AMC: Friday, April 10

[reallyhateskateonlost]

Ick! Erica to Ryan: "If you play your cards right, you can even have me!"

[MarkH]

OMG...haven't really watched in ages.

That soliloquy at 2:13 (I want to get back to what's really important....Me!...)

[Steve]

Susan rocked! I disagree that it went on too long. I thought it was a great blend of camp and drama that lasted as long as felt natural (you know, the way soap scenes used to be before TIIC decided viewer attention spans couldn't handle it).

I like the new Scott so far. He seems about the same as age JR to me. He's also easy on the eyes and not a bad actor. I don't blame him for feeling by JR putting the bottom line over family loyalty.

I also found myself seeing Ryan's point about Annie/Emma. Aidan should not have been the one to lead Annie to the breakthrough and Ryan should be suspicious that Annie would manipulate Aidan for her freedom after everything she's done in the past. I loved Annie's phone call to Emma at the end and I can't wait to see how she gets out to visit her.

I'm trying to remain spoiler free so please don't reveal anything about Stuart/Adam, thanks!

[Jonathan]

OMG! I love her! She's awesome!

[Adam]

I have re-watched Erica's monologue a few times now and as Steve said it too reminded me of the old days when scenes would go on like that forever. It really was great to see Erica explode and not put up this peaceful front. Susan played it so well. I especially loved it when Ryan said he was going to bring dinner to Kendall and she is like, No.... No... and then she is like ok fine Yes! and then the 2nd time she said it she put her whole body into it

And it was a perfect ending when Erica realized on top of everything her outfit was ruined

Oh my Pratt has pulled alot of crap, but no one can deny that he has revitalized Erica Kane. It is remarkable.

[MarkH]

As a Y&R viewer, it did not seem long to me at all.

IN FACT, I watched all of OLTL yesterday (to try to understand why people are so down on it), and it was CRAZY. Every scene felt like 30 seconds. I could never have enough time in a scene to connect emotionally. Much, much, much too fast. I assume, as another ABC show, that AMC runs just as fast?

I showed the scene to a non-AMC/non-Erica fan, and they just rolled their eyes. But this was classic Erica. So fun!

[Jonathan]

I agree. It didn't go long at all. It was perfect. A round of applause to Kate Hall for a great script!

[R Sinclair]

The speech was acceptable -- a little forced dialogue-wise in some areas, in my opinion, but nothing comes close to the infamous Saint Maria and her Push-up Bra speech Kubla Khan posted in the Favorite Lines of Dialogue Ever thread last winter.

TRUNCATED:

It gives me great pleasure to stand before you this evening

and accept all your praise and your flattery, knowing that

every bit of it is false. The hypocrisy in this room could

choke a snake. I am very pleased however, to stand here

tonight in the spotlight where I was born to be. It gives me

great satisfaction to stand up here at the podium and look

down on the teeming mediocrity, knowing that each and every

one of you pray that I might trip on my way up here. So

sorry to disappoint you. I'm going home with the prize.

Oh ich, I certainly don't mean this silly, tacky thing. This

isn't worthy of a garage sale. No, I'm talking about the

victory of the truly great over the small and the mean and the

petty. The mean and the petty. They use their collective

nothingness to push the stars over the edge. They band

together in soul-crunching globs, they suck the joy out.

They band together. I have seen it all my life. I have seen

it since I was a little girl. I sang solo in the children's

choir, and they resented me just like you resent me. Tone-

deaf little girls, with eyeglasses like Coke bottles and

ankles the size of logs. And they whispered about me in

dressing rooms, just like you're whispering about me now.

They couldn't hurt me and you can't hurt me. I'm immune to

whispers and smirks. I didn't collapse when they whispered

about me, the clumsy girls with their fat legs. And I didn't

collapse when they took my job away from me, or my company

away from me, or my daughter away from me. And I will not

collapse now. Erica Kane does not fall -- Sit down! Sit

down! I am speaking now, and I want everyone to hear what I

am saying! I want the world to know exactly what it is I am

talking about! I am talking about sabotage! Sabotage is

going on here. You all know who you are, and you all know

what you have done to me. Everyone in this room has had a

turn at me. Everyone.

TRUNCATED:

Oh, Brooke! What's the matter, can't take it? Well I know it

hurts being third-rate, but aren't you accustomed to it yet?

That's right, go. Go on home; you're

a weakling. That's why you can't keep a man! Men don't like

fragile women; they only think they do. Men like to think

that they are all ready to save the damsel in distress. But

do you know what the truth is? Do you know what men really

want more than anything? They want to be saved by the damsel

themselves. Isn't that true, Maria? Saint Maria of

Wildwind, tending to the sick in her push-up bra. Always

ready to relieve suffering, as long as the suffering isn't

mine.

Now, THAT was an Erica Kane monologue.

[Ann_SS]

ROTFLMAO!!! I remember the first Erica speech. My jaw dropped and then I started to howl. It was Erica unapologetic in her bitchy glory. I cheered. Unfortunately, she then had the break down. Are those speeches on YT? I would love to see them again.

[Jonathan]

Friday's rant was more dramedy. This speech is more dramatic and gut wrenching.

[MarkH]

For posterity, courtesy of this site:

Let's see if they can maintain the momentum of Erica being Erica. That might bring some of us long-term viewers back. Not that they'd want us.

[R Sinclair]

Dramedy implies a combination of drama and comedy -- sorry to say, I wasn't amused. The Saint Maria of the Push Up Bra was dramedy. There are so many comedic one liners in that speech. A speech that was taking place during a tremendously dramatic situation -- Erica's drugged up breakdown. So, that was what I consider dramedy. This woman is basically having a drug addicted fit in front of the entire town, but still, we're able to manage a smile or a chuckle at the things she's saying.

Kate Hall is one of the show's best script writers... I find it ambitious and courageous of her to take on an Erica Kane monologue... but, in my opinion, it fell flat. Lucci devoted 100% of herself to it, but good dialogue in and of itself has to be like composing a song. It has to have a verse, a chorus, a bridge and maybe even a B section to make it flow. So, when writing a monologue, there has to be a flow to it. There wasn't a flow. When people, including myself, start thinking "oh, okay... this was cute, but enough already...!" you haven't hit the mark. The Push Up Bra monologue flowed... Not only was there a theme, there were markers all throughout that speech. The way she felt as a child, leading up to the way she felt about Brooke during all their years of being rivals... leading up to the recent betrayal by Maria and Dimitri, ending with the real reason behind her breakdown -- she's always felt alone and abandoned by those she loves, and the fact that her mother was dead only magnified that.

It was a phenomenal speech, written with meticulous attention to detail. It pains me that it was written in the pre-onscreen credit days of who wrote that episode's script, because whoever it was did a brilliant job. I know GladGirl said it was written by Michelle Patrick and edited by Karen Lewis, but that would just be too perfect for me. The two writers I love the most on this show being responsible for this. I am prone to believe it because lately, whenever Michelle Patrick writes a script, Erica's very -- well -- ERICA! Her jabs at Krystal or her digs at Reese. Vintage Erica.

Anyway, there are moments in dialogue where I am so caught up with the flow, that I'm led to a place where I want to rewind it before it's even done so I can hear certain things again. Just like with my favorite songs. I will listen to sections of a song over and over again before I "actually allow the song to play all the way through. Unfortunately, that monologue didn't evoke that feeling of "OMG! I HAVE to hear this again! It tickled me just... that... much!" It only was a thing of... "okay, get on with it, already!" Honestly? This Oil speech came out of left field -- and kinda stayed there, IMO. Maybe it's just because I didn't get the sense that Kate Hall was as invested in this episode as she's been in all her other amazing episodes. Even the smartest of geniuses have said "Wait -- I'm confused!" So maybe that was a possible feeling behind the Oil Speech. "Wait a minute, I'm confused! She gets sprayed with oil and she launches into a random monologue?!"

[Adam]

Comparing Friday's monologue to the classic one R Sinclair posted is apples to oranges.... thank you for re-posting one of my favourite soap moments ever R!

I remember watching that as if it were yesterday.

[Sylph]

Is Tracey Thomson more a miss than a hit on AMC?

[Adam]

She has not wrote many scripts lately, but I know when she first came on in the fall.... all of her scripts left something to be desired.... for me anyway. Her episodes at times felt very disjointed and did not have any organic flow to them at all, not that many soap episodes do these days.... but her's were glaringly obvious.