You know the Rockwell song "Somebody's Watching Me", which languished for years on one-hit wonder countdowns before its eventual revival through the GEICO commercial with the googly-eyed pile of money? For those of you who are lucky enough to not have it stuck in your head at random intervals, it's basically a stream of consciousness rant about paranoia that was released only because Rockwell is Berry Gordy's son, and because Michael Jackson sang the chorus (this fulfills the requirement that every blog, ever, have some reference to Michael Jackson on it in the year 2009), as it is pretty bad.
And yet...I've found myself relating to it, in a sad way, because I've sat through many an episode of All My Children lately asking myself, "They are doing this to me on purpose, aren't they? They just want to make me cry and they know how to make me do it". I'm sure that the terrible choices the AMC powers-that-be make are made solely to cause maximum pain and aggravation to the audience.

Marissa: No, I am, I am, but if Liza has been passing off your baby as hers, that means they all faked a baby's death.
David: That's a disturbing thought.
Marissa: Yeah, it's sick. I don't get how anyone could do that.
Luckily for Marissa, she can get one-on-one insight into the type of depraved mind that perpetuates fake baby death schemes. All she'd have to do is stand in the middle of the Yacht Club and throw a rock; odds are, she'd hit someone who faked a baby's death or was involved in the plot to cover it up. Seriously, when I was watching the opening credits today, I realized that the majority of the characters currrently on the AMC canvas have, at one point or another, been involved in perpetuating a dead baby lie. Which...REALLY, show? That's the BEST plot you can come up with? Dead babies? I shudder to think of what your home life is like.
This latest in the long string of dead baby stories has an added twist. Yes, in the year 2009, the AMC writers have discovered that you can buy and sell goods on the internet, which leads us to the existence of "Stuart" Colby. Since David's DNA does not match Liza's fake baby, I assume that her fake baby is actually one procured by Jake via that email exchange he had with a woman looking to give her baby up a few weeks back. Somehow, that adds an extra layer of awful to what was already an awful story, just because it is so patently ridiculous. Not that I expect "facts" and "laws" to in any way play into this show's storytelling but seriously, how about not assuming that your audience is a bunch of simpletons, writers?

Emma Lavery has an angelic little face, which makes it even more heartbreaking that she probably has the worst life ever. Her father is an emotionally abusive con-man who is prone to fits of violence, and who has introduced her to a handful of replacement mommies in the short time that she has even known him, among many other terrible traits. Her mother is criminally insane and deals with life's disappointments by stabbing and/or choking others. AND she is being written for by a terrible writing staff who has mistaken "utterly contrived and awful" for "edgy and entertaining".
So it's not surprising that she is maybe lying about seeing Kendall shoot Stuart* or that she is maybe possible the actual culprit**. What IS surprising is that these are her first criminal acts. With the genes she was blessed with, I'd have guessed that her first crime spree would have come much earlier.
*Is she lying? I think she is, either to cover for the mother who Ryan is so determined to see fry in the electric chair on any charge that he can make stick. She did confront him on his accusation that Annie killed Stuart, and then busted out with her Kendall revelation a few minutes later, or because...DUN DUN DUN**
**She killed Stuart. I have no idea how or why she would have killed him, and I'm not sure how it's possible that she is such a good shot (well, then again, there IS that criminal DNA), but she is my suspect number one. And she totally threw Replacement Mommy #(How many loves of Ryan's life has he had since he decided Annie was of no use? 2? 3? 8?) under the bus. That is some straight up diabolical masterminding right there.