The scenes between Jack and Erica were really rather poignant. While Erica has had memorable pairings with many men -- and I mean that in a nice way, not in a finger-wagging judgmental way -- at the end of the day (or the end of the series), it's going to be Erica and Jack... together forever. You can make what you will of the doppelganger storyline and question how Erica's friends and family didn't know that Jane was not the real Erica. There was, however, one good thing that came out of the storyline: Jack and Jane did not sleep together.
On the surface, that may not sound like a monumental statement. Certainly if you're a fan of Jack and Erica together, you wouldn't have wanted Jack to stray. I'm looking at it simply from the point of storytelling. Would we really want to be subjected to weeks and months of "You couldn't tell the difference between my body and an imposter's?" I didn't mind so much when David commented that there were differences between Erica and Jane's, um, techniques. That was said with dirty intent, and I'm a sucker for double entendre.
Getting back to why I am saying all of this, I didn't realize how good of a thing the non-do was until Erica expressed how hurt she was that Jack hadn't realized that Jane was a fraud sooner, noting that Jane and Jack had slept in the same bed. "And that is all that we did in that bed," Jack replied. Such a simple reply, but the meaning was huge.
Had AMC not been canceled, might Jack and Jane have done the dirty deed? Possibly. Hmm... probably. It's tough to say because not only were storylines altered because of the cancellation, but we also had a change in writing teams added to the mix. At this point, it doesn't do any good to try to figure that out. I'm just glad that everything turned out the way that it did.
On a side note, not once did we see Jack and Erica sauntering down the Champs-Élysées or walking along the Seine. I am beginning to think that maybe they weren't really in Paris and were just in a set at the All My Children studio in Los Angeles! But Jack said he'd gotten that little cake that the camera zoomed in on so unnecessarily from a patisserie somewhere in Paris... they wouldn't mislead us, would they?
While Erica was trying to restore some sort of semblance of order to her life, one of her daughters saw her life unraveling and another's was blooming with new love. We'll get the happy, sappy stuff out of the way first and focus on Bianca.
I'm so glad that Bianca has again found someone to love. I rooted for Bianca in each of her previous relationships. Okay, I confess that I wasn't a fan of Bianca and Zarf. There's a "smooshed name" combination that would perfectly express how I felt about the coupling, but that's neither here nor there. I wanted Bianca and Frankie to succeed. I wanted Bianca and Maggie to live happily ever after... and Bianca and Lena... and Bianca and Reese.
I'm still not overly thrilled that an existing character became bisexual overnight, but what's done is done. Bianca and Marissa care for each other and want to spend their lives together, so I'll get behind it. I have mixed emotions about the consummation of their relationship. It was such an abrupt story point that I practically tripped over it on the way to the computer to type up this week's column. "Hey there, baby. The guy who secretly fathered one of your children and nearly tore apart your family just came back from the dead. Let's go back to my hotel and do it," Marissa purred.
Maybe that's just the way it played out in my head. It was so in your face, that it was equally awkward that there wasn't an actual lovemaking scene -- or maybe it just seemed that way since Ryan and Greenlee got one. It was almost as if the writers were making a point of showing that they can do anything they want now that ABC isn't interfering in their storytelling, but then hit the brakes before going all in. Maybe when AMC moves to the Internet and/or cable, the playing field will be a little more level.
I'm sure that most of you have an opinion about that last paragraph. So fire up your email machine and send me a message to let me know what you thought of the big Minx scene. Was it hot and steamy or not at all dreamy? Maybe, like a reader named Gloria, you hated the whole thing. "How disgusting," Gloria wrote. "Bianca is in love every five minutes with yet another woman. Why does AMC push this garbage down viewers' throats?" I think it is worth noting that Bianca isn't the only character to have fallen in love with more than one person -- almost everyone on the canvas seems to have fallen in love with someone new "every five minutes." Click here to send an email, or you can wait until you're finished with the rest of the column -- I'll have the link there, too.
Kendall seemed much more excited about Zach's un-death than Tad did about Dixie's return. Yeah, Tad was overjoyed to see that Dixie hadn't really been felled by pancakes -- but he didn't do the kind of cartwheels that Kendall did. Heck, Kendall even bought balloons! I'm sure that fans of Kendall and Griffin are ticked off about that, but I don't think that Kendall's feelings for Griffin are (or were) the same sort of feelings that Tad has for Cara.
"You took care of me in a way that no one else could," Kendall told Griffin before knocking him to the ground and stomping on him on her way to visit with Zach. This all leads to the unanswerable question: Did Kendall really love Griffin or were those feelings a combination of loneliness and gratitude for Griffin saving her life? I'll let you discuss that amongst yourselves and remind you that the feedback link is coming at the end of the column.
I was a little ticked off by Griffin's reaction to Zach's resurrection. There was Zach being rolled into the hospital on a gurney and Griffin instantly knew what was going on. It was a hospital -- people are rolled into the emergency room all the time. Zach was a good thirty feet away with his head turned to the side, and Griffin knew exactly what was going on. No "Is that Zach?" reaction. There was always the specter of Zach's un-death hanging over everybody, but it still wasn't real enough for Griffin to know what was going on without missing a beat.
JR is giving Dixie a hell of a time about coming back from the dead twice. The first time, Dixie really did hide the fact that she wasn't dead -- I'll give him that. This time around, though, it wasn't as though Dixie could tweet to let everyone know that she was alive. "Pancakes didn't kill me. Being held by @DavidHayward. How waffle." What was she supposed to do -- bang out a Morse code SOS message on the pipes at Oakhaven?
Drunken JR knows all the right things to say to really hit a nerve. He reminded Dixie that she'd slept with David and hid the fact that she was pregnant. He also refused to let his mother lump everything under the heading of a mistake. "A mistake is using your salad fork for an entrée -- or forgetting to take your library book back," JR snarled.
In all of his nastiness -- including a later jab at not wanting to let his son be "raised by two lesbians" -- JR also flashed some vulnerability. It's never a good idea to make excuses, but you could really see how hurt JR was by Dixie not being around for him. He's dealt with a lot of loss. It's not just Dixie's double death, but also the death of Babe, and dealing with a father that maybe didn't care for JR the way that JR wanted to be cared for.
I have to wonder what AMC will do with the Chandler family when it moves to the Internet. Jacob Young is headed back to The Bold and the Beautiful, David Canary (Adam and Stuart) retired, Kelly Ripa (Hayley) is busy with her morning talk show, Robin Christopher's Skye is now a Quartermaine on General Hospital. I can't imagine there not being a Chandler presence as AMC moves forward.
Come to think of it, a lot of the core families are not all that present. The Cortlandts are pretty much gone. The Tylers and Wallingfords -- outta here. The Martins are also kind of scarce, and if Amanda's premonition that "something's gonna happen" is any indication, the entire town might be gone in a matter of weeks.
Amanda's "experience" has prompted a lot of reader feedback. Some have questioned if Amanda's ethereal encounter is a nod to the show's cancellation -- or maybe to the fact that the show has been picked up by Prospect Park. Fans had mourned All My Children's death, but now it has been given an afterlife, of sorts. There have also been one or two comments that perhaps everyone in Pine Valley was killed by the tornadoes a few years back and this is some sort of Lost-esque ending where everyone is really dead.
So what does it all mean? Is this the end of All My Children as we know it? I can tell you one thing for certain: this is the end of this week's column. I've given you a lot of stuff to talk about, so click the Feedback option at the top of the page, or the email links at the top of the column or just below this column. To make it even easier to get you started, you can also click here to share your thoughts and opinions with me. I look forward to reading what you have to say and to being back here again next week with more commentary.
dan
