AMC Tribute Thread

[Angela]

The last time I watched the scenes was almost 20 years ago. I can't find it on YouTube, argh. 13 at the time, I just remember Kendall looking shaken after sleeping with Anton and then ending up by Erica and I remember feeling she really just wanted to talk to Erica but that went wrong. It went wrong half because she wanted to make them all pay for their rejection (revenge) and half because she noticed Erica was picking up on something being wrong with her and was concerned (warm attention).

Maybe I had rose colored gasses on at the time.

ETA: Found clip, I'll be back with commentary in a minute or ten.

Yeah, watching that, I do think it was rose colored glasses. She definitely came up with that plot right as she sent Anton off to sleep, you can see the wheels spinning. I can see why I saw it the other way back then though - her emotional state before (Erica's rejection, turning to Dimitri who had aways to that point genuinally cared about her, then Dimitri's rejection), how dead inside she looked after except when she was placating Anton and I think when she said she didn't want to do it (it was her first time) she kind of meant it about sleeping with Anton to a point.

I liked Anton and Kendall a lot in the beginning but damn did he become so, so, so bitter. He became bitter due to Kendall using and abusing him (and Dimitri's lie) within her Erica obsession, but still, lol. Kendall: "one night of mediocre sex" Anton: "it'll get better" Ouch, lol. He was tired! They shoud have brought an Anton recast for Kendall after Zach's death. That would have made much better built in story rather than throwing Griffin in there.

The first half of this clip is the reason that they were my favorite non-couple on AMC ever (with AM in the role too). There's this really intense push and pull, the way it goes from hot to cold in a second. They're a complete mess when it comes to each other. When Erica is "stop hurting yourself" you can tell she cares a little (at those moments she probably sees her own unsuccessful quest for Eric's love) but then in the next breath you can see that with every fiber in her body she wants Kendall to stop begging her and go away NOW so she doesn't have to deal with the tragic past herself. And it's hard to dislike Kendall too because she's obviously looking for something emotionally that wasn't fufilled for whatever reason and getting stomped on like crazy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvPpcc0bfSk

[ellabelle]

The scene before that one was Kendall basically throwing herself on Erica's mercy at Enchantment and begging Erica for a second chance. Erica told her that Kendall wanted more than she could give, she wanted Erica and everyone else to play assigned roles in her fantasy, and it just wasn't possible. She told Kendall that Alice Hart was her real mother, and she should go home to Florida. It was obvious how much this conversation hurt Kendall, and yet, it's hard to feel completely sorry for her when she'd spent MONTHS trying to break up Erica and Dimitri.

I think what made Kendall almost intolerable for a lot of this period was that she was SO massively immature. It would have been obvious from the adoption papers and from Kendall being a huge Erica fan that Erica was only 14 when Kendall was born, and thus the explanation for adoption was pretty evident. Yet the anger she had at Erica for the adoption was SO huge. Then Kendall's unwillingness to accept that she'd been conceived in rape - most women don't lie about that sort of thing, and despite Erica's rapist claiming that it was consensual, duh, she was 14. She was too freaking young to consent! Kendall was supposed to be 23 or 24 by that point in the show, and yet she's behaving like a 15 year old. She doesn't buy that Erica was sexually naive and inexperienced the night Kendall was conceived, and yet Kendall is "traumatized" by consensual sex with Anton after Dimitri turns her down? Really? I am about the same age as SMG, so I was in my early/mid teens when I watched all this the first time around, and it felt like Kendall was written/portrayed as much younger than she was supposed to be.

[SFK]

I'm two or three years younger, but absolutely, everything about her screamed teen no matter what writers trickery they pulled. When she smoked, she looked like a "bad teen" sneaking a smoke, when she drank, she looked like a "bad teen" lying about her age...

[ellabelle]

I had to go Google it - SMG was born in 1977. Kendall was supposedly born in the summer of 1969. I thought SMG had the acting chops to do the part, but she just wasn't believable as a young woman in her 20s, and she sure as hell didn't look like she was older than Charlie Brent, who was born several years into the show.

[SFK]

Okay, so she's two years older than me. Yeah, I thought she was a great actress for her age, and believable as her age. If any of the bts stuff about her and SL is even remotely true, my hunch is that it had to do with SMG acting too grown (others have suggested the influence of her "stage mom").

[Angela]

I don't remember her spending months trying to break up Erica and Dimitri before the stabbing. Yes, she had developed a crush on Dimitri somewhere along the line and started acting on it but it was kind of kids play.

See, that's the thing, the show was writing her as a teenager when she first came in (living with Erica) and I saw her as a teenager. The math not working never bothered me because I loved the story, because I loved the concept and probably because I just turned 13 and didn't really give a bleep about the math. They initially wanted us to ignore the math for the story and I think the story was good enough to do that for. I understand a lot of people can't do that. I know it bothered a lot of people through to the end. I was more bothered by them trying to tell me this KID was 23 or 24. I remember, after months of the audience compaining about the math, McTavish sarcastically putting out in Fall Previews that we'll discover Kendall is a 23-year old virgin; very repressed. So no matter what AMC ended up telling me 8 months in, I had seen a kid with issues (probaby never feeling like she fit in) come in and become a kid with even more issues. That's why the story worked. That's why the redux with Ethan and Zach didn't work for me - we saw Ethan as a well adjusted young adult (he looked one, and he acted like one) for months and then he regressed into a 16-year old for most of the rest of his run because his daddy didn't admit he was his daddy.

I couldn't stand Kendall much of her last year with SMG in the role myself because it was just bad storytelling (sort of like it was hard to look at Kendall during the summer of 2004 with the story going on). Erica and Kendall were no longer having scenes together so there wasn't much to save the story of Kendall's never ending vendetta and Erica's never ending lack of acceptance.

[DRW50]

I wonder if they should have just kept her age ambiguous, like they often did with Erica.

I still can't get over Lawford as Charlie. I read an SOD from 1993 or so talking about how viewers had complained about him being too old, but he was popular now, so clearly people had gotten over it. Since the character only seemed somewhat popular during his relationship with Hayley, apparently they didn't get over it.

[Angela]

IMO, that's sort of what they were trying to do but they were clearly writing her as a teenager (and she looked like one) thus so much of the audience showing off their math skills.

CL's Charlie, never liked him. I didn't know what age he was supposed to be, I just didn't like him, lol.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Thanks! I'm following the movies Facebook page. There's so many great pics on there!! ;-D

https://www.facebook.com/DesiresOfTheHeartTheMovie

[ellabelle]

In terms of her trying to break them up: She constantly "accidentally" interrupted them to the point where Erica wanted Kendall out of Wildwind. Kendall didn't want to give up life in a mansion, so she deliberately told Erica that Dimitri helped her find Richard Fields, which led Erica to move out. Then when they tried to reconcile, Edmund warned Kendall that Erica was at Wildwind trying to work it out with Dimitri and that Kendall needed to stay the hell away. Kendall immediately went to them and did her "Oh, I had no idea you were here," act to rub it in Erica's face that Dimitri let her stay - even though Erica had wanted Kendall out. Erica stormed off, and Kendall ran off to the hunting lodge to fling herself at Dimitri, declare her love for him, kiss him, etc. She plotted to sabotage Dimitri and Erica further by showing up on Erica's doorstep the next morning and claiming rape.

When Erica had a breakdown at the hospital and it came out that she'd stabbed Dimitri, Kendall said to herself something like, "Well, Dimitri, you got what was coming to you. Now it's Erica's turn" and then dropped a few innocent comments to a sedated Erica about the police coming for her to try to rile her up.

Kendall wanted to punish Erica for not loving her enough, for not being the mother Kendall wanted her to be. When Erica rejected her, Kendall threw herself at Dimitri. When he rejected her too, well, we all know what happened.

[Angela]

I know there's very few people who saw SMG's Kendall in a sympathetic light, people either hated her or loved to hate her. I remember all the I hate Kendall letters in the magazines. I know I did not have the popular opinion - most people saw her in the same light as they saw RB's Greenlee. I personally didn't see her in a much different light than I saw AM's Kendall. She was a little darker and meaner than AM's Kendall but I still thought she was just a hurt kid looking for love (something to fill this hole she had, no pun intended) in all the wrong ways.

Yeah, yes but she didn't think Erica was going to stab Dimitri. She didn't know how that would unfold. She was dumbfounded about how that situation went down and then went into self-protect and vindictive mode.

[SFK]

Do you all remember that wonderful episode where they had the funeral for Gloria and Adam's baby, Anna Claire? They played Clapton's Tears From Heaven and Erica gave Gloria Mona's bible. Then Erica and Dimitri met up after months of estrangement and had probably the loveliest scene they ever had (complete with an, "I'm Erica Kane. "). God, the soaps used to be so good.

[ellabelle]

I liked Kendall at first. I liked her through their wedding even. I loved Erica for trying to be a mother to Kendall, trying to play the part Kendall wanted her to play. I loved the idea that Erica had two children and that Kendall was a handful and Erica was overwhelmed with two daughters who didn't get along.

When Kendall believed that disgusting lying bastard when he claimed that a barely 14 year old Erica was asking for it, that she WANTED it, that kind of wrecked Kendall a bit for me. I get that she really only heard what she wanted to hear, and here was this man, her father, telling her that no, she wasn't the product of a horrible crime, and that he loved her and wanted her. But logically, realistically, there's no way Erica could have consented. She was too young, and at a bare minimum, Kendall should have been mature enough to see that this man apparently had no problems having sex with a little girl. When she oh so 'innocently' let it slip to Erica that she'd found her father, I was pissed.

Yes, I do agree with you that Kendall was floored by what Erica did. She certainly didn't expect that. But then she slipped into Dimitri's room, and she wasn't remorseful AT ALL about what she'd put into motion. It was more like "we could have been happy, you could have been with me, but nope, and look what happened to you. If you'd just stayed with me, this wouldn't have happened." I will admit though that I did feel bad for Kendall when she talked to Erica at the hospital after the stabbing and assumed that Erica acted in Kendall's defense and that it proved Erica loved her. Erica responded that she acted to protect HERSELF because she didn't see Dimitri, she saw her own rapist. You could tell Kendall was devastated, and I did feel bad for her, that she was so hurt... but really, her hurt didn't justify what she did to Erica and Dimitri.

[Marco Dane]

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[SFK]

I totally forgot to post about that casting breakdown I saw for AM's new pilot. It's called I've Completely Lost It and it's produced by her manager, Seth Greenky.

The show is a naughty comedic satire about the behind the camera drama on a competitive weight loss reality show.

AM stars as Bobbi (short for Roberta), an in-shape, sparkling, "America's sweetheart" trainer who is a bit of a raging bitch diva when the cameras aren't rolling. She's pretty much alienated the entire set.

The show also stars a well-known reality show trainer. I'm pretty darn sure I know who it is, but I won't speculate since she wasn't named in the breakdown.