years for Ryan's past to be explored!