CAUTION:  My girl, Carol, speaks her mind in a strong, brassy and vibrant fashion.  If you are offended by straight talking, adult oriented language (sometimes, there's a "very" in there), please be aware that you may well find it here.  Carol shoots from the hip and tells it like it is, pulling no punches and taking no prisoners.  That's why I love her & why I hired her.  If it's not your bag, let's part still friends and salute our differences in tastes (I'm sort of a strong strawberry flavor...)  ~*~Katrina~*~


 

And the “Worst Mother of the Year” Goes to... 

...What, you thought I’d say GH’s Carly Corinthos or OLTL’s Blair Manning? Not if you’ve watched any bit of AMC lately, with Krystal providing satanic shoulder services for daughter Babe—all to keep a baby from her real mother, Bianca. 

Every time I peruse the AMC boards, I’m reading about some fan or 10 ranting and raving about two things:

  1. When the flying fuck is this fucking baby-switch story over?
  2. Babe and Krystal need a severe ass-kicking.

Count me at the head of the line. I’ve about had it with 1. Krystal and 2. Babe. How these two poor excuses for women, much less alleged mothers, think they should get away with lying to real mom Bianca about her baby Miranda remaining dead in the river is topped only by TPTB thinking these two could get away with it, for way too long, and – if spoilers prove correct – all the way through the rest of this year, God help us all. 

It was bad enough over at GH when they kept A.J. from his biological son Michael for what amounted to three years, soap time, and then, they made sure his son never considered him father material by reducing A.J. into a money-grubbing, power-hungry, child-neglecting asshole. Oh, and sealing the deal by having little baby Michael cry the second A.J. got within 10 feet of him. 

As a general rule, if you’re going to appeal, for three-some-odd decades, to housewives who usually have children running around, don’t do it by keeping a baby from its rightful parent for years and years until it’s too late. People, estrogen-laden or not, really don’t like having their paternal and maternal chains yanked over a Sweeps gimmick, ratings ploy and plot device, least of all in the aftermath of a presumed infant’s death. 

Me, hell, I don’t even wanna read about shit like that. Don’t tell me a baby drowned in the river, a toddler fell to her death roaming unattended off a cliff, and for the preservation of my comfort zone, keep the crime stories of abuse, molestation and neglect to yourselves. I already feel 10 ways to Sunday shitty about the human race and 50 ways to an Iraqi prison about the paranoia involved in swallowing every bit of bad news from the local and national TV reports. 

The last thing in the world I wanna do when I turn on the TV during the day between the laundry and the gardening is be bombarded with the lowest of the low of downers. Women and children first, but last on the list of tortured and afflicted. 

Especially if the dead baby follows a rape, a mental break-down, an attempted rape, a murder in self-defense, a memory loss, and the near loss of both a mother and a sister to the justice system—within the time frame of me taking a dump after back-to-back spaghetti dinners at a neighborhood Pizza Hut. I understand Bianca is AMC’s Perils of Pauline, the darling of disaster and chosen heroine, and every heroine needs her fair share of proof, i.e., the dragons to slay and thus display courage under fire.

But c’mon! GH already does one daily disaster after another as to render its storylines completely unbelievable, implausible and useless in terms of genuine, involved entertainment. 

Let’s, by all means, ease up on Bianca the disaster area and finally give her a girlfriend to love, adore, French kiss, and roll around in satin sheets with as a thousand candles burn brightly around them. I mean, isn’t all this baby-switching bullshit just a cover-up maneuver to keep the audience from noticing that Lena left the States, Maggie’s in a holding pattern and nothing realistically loving happened after that infamous lesbian kiss at the airport? 

ABC Daytime president Brian Frons can obfuscate all he wants to SPW’s Carolyn Hinsey about her disrespecting AMC creator Agnes Nixon (and her supposed thumbs-up to the current AMC) by continuing to offer criticism about storyline and character failings when warranted, but I know a bullshit cover-up maneuver when I see one. 

Frons claims he receives more e-mails inquiring about restoring the baby to Bianca than about Bianca gettin’ some, but if all we see is this big to-do about a dead baby and a cracking Bianca interrupting the coitus and taking over as higher priority (hmm... dead baby... love life, gee, ain’t that a tough decision), of course that’s all he’s gonna hear about. 

Besides, the baby-switching story is doing more to ruin and destroy characters than any change in regime or bad acting choices. 

When Babe helped Bianca through a painful rejection by Erica and later, through an even more painful labor, Alexa Havins lifted herself from the dregs of a unexplained and inexplicably sleazy background of sleeping around with multiple partners, yet pledging her undying love for a one JR (I don’t see the attraction), practically shoving Jamie away with a shovel and a sneer, and prancing around about some stupid-assed cow or nachos... raising to the ranks of an actress worth noting, validating the casting department’s hiring of her above a host of other equally talented, viable competitors (Erin Hershey Presley/ex-Alison, PC, among them, I’ve heard). 

When Krystal stuck by Erica’s side after Babe and Bianca went missing, after their painful talk, portrayer Bobbie Eakes did much to flesh out the decent heart of gold beneath the twang, the tart and the titillating surface of a sleazy mother. I couldn’t help but admire the ferocity with which she mothered Babe, as unconditional as they get. 

But then, baby-switching enters the picture and obliterates all that good, hard work, by both actresses, newcomer and veteran, to the point where I’m ready to call it a day on them, bring Simone on for Tad, kill Dixie off permanently, no recasts, JR with Kendall, Jamie turns into a gigolo, give Adam something else to do but pine away for a chip off the old block.

The problem stems from my (and others along with me) inability to comprehend how any normal, decent, feeling and thinking human being, much less a mother, would or could conceivably keep this truth from a devastated mother, and a tortured soul such as Bianca. As a mother myself, I can confidently say, as Babe’s Alexa Havins has, if I were in their shoes, there’d be no discussion, no hemming or hawing, no second-guessing, it’s out with the truth a week ago, and off to mourn my dead baby. 

This has nothing to do with hindsight or an audience’s all-knowing awareness, but everything to do with what’s essentially right or wrong. 

The irony isn’t lost on me either. Had Babe ‘fessed up immediately, several things would’ve resulted to have made her life a whole lot better, JR look a whole lot nicer, and given me a welcome respite from the agita agita roll in the gutter (believe it or not, AMC denizens look wonderful when they’re happy for longer than a heartbeat): 

  1. JR would then realize that, with the loss of their own baby, he really loves Babe and she has suffered enough.
  2. Bianca would be happy enough to then seek restitution with Erica and a love life that constitutes more than a dry peck on the lips for “Entertainment Tonight” cameras.
  3. Krystal could be free to play the field, leaving Tad free to realize the woman he truly loves is a pregnant, beaming, noble Simone, a mix of dramatic and comedic, superior to Dixie’s in every way.
  4. David might then be able to have a story of his own, maybe with Krystal, without the bullshit hanging on of the nefarious DNA test soon to come.
  5. And finally, a multitude of fed-up fans like me might have a fair chance at enjoying the rest of the show for once, instead of worrying about when Bianca will be reunited with her baby and when Babe and Krystal will grow more than two brain cells and cough up the fucking truth already.

In the meantime, since none of the above is gonna happen in this lifetime, goddammit, I’m sitting here holding my dick in my hands, going, What the cluster fuck?! Like, I’m supposed to buy this bullshit that Babe is suddenly all about protecting JR, because if he loses Bess, he’ll be more devastated than when he lost Dixie?! We’re going through all this hell for that jackass????

-C

GRAPHICS BY SCOTT BILSTAD