All My Children, 2/23/11

Finally--someone on daytime TV with realistic hair

     You really opened a can of worms this time, Amanda. Half of Pine Valley is affected by the “secret” phone call she made to the government in regards to Cara Castillo’s fraudulent status in the US. Tad had to let Krystal (his baby's mama whom he lives with) and Opal (his birth mother) in on his fib that he and Cara have been dating and are now engaged to be married. Both ladies were against the idea as now the government is going to be breathing on them, asking questions and such. I don't blame them. You don't mess with the government. Agent Trumbull, the lead investigator of the Pine Valley INS (..smirk..), contacted Amanda and threatened her that she had better meet him at Confusion (a flashy bar any government suit would surely conduct an interrogation in) or he would "come and find" her. No, he didn't mention her rights to have an attorney present, either. But, then again, I guess she's not the one on trial here...Is she, Tad???????? Amanda went and met Trumbull and did a very convincing routine, saying Tad and Cara have been private with their relationship, but that it's legit, and that she only called the government to lie about Cara. Amanda was just jealous of her husband's ex, so she wanted to make a phony phone call to the INS about it. Next she was going to crank call the White House (no, not really on that last bit). Trumbull eased off , but said that Castillo was still illegally in the US, so he would have to pursue his investigation. I hope Griffin is legal, or were they so busy with Cara that they overlooked his immigration status?    

     Why is Erica so dumb? I guess she can’t help herself. I mean, Kendall always acts out, too. It's like the Kane women can't control their compulsions. They say they want peace and calm and that they'll stay out of everyone's business, but they never seem to do just that. I don’t remember if Mona, Erica’s mother ever acted out. Maybe it really is in the blood. Even if it comes to destroying the one true man who wants to be with them. Jack still wants to marry Erica and he's waiting for her to choose their wedding date and for her to end her flirtation with Caleb. But, she seems bent on wrangling the Mountain Man (i.e., Caleb).   

     Liza gave Colby the reason for her sleeping with Damon: they were both sad and had had a bad day. It was only natural...Okay, Liza didn't say it like that, but pretty much that was the gist. Colby, rightly, told Liza that she has no mother and that she will never speak to her again. A distraught Liza confided in Tad and what did wise Thaddeus Martin say? He said Liza is growing up! I guess because thirty years later, she can talk about this openly with Tad, her boyfriend at the time who had slept with her own mother (in other words did the same exact thing to her that she did to Colby)? Didn't Liza's sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend two months ago kinda work in the reverse of that? And then, a consoling Asher told Colby he has something important to tell her. To which she said she doesn't want to hear today. Oh, Lordy, what will that be?

All My Children, 2/22/11



The last time Colby smiled at her mother. Ever.

      The INS believed Tad when he declared he and Cara are engaged to be married. When asked for proof of this, Cara pulled out the ol' engagement ring that hangs around her neck 24/7. The one Jake gave her years ago during their stint together at Doctors Without Borders; the one that ridicules Amanda every waking second. It lucked out that she's been clutching onto it. Who woulda thunk it? So, miraculously, INS was satisfied with their story, and so now Tad and Cara have a wedding to plan. Yay! A spring wedding. I knew Tad and Cara were a better couple than Cara and Jake. Oh, wait, what is that? Hold the phone? Jake doesn't know that Amanda was the one who ratted Cara out to the government? Jake still has to find out this information? Oh no. Poor Amanda. Not only will Tad be giving her those dirty you-are-scum sneers, but soon Jake will be too. It's inevitable.    

     Ryan filled David in on how Annie had been trying to kill Marissa and now-aha!-David's been caught on film helping Annie. Not a very doting daddy, are ya? Well, with a daughter like Marissa, who can blame him? But, David is set on making things right again. He told Ryan where Annie should be hiding out: none other than a cabin near a forest near Stowe, Vermont. Has anyone else been following (okay, and entering) the contest HGTV is running right now? A chance to win a mega-house in Stowe, Vermont? I have caught "All My Children" doing product placement over the last year, but this one is really interesting. Wouldn't that be awesome if they showed Annie and Emma hiking up Highway 108 right past the Dream Home?

     Madison has high maternity bills. She was finally hit with them. Why is she seeing an out-of-network provider? Surely, she has her pick of obstetricians at Pine Valley Hospital. She went to Greenlee to ask for help, and Greenlee suggested she have Scott help her. How can Scott afford to help her when he is working as an $8/hour clerk? But, Madison said she would rather work overtime hours instead, and Greenlee approved it. Greenlee does care.   

     Opal opened her big mouth and told Colby that her grandmother, Marian, had slept with Tad, crushing a teenage Liza back in the day. On a hunch, Colby asked Liza point-blank, "Mom, did you sleep with Damon?" To which Liza blubbered and said, "Oh, I guess you'll never talk to me again." End scene.

All My Children, 2/21/11

Pwoor Bwabee

     Aside from Cara Castillo breaking down in tears three different times in today's episode, this was actually a very action-packed show. INS questioned Cara about her other persona, Carolyn Finn. She, in front of Jake and Jack (Jake loaned her Jack as her lawyer), confessed her lifelong struggle with cancer. Not only were the drug lord's goons after her when Jake last saw her (when she was trying to protect Jake from them), but she also had had a medical relapse at that time. Her brother and her mother nursed her back to health. The INS seemed sympathetic, but her tears didn't sway them: they still wanted to take Cara back to Mexico. Jake intervened and said, "You have to protect her. The Mexican drug cartel is after her!" The INS said, "Take it to the judge." Meanwhile, sweet sweet naive Amanda confessed to Tad that she had been the informer; she was the one who had reported to the US government that Cara Castillo was also Carolyn Finn, a Mexican national (is it just me, or should Cara have the hint of a Mexican accent?). Tad, holier than thou art, belittled Amanda and basically said she is to blame if someone cuts off Cara's horse's head and mails it to Jake. Oh, and that she shouldn't breathe, because she'll just screw someone else's life up with that, too. B@st@rd.

     Well, Colby got a surprising phone call. Her ex-boyfriend, Damon--who is off in California doing the law school thang--phoned to say he had heard about Annie and the kidnapping, and so he was just checking up on her. I don't know if he knows Annie had also held Colby hostage, however. I don't even know if the police know this. I don't even think her family cares about it. Kudos to Colby as she actually lied to him and said her phone's battery was dying and she better hang up.

     Ryan and Greenlee again held their fists over Jesse, the Chief of Police's head and said, pursue David and his connection to Annie's running away. Jesse said, "Dar, okay, whatever you guys say. Why don't you come along on official police business with me and ask him about it?" Not very professional. Of course, it's technically FBI business, so really Jesse shouldn't be letting the love duo pressure him into doing what they say. However, no useful information was gained from the convo with David...BUT, Ryan was able to trick David with a tape recording of Annie's voice asking him where she was supposed to be going while on the lam. He was stupid and fell for it. (I wondered why her acting was really bad on the recorder.) He told her to go to "the cabin". Ryan stepped out from around the corner (they were at the infamous park) and smirked at him.
     JR tried to convince Marissa to move back into the Chandler Mansion with him and AJ, so he could bring the Chandlers all together and tighten the family bond. She was smart and told him no way, Jose. Hmm...I think she knows more Spanish than Cara does.

All My Children 2/18/11

Day 3 in a row of Tears = Drinking Game?

     Amanda did something sneaky. Perhaps, wives everywhere would dream of doing the same. She contacted the government to report Cara Costillo as an illegal immigrant. Later that day, however, Tad confided to Amanda that he, Griffin, Jake, and Cara were planning on making Cara's assumed identity--Carolyn Finn--appear deceased in Mexico. Amanda said "rut-ro" to herself. She then back-tracked internally and telephoned the agency she had narked to to say she had been mistaken. She did what any married woman would have done to protect her relationship by reporting the home-wrecker to the Feds. But, darn it oh darn it, she felt bad when Tad said, "Cara's life is in jeopardy here, Amanda. We need to fake her death." Amanda just cannot win. However, with that said, it was too late for Amanda to back-pedal. INS showed up at the hospital and arrested Cara for passport fraud. Alert, is it too soon for Cara's notorious tears?!
     Thanks to Ryan's insight, he suggested that Jesse should run video from the park where Annie may have been Valentine's night when she kidnapped Emma (that is, Emma, her daughter). (Could it be that Ryan is better suited to be Chief of Police than the actual Chief of Police?) Jesse ran the tape and was able to extract a still image of Annie and....David Hayward?! Uh-oh. This cannot be good.
     Bianca confessed to Kendall that she and Reese are filing for divorce. I guess she didn't call Bianca back after her meeting (see previous blog post from this week). Bianca is utilizing Marissa as her divorce attorney. Marissa warned Bianca that things could turn ugly as Bianca is intending on keeping full custody of their two daughters. Foreshadow.
      Reverend Ricky is no reverend at all! I was surprised that our endearing spiritual adviser is not a man of the cloth. I will see him in a different light now. An unholy light at that. He met one of his "associates" at the ever-popular park (the one with security cameras?) and let her know that he has Kendall under his thumb. Looks like Ricky was responsible for "offing" Zach. He displayed a few surreptitious dramatic poses of intensity in his revelation that he is a bad boy. I still prefer him over the bad-tempered Dr. Griffin Castillo.

All My Children, 2/17/11



Wait for it, wait for it...Aha! Turn on the waterworks!

     Why, Reverend Ricky, is your soul in mortal jeopardy?      After tossing and turning from bad dreams concerning her beloved Zach, Kendall coaxed the Reverend Ricky into driving her home to get something precious of hers. Upon arrival, the pair found Kendall's living room in a state of "shoot, somebody's been messin' 'round at yo' house". Chair cushions were flung haphazardly to the floor and picture frames were knocked cock-eyed. Griffin was not happy to see his patient had fled the hospital again, so he made his weekly housecall to take Kendall back. She obeyed after tidying up the room (and thereby destroying the clear indication of a crime scene), and Ricky stayed behind to await the arrival of Brot (AKA: the cops). Brot hypothesized it as the work of kids pulling a prank. Let this be a note to "the kids":  that isn't funny. And, while we're on the subject, neither is toilet papering trees. Ricky then returned to the hospital to tell the quickly-recovering-from-heart-surgery Kendall that kids probably wrecked her house, don't worry about it, this is normal (uh, I would think in her neighborhood this would not be normal). He then walked into the hallway and decided it was the perfect time to make a sneaky phone call alluding to the fact he may have murdered Zach and that he knows who messed up Kendall's living room (and I'm thinking maybe it wasn't kids, after all). The problem I have with this scene:  Ricky couldn't have made this incriminating phone call at Kendall's house or in his car?!
     Tad investigated Cara's deceased drug lord and found that his goons are still on the trail for her under her pseudonym, Carolyn Finn. With the simple change of her last name--aha!--she threw them off of her trail. No need to worry about distancing herself from Doctors Without Borders in Mexico--where they don't know a Carolyn Castillo who matches her exact description and has the same first name and M.O., and works at the same gig as Carolyn Finn. These criminals must really be bad at their job. Jake warned Cara at Pine Valley Hospital, but she raised her voice in soap opera finery and declared, "Oh, no, you don't, former love of my life! I will not stay here with you in Pine Valley!" Amanda overheard this from around the corner where she slunked in the shadows and immediately turned on her heel and raced home to telephone the government to report Cara and her illegal immigration status.
     The Feds are on the hunt for Annie. Ryan, driving the Chief of Police, Jesse, in his car, discovered Annie's abandoned car with Emma's stuffed animal left behind. And Madison was left to field phone calls at Fusion, because Greenlee was too busy sitting at Krystal's sipping her cafe de leche de mocha with sugar-free sprinkles.

All My Children 2/16/11



Now whaddya cryin' about?

     Annie has got the chase going! Marissa, JR, Asher, the PVPD (Pine Valley Police Department), Ryan, and Greenlee are hunting the crazy gal down. She left Ryan a voicemail saying she and Emma are a-okay and that Annie and JR should have been the ones who had gotten married. This, after Ryan found a makeshift fairytale storybook she made in the Chandler cottage. Apparently, cocky Ryan knows best as he told JR that JR had screwed everything up and that he was incapable of keeping control of Annie. What a schmuck. Run, Annie, run!     
     Kendall convinced Bianca to call Reese to ask her to come home to Pine Valley to see her and their daughters. Reese was in a meeting, so she told her she would call her later after work. Bianca pretty much thinks they're over, but she told Kendall that she would give her wife until that night to see if she called or not. That way she would know for sure if the relationship is over. So what if Reese calls tomorrow morning instead? She may get home late, after all...
     Griffin and his cozy-schmozy sister, Cara, are each other's Valentine this year. Kinda unsettling...but, you know, they're close. He brought her a box of candy and then he proceeded to jab his meaty fingers into each chocolate to find which had caramel in it. But, guess what? No, she didn't eat the chocolates. But, it turns out Kendall does the...wait for it, wait for it...same exact thing! Soul-mates. I sure hope Reverend Ricky doesn't do the same with his sweets as that will further complicate matters!
     Jake spoiled a romantic (sure to have been packed with extra PDA ("P" standing for "private" in this case)) Valentine's night with his wife, Amanda, by telling her that Cara still has feelings for him and wears her wedding ring on a chain around her neck. Great timing, Jake. Then, he was paged (as always) to the hospital. He left, and that left Amanda with one thing on her mind:  confrontation. She confronted tough girl Cara at the hospital about this. Cara refused to remove the wedding ring as "it reminds me of tough times I got through." Yeah, alright. Cara told Amanda she is still waiting for her government clearance to allow her to return to the third world country she practices in, and that she will certainly be leaving. Jake is now confused about the whole thing and confided in Tad. But, after talking to his big brother, he returned home and he and Amanda did finally get that Private-DA.
     Tad found Cara sitting on the bumper of an ambulance and soothed her teary heartbreak. I'm beginning to think this actress was hired for her constant ready-for-tears crying.

All My Children 2/15/11



Wedding cake created from scratch in estimate of two hours

     Under JR's instruction, Asher kept Colby a prisoner at the cottage. Asher had removed the handcuffs, but a prisoner she remained. Bored out of her mind, he decided they should play poker...strip poker was her idea. When it came to Colby, who had been running on a winner's streak, losing a hand, Asher told her she needed to remove her shirt and not her jeans or socks, which I would have thought would have been the next step. However, she said alright and told him to cover his eyes as she undressed...But, the joke was on Asher! Oh, ha ha, because Colby gently plucked his and her car keys from the table (he didn't hear them clink together, I guess) and grabbed her purse and his shirt and she hurried out the door and jumped into her car at lightning speed. Colby fled to Krystal's Restaurant thinking her mother would be there instead of at home. (Good guess.) Liza begged Colby to contact the police to report the kidnapping and Colby said she would...when she was safely in California with Damon.      Greenlee and Ryan continued their wedding reception taking family photo ops with Spike, sans Emma, who must have been missing for quite a long time as Jack and Krystal left the reception before she had been spotted again. Sucks being the adopted kid. JR left Ryan a voice mail message warning him to keep an eye out for Annie. He listened to this message moments too late as Annie had already snatched her daughter and high-tailed it out of Pine Valley, thanks to the help of David Hayward.
     Marissa is okay, folks. JR managed to rouse her from her gas-affixiation, and the pair went on the hunt for Annie. In searching for her, Marissa confirmed JR and Annie's secret relationship. She was angry and said "Oh, you lied because you knew I wouldn't let you near my son." Wait. AJ is hardly her son. I wish JR would say that; I wish he would remind her that she had no doings in AJ's creation. In fact, she just met him two years ago. Arggghhhhh...
     Now, onto the elephant in the room:  Krystal was able to sucessfully bake and decorate a three-tiered wedding cake for Greenlee and Ryan on short short short notice...say, she had maybe two hours to cater the reception food and the professional cake. Not only is she a bartender, she is a cook, and she is a wedding cake baker. A quick one at that.
     Reese ditched Marissa on their wedding anniversary. Looks like it's over for Binks. Maybe Bianca will fly out to see her and give it one more go, even though she was posing as a poster child for breakups and, in turn, was counseling Erica on healing her own relationship with Jack.