So what is Margaret DePriest doing now...she seems like a Frons type of writer.

Frons is not going to re-install McTavish. If he dumps the current team, i think he will promote an up and coming headwriter...think Mandy Beall...everyone loves Amanda Beall. We know there's no headwriting spot available at Y&R but I can certainly see her leaving her current post to take over AMC...with LB or AW as co-head?

I think it was more story for Kendall, yes, because it heavily affected her relationships with both Bianca and Erica. Kendall felt so guilty about what Bianca had gone through, and what she herself had been a product of, and this also made her see again what Erica had gone through. Kendall's rape would have had some story, but would have trod over familiar territory (rape via redemption). Bianca's rape story was far-fetched and offensive, but I think that Bianca, who was an innocent and whom Kendall had for years resented, brought out Kendall's protectiveness and this helped lead to helping to cover up the murder, covering up Bianca's pregnancy, and dealing with Erica in a new way. I think it gave Kendall more of a perspective and place in the Kane family, instead of still being the outsider.

I'm not really saying this very well. I guess at the time I felt like Kendall was being positioned in a way which finally let her move on as a character, and I was glad they had moved away from stories about bad girls who pay a price.

I hated to see Bianca get raped, but Bianca was probably going to be neutralized no matter what. The only time same-sex relationships have been shown with women, aside from a brief romance between Lena and Bianca, was when it was about a man (Zach).

But that's just it. Kendall didn't need any kind of redemption at that point. She, Erica and Bianca had already begun to forge an albeit begrudging understanding due to them working together to trump Michael Cambias in the corporate espionage storyline two months before the rape was plotted to happen. Kendall was successful in her own right co-creating Fusion, AND she had developed a sisterhood with Mia, Simone and a truce with Greenlee. Not to mention she was in the quasi-triangle with Michael Cambias and Boyd. So, the character was in a good place on the canvas where she didn't need any redemption. Now, if the rape happened in early-mid 2002 when Kendall was brandishing guns at dinner with Erica and stripping down to seduce Aidan to get his pass key to Erica's penthouse... I would be inclined to agree.

As for Bianca's homosexuality being neutralized, I agree that the rape wasn't the only game changer. Anything could've and did crop up (Zarf) to do that. However, once the rape happened, they ran with it.

In the new DC podcast Jamey says that Megan isn't really interested in the job.

So, this was a whole buncha nothing. Thanks, DC.

Edited January 14, 201114 yr by R Sinclair

So what is Margaret DePriest doing now...she seems like a Frons type of writer.

I can't think of a worse insult. Being a Frons type of writer is like being a Sarah Palin type of governor.

Edited January 14, 201114 yr by marceline

After seeing DePriest's AW run, the insult was intentional.

But that's just it. Kendall didn't need any kind of redemption at that point. She, Erica and Bianca had already begun to forge an albeit begrudging understanding due to them working together to trump Michael Cambias in the corporate espionage storyline two months before the rape was plotted to happen. Kendall was successful in her own right co-creating Fusion, AND she had developed a sisterhood with Mia, Simone and a truce with Greenlee. Not to mention she was in the quasi-triangle with Michael Cambias and Boyd. So, the character was in a good place on the canvas where she didn't need any redemption. Now, if the rape happened in early-mid 2002 when Kendall was brandishing guns at dinner with Erica and stripping down to seduce Aidan to get his pass key to Erica's penthouse... I would be inclined to agree.

I agree with you, but I think it would have been written as some type of redemption. Kendall saying this was what she deserved for doubting Erica's rape, for causing problems for Erica and Bianca.

At the time I thought the story helped further cement Kendall's place on the canvas and with the Kanes, as I thought she was sort of drifting before then. But then that was all trashed a few years later with the Rylee stuff.

Edited January 14, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Agreed. In story sense it made sense--initally. Rayfield and Cascio apparently wanted Kendall to be raped--and McTavish "brilliantly" changed it to Bianca. Which is a bit surprising as Kendall still wasn't firmly liked by Erica and crew at that point, and raping Kendall coulda been the classic McTavish "troubled woman is redeemed by rape" story. But I think it's obvious, no matter what you think of the reason, that having it be Bianca made for much more story.

McTavish got the head-writer job back in proposing Bianca instead of Kendall for the rape.

Kendall was the predictable one to have raped in the story, not that it wouldn't have been an intense story too for all the reasons R_S put down. It would have also been a very Megan McTavish move - the bad girl becomes the beloved girl by being punished (raped). That's a very every-soap move. I thought the twist was interesting and unexpected and accomplished changing the dynamics just as well. Erica and Kendall already had a rich and complex dynamic that I could have watched forever, but throwing in Kendall and Bianca was an unexpected turn that I really enjoyed. I loved how torn Erica was during the story too, how it affected her relationship with both girls.

I don't think Megan McTavish was thinking about desexualizing Bianca with that particular story, she was very intrigued with changing the dynamics with the Kane women in that story. I felt Bianca could have easily been moved back into a romantic relationship following it because they made the rape such a story of love, love and more love.

AMC chose not to do that and continue to choose not to do that because ABCD is probably afraid of doing that.

Isn't DePriest daBeast dead?

I can't think of a worse insult. Being a Frons type of writer is like being a Sarah Palin type of governor.

Well, when you got a writer who comes up with story by picking it out of a hat, the insult is necessary.

Isn't DePriest daBeast dead?

Not that I knew of. If so, oops.

Frons is not going to re-install McTavish. If he dumps the current team, i think he will promote an up and coming headwriter...think Mandy Beall...everyone loves Amanda Beall. We know there's no headwriting spot available at Y&R but I can certainly see her leaving her current post to take over AMC...with LB or AW as co-head?

Uh oh.......

Isn't DePriest daBeast dead?

I thought she was as well. People often joke about how she must have been wheeled out of a nursing home to write Sunset Beach, and that was over 10 years ago!

I do agree she is/was a writer Frons would have probably liked though.

Edited January 14, 201114 yr by LeClerc

YES! I always thought if McT was destined to use rape again as her way in with this show, it should have been Kendall. Would have been much more powerful and poignant and as you say would never have consciously, or subconsciously neutralized the homosexual woman.

I see all this, but my point was that would have been much more McTavish doing what she does. She has a HUGE history of using rape to redeem a character (and it's true this is a soap staple going way back, anyway--at least as far back as Lisa on ATWT in the early 60s). I do honestly think there was more story and more interesting dynamics with Bianca being the one rapes (and I disagree with R that it made no sense for Michael--who was practically insane and power mad at that point--to attack Bianca when he had the chance).

DePriest was the writer Behr initially hired to help fix AMC in the late 80s--she seems to have done a year (which had mixed results but people have said she did help to reshape the canvas) and then was moved to OLTL to, I assume, do similar duties with next to no success (to put it mildly). I did like her run at SuBe though--where her over the topness worked well with the show, and yet she had a more traditional soap feel to fall back on, but I agree she's not right for these kinds of shows (I'd love to see her work on Where the Heart Is--Hell I'd love to see ANY of Heart).

I see all this, but my point was that would have been much more McTavish doing what she does. She has a HUGE history of using rape to redeem a character (and it's true this is a soap staple going way back, anyway--at least as far back as Lisa on ATWT in the early 60s). I do honestly think there was more story and more interesting dynamics with Bianca being the one rapes (and I disagree with R that it made no sense for Michael--who was practically insane and power mad at that point--to attack Bianca when he had the chance).

Its just a real shame they turned Michael Cambias into an irredeemable monster. William deVry was awesome.

Agreed and would have been more interesting as a multi faceted character. But McTavish can't be blamed for that really--though maybe she could have worked to redeem him (which isn't remotely her style). I know that's not what you were implying, but...

Money talks. I'm still frightened over the possibility that Megan will return.