I'm up to 575.
I got the tiniest stab of excitement when she first appeared. I don't have especially positive memories of her but she's such a significant character and the series has been in surprisingly good shape since Patricia left that I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Ha! Benny Appleman, of course! This is probably stating the obvious, but if Patricia was Abby and Caroline is Anne, then Leigh is Paige and Karen is Claudia. It's kind of a shame Karen was the one they killed off (although Liz's flashback to her going over that bridge was very funny).
Visually, Caroline reminds me of a posh guest at the Crossroads Motel in the 1970s who sits in the lounge making archly enigmatic comments to David Hunter.
First Andy and his cult, then Lynn with her eating disorder, then Amanda with her obsessive need to pretend to have Todd's baby, then Barbara with her pill addiction and now Jill being all prostitutey. They kind of all feel like the same story: a character gets an obsession, won't accept they've got an obsession, everybody shouts at them, eventually they face up to their obsession and then get over it really quickly.
The lack of room on the show for grief or almost any kind of reflection is really becoming apparent. Now that so many of the original cast have gradually disappeared, the deep-seated connections between the characters have too. To compensate for that, the characters have to become deeply invested in whatever's going on in that moment, in order to sell us on its importance - like after Todd died, Irene couldn't afford to mourn him for long because she had to take an avid interest in David and Barbara's current problems. It's why Fiona immediately clutches any twenty-something person to her freckly bosom as soon as she meets them, e.g., her exploding-wheelchair dead fiancee's fake nephew whom she drags to Woombai as soon as they've met. Because of the largeness of Fiona's personality, she kind of gets away with it, but now the "Andy & The Greek Girl" plot has started and it feels like the actress can't quite work out how to pitch her reaction to it. She's come dangerously close to sending the whole thing up. Maybe she's having trouble justifying why Fiona should care about any of these people.
The good stuff is Beryl and her kidnapped baby. Beryl's anguish is great, but David seemed bizarrely relaxed during the whole thing. Him being Leigh's father was a juicy twist, but I was kind of hoping she'd been conceived while he and Beryl were married - continuity be damned!
Yeah, that was a nice exception to the rule where Fiona was allowed to get (weirdly) nostalgic about the past
Yeah, it's like Jill just had a 48-hour case of prostitutitis, but after some hot honey and lemon and a good night's sleep, she's as right as rain again.
I noticed the stammer as well and wondered whether it might be real, but I don't think it could be. It would be like getting drunk to play a drunk. But it is a nice touch.
Caroline makes me appreciate every other soap bitch/femme fatale/villainess afresh because they're all so much better at it than she is. Her all-purpose smuggery is really repetitive and grating. She's done nothing to earn her self-regard and there's nothing behind it - no wit, no intelligence, no poignancy, no originality. Leigh may be one note, but she's a lot easier to watch. I'm not being asked to like her or find her attractive or intriguing or charmingly outrageous the way I am the simpering, self-congratulatory Caroline.
Caroline's introduction was a little strange.
I got the tiniest stab of excitement when she first appeared. I don't have especially positive memories of her but she's such a significant character and the series has been in surprisingly good shape since Patricia left that I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
She's essentially Anne Matheson (the rich bitch mother of an established younger female character who arrives on the scene to stir the pot), if we'd met her when she was living with Benny Appleman.
Ha! Benny Appleman, of course! This is probably stating the obvious, but if Patricia was Abby and Caroline is Anne, then Leigh is Paige and Karen is Claudia. It's kind of a shame Karen was the one they killed off (although Liz's flashback to her going over that bridge was very funny).
Naturally she's now moved in with Amanda and every scene is rife with arch bitchery as she trades barbs with other females. She's now somehow invested in Gordon's company. It's not as exciting as it should be, but watchable all the same.
Visually, Caroline reminds me of a posh guest at the Crossroads Motel in the 1970s who sits in the lounge making archly enigmatic comments to David Hunter.
Jill is now on the game again and there's all the usual soapy prostitute stuff about threatening pimps staying off other sex workers' turf and whatnot. I'm interested to see how far they take it. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's kind of like seeing Sue Ellen pick up the Smirnoff yet again, but we've never seen Jill "relapse", so it's essentially new territory.
First Andy and his cult, then Lynn with her eating disorder, then Amanda with her obsessive need to pretend to have Todd's baby, then Barbara with her pill addiction and now Jill being all prostitutey. They kind of all feel like the same story: a character gets an obsession, won't accept they've got an obsession, everybody shouts at them, eventually they face up to their obsession and then get over it really quickly.
Katie empathised with someone mourning the death of a character and I thought she was finally going to acknowledge her brother's death. But no, it was because "It's going to take me a long time to get over Ross." Ugh.
The lack of room on the show for grief or almost any kind of reflection is really becoming apparent. Now that so many of the original cast have gradually disappeared, the deep-seated connections between the characters have too. To compensate for that, the characters have to become deeply invested in whatever's going on in that moment, in order to sell us on its importance - like after Todd died, Irene couldn't afford to mourn him for long because she had to take an avid interest in David and Barbara's current problems. It's why Fiona immediately clutches any twenty-something person to her freckly bosom as soon as she meets them, e.g., her exploding-wheelchair dead fiancee's fake nephew whom she drags to Woombai as soon as they've met. Because of the largeness of Fiona's personality, she kind of gets away with it, but now the "Andy & The Greek Girl" plot has started and it feels like the actress can't quite work out how to pitch her reaction to it. She's come dangerously close to sending the whole thing up. Maybe she's having trouble justifying why Fiona should care about any of these people.
The good stuff is Beryl and her kidnapped baby. Beryl's anguish is great, but David seemed bizarrely relaxed during the whole thing. Him being Leigh's father was a juicy twist, but I was kind of hoping she'd been conceived while he and Beryl were married - continuity be damned!
Jill being back on the game actually proved to have some nice character moments. The series’ attitude towards prostitution continues to be somewhere unusually fluid: The clearest message is that prostitution is bad - something from which someone needs to be rescued. This is reinforced by Jill’s evident sadness and violent rape at the hands of her pimp.
And yet at other times it’s presented in a way that falls somewhere between progressive and romantic. Such as in Fiona responding to Andy asking her if she ever enjoyed being on the game:
Yeah, that was a nice exception to the rule where Fiona was allowed to get (weirdly) nostalgic about the past
Anyway, Fiona has now called Jill a whore, shocking her back to her senses and so Jill’s off the game and smiling again.
Yeah, it's like Jill just had a 48-hour case of prostitutitis, but after some hot honey and lemon and a good night's sleep, she's as right as rain again.
Something that’s intriguing me about Gary’s scenes is that his friend and co-conspirator Dennis White has a pronounced stammer. With this storyline being so plot-based, I can’t help wondering if it’s going to be a plot device. If it’s a case of either casting an actor with a genuine stammer or giving a character a stammer Jerry Booth style I’m impressed.
I noticed the stammer as well and wondered whether it might be real, but I don't think it could be. It would be like getting drunk to play a drunk. But it is a nice touch.
Caroline taught Stephen a lesson for taking her for granted by inviting another man to be there when he arrived, making sure Stephen saw him and then smilingly berating him for not calling her. While her feline aura usually puts me in mind of her (sur)namesake, Caress Morrell, I thought this particular moment was very Abby-esque. She got her man, too, and the Morells are a family unit again. For now. Caroline’s also evoking the spirit of practically every woman on Dallas by caressing a dinky little purse pistol with a fancy handle. It won’t end well. For somebody, anyway.
Caroline makes me appreciate every other soap bitch/femme fatale/villainess afresh because they're all so much better at it than she is. Her all-purpose smuggery is really repetitive and grating. She's done nothing to earn her self-regard and there's nothing behind it - no wit, no intelligence, no poignancy, no originality. Leigh may be one note, but she's a lot easier to watch. I'm not being asked to like her or find her attractive or intriguing or charmingly outrageous the way I am the simpering, self-congratulatory Caroline.
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