The Trial Of the Cent--Uh, Decade--The Trial of Today

There once was a doctor named Madden
When he was found in a box, his son was saddened...

My embarrassment over my inability to properly understand rhyme and meter prohibits me from sharing the rest of the poem with you, but I can tell you that it ended with the line, "Dixie is a whore".

I can understand why, on some level, Megan McTavish and the brass at All My Children decided to murder the evil Dr. Madden and have all of Pine Valley be a plausible suspect and have it all lead to a big trial. Basically, old-fashioned murder mysteries and trials used to rule. They had pretty good luck the last time they did one on this very show, so I can see why they decided to rip themselves off, but the end result sort of--well, it sucked.

Greg Madden wasn't just killed. He was tortured. He was held in a box underground for what seemed like months, begging for his life before he died after an earthquake (!). That's not compelling. That's icky. There's no way to whitewash how this man died. It's not a crime of passion, or self defense. It's torture! I can't separate Ian Buchanan from Duke Lavery, even after twenty years and several different roles, so the entire time he was stuffed in a box, I was near frantic, slo-moing, "Noooooo! Not Duuuuuke!" It was embarrassing. Plus, the Madden In A Box storyline meant that there were numerous closeups of his face, and all I could do between cringes was examine his face for plastic surgery scars.

It's nice that everybody is a suspect, so we can't easily figure the killer out from the get-go, but, um, some hints along the way would help. And not random red herrings like JR having the CD of Madden's dying words in his dresser, only for that to become a plot point in the ongoing saga of Babe and Josh. Or the random close ups of Del and his ginormous neck making his monthly appearance to darkly say that Madden is evil and then disappear. Or scenes of Julia being all Kung Fu Princess. Or scenes of Erica talking about hating Madden. Those aren't clues. They are just random wastes of my time and prove to me that the writers had literally no clue where they were going with this and probably got high and picked the name of the real killer out of a hat. You just watch, all of a sudden it will be revealed that Greg Madden was murdered by...Tara Martin!!

But the two suspects that were actually arrested couldn't have possibly done it because they were having an affair that night! Oh, McTavish, that's genius! Except for the part where it is so UNSPEAKABLY STUPID that I can't articulate it except to say that not even the writers on PASSIONS have such a small understanding of alibis and the legal system.

And at the risk of sounding like one of those creepily obsessive soap fans...Zach would never do this. I know him, and he would never do any of this. He just wouldn't. He wouldn't move heaven and earth and risk jail time being with Kendall during her coma just to up and leave to go chill with Dixie. There's no way! And he loves Kendall and knows what an insecure nutjob she is (I say this with love), so he wouldn't let her think that he chose Dixie over her and lie to her and evade her and be a sketchy freak. He just wouldn't!

I'm also disturbed that he seems to be a professional confessor of crimes he did not commit. That can't pay well enough to justify the long hours.

And then there's Dixie, the center of this whole stupid story, who was in car accident and gave her daughter Kate to Greg Madden and she's now trying to get her back and Greg Madden was stuffed in a box until he told the captor where Kate was and this would all be well and good if Dixie was in any way, shape or form sympathetic. She's not. I know when Cady McClain left that they had no way of knowing that she'd be back in a couple of years--but actually, why didn't they? Everybody comes back to soaps!--so they killed Dixie off, but when she returned, they couldn't think of a better story than "She was in an accident and almost died and gave her daughter up and spent a few years sleeping with a sugar daddy to get financing for her search for Kate and world famous fertility guru Greg Madden and no, she didn't think to google him"? Honestly? I'm supposed to feel sorry for a woman who just traipsed around Europe letting her soulmate and her son think she was dead? I'm supposed to feel sorry for a woman who wants nothing more than to steal another woman's husband and who seemingly cannot be bothered to deep condition her hair?

Maybe they are turning her into a sociopath? That's the only way I can describe a person who

Says of Kendall, "She doesn't understand. She's selfish". Tell it to someone who didn't pretend to be pregnant with the baby of her sister's rapist so that she could take the fall for his murder, bitch

Glares at her ex-husband Tad (aside: How bloaty has Michael E. Knight gotten?! Can't his onscreen son offer to be his gym buddy or something?)after he calls her out for what she is and asks "What's HE been through?" Um, I don't know, something like finding out that the love of his life died in an accident while pregnant with their child that they had tried so hard to have EXCEPT NOT, she's actually alive and gave the daughter up and just never thought to tell him?

While on trial for MURDER, breaks into a daydream about what it would be like to live happily ever after with Zach. That is not the mark of a sane woman.

All of this idiocy came together today, as the trial came to an end accompanied by a montage of all of the Pine Valley citizens accompanied by a third-rate Nickelback singing a song and Puff Taddy approaching Dixie to tell her the truth. The real question isn't "the truth about what?", it's "will I make it through the revelation without punching someone in the face?"

-Promising Ingénue

Comments

[Snarkmeister]

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! Why can't sane, intelligent people like you be hired as head writer for AMC? Best part? That your poem ends with "Dixie is a whore." Love. It.

[Cat]

OMG, Puff Taddy. I think I just had an aneurysm from LMAO.