AMC - Friday - August 19, 2011

[Marley]

Oh yes, that's when they got closer I suppose.

[JaneAusten]

JR is unlikable to YOU. Just like Zach is unlikable to ME as are Kendall and Greenlee. I would never claim they are not liked or are hated by the entire audience. You seem to have some idea by the way you overanalyze this characrer that he's completely putrid and hateful to the general audience. Like any other character he has fans and detractors. I'd venture to say while I think the Chandlers themselves have been pretty decimated over the past decade, Adam and yes JR were/are probably 2 of the most popular characters on this show. I do think JR would be completely hated if it weren't for JY. He has grown by leaps and bounds as an actor and I actually credit his luck in being able to work opposite David Canary for a lot of that.

As for him not having a reason to be the way he is thats your opinion. I think Sonny Corinthos is a putrid character but at least in JR"s instance I don't have the entire canvas telling me that he's really a good guy just misunderstood like Sonny or even Todd. If someone is an SOB own it. AJ QUartermaine in your eyes wouldn't have a reason either because he wasn't abused or sexually abused. Dixie has floated in and out of JR"s life over the years, Tad always favored his own son Jamie over JR, in fact there was a sort of sibling competition there Being treated second and feeling that you deserve more has been the justification for his behavior. How about Adam being his father and never really having any place in JR's life until recent years. TAd and Dixie's dysfunciton over the years and constant breakups versus giving their kids a stable home. Lots of reasons you just don't want to see.

[Ann_SS]

JaneAusten, kudos on your defense of JR. Despite the writers' attempts to demonize him over the years, he has always been one of my favorite AMC characters. JY has always made me very sympathetic towards JR and I always root for him to win against his enemies, including his awful stepfather and ex-wives.

[R Sinclair]

McTavish brutalized the JR character in order to gain the Babe character sympathy. That's all there is to it.

[JaneAusten]

I don't even particularly like JR. I tend to like the good guys more and the good girls more than the bad girls but on AMC in the past 10 years, Angie is probably the only one and the good guys like Zach and Ryan, well all that is too myognist for me to enjoy one bit, I do know that I probably root more for him because every character they pit him up against is sanctimonius and judgemental and IMO even worse. The only one I ever rooted for against JR was Bianca and while some people love to overlook it, despite the ups and downs they have had over the years and that JR is somehow now a homophobe, they were and are actually friends. Bianca was one that despite the lashing out JR has done over the years I think actually understood him and has continued to be a friend regardless. And of course there has been conflict over the years. Gee on a soap opera go figure.

[Skin]

I never said that JR was unliked by the entire audience. I said that he is written to be an unlikable brute a lot of the time and yet we are later supposed to identify with the character when he self destructs so absolutely. I don't think it can even be argued that JR constantly does reviled things and yet we are later supposed to forgive him for it because his epic man pain is just too much to bear for him.

He is constantly written to be both abusive and self-harming and the writers have done this numerous times to illicit sympathy for the character as well as push story for other characters and make them sympathetic as well. They do this all the time. He puts Bianca in a coma but he loses Bess so you are supposed to feel sorry for him and forgive him because he lost his child. He put Kendell in a coma and nearly kills her and her baby but you are supposed to feel sorry for JR because Dixie abandoned him and lied to him. JR tries to attack Josh but Babe cheated on him so we are supposed to feel sorry for him and feel his responses and actions are justified. JR mows Amanda down with a car while driving drunk but JR was just told that Di was impersonating his mother Dixie so we can't be mad at him. Etc. so on and so forth. It's a particularly vicious cycle that the writers have latched onto. JR is a character who hurts other characters but we are supposed to find him sympathetic because he is hurt too.

I would say the very premise of that is largely unlikable because it tells the audience that JR has no impulse control and it absolves him of blame for his actions, but there are certainly fans who will eat it up as if they were beggers given a full steak meal.

Are we saying Dixie is responsible for JR's descent over the years? I would buy Dixie's death being a catalyst for JR's poor behavior but he was acting out prior to that. He was doing drugs, attacking David Hayward, trying to get David in trouble with the medical staff/board, having problems with Jaime, striking out at Dixie, disrespecting her and his father all well before Dixie died. From that point onward JR has just further spiraled out of control and it just makes no sense why. JR wanted for nothing. He had loving relationships when he grew up and was often the focal point of Dixie's life. Tad also was a very good father figure to him when he was growing up. Tad and Dixie were largely seen to have had the perfect domestic life in the late 90's and early 00's so there was no strife JR had to deal with in his formative years as a child or as a young teenager.

JR did have problems with Dixie cheating on Tad with David, but I find it hard to believe that all of JR's actions, problems and inability to deal with them all in some way stem from this. As a teenager his actions and motivations were him striking out at various people and persons because he was hurt. But this excuse, reason whatever you want to call it for a fully grown man is ridiculous.

This just blatantly isn't true. Tad shared more scenes with JR then probably any other character on AMC when Jesse McCartney was in the role. Tad was JR's surrogate father in every way of the word. He had a relationship with JR on and off from 94-02' and Jaime was often considered an after thought compared to JR most of the time. Tad was always there for JR more then Adam was and he was there for JR, more then Tad was there for Jaime. The show built up the Tad/JR father-son relationship more then his own relationship with his biological son. Tad paid more attention to JR and his issues then Jaime and his resulting problems more often then not. That only started to change when Tad found out all the wrong things JR started doing mid 04' which Tad couldn't tolerate or accept.

Except JR was never treated as a second anything when he was growing up with Tad and Dixie. It could certainly be argued that JR was the child who got the most attention and Jaime was the forgotten child in that household. Jaime was treated as the step-child more then JR was. Both Tad and Dixie were very focused on JR more then they were focused on Jaime but that was deemed okay because Brooke was a very, very involved mother with Jaime so there wasn't that much slack on the Jaime front. However I am pretty sure Micha's Jaime had a few scenes where he felt that he was the marginalized one out of the two of them.

I would buy this if the show ever made the case that JR wanted to have a relationship with Adam, but this was almost never the case. Tad was seen as JR's father more then Adam was.

JR is just as misogynistic if not more so.

[dragonflies]

Uh it's blatantly true. Tad chooses Jamie over JR and has time and again. Even going so far as to let JR think his own child was dead & said he'd do it again in a heartbeat, and if I remember right he said JR deserved it

It's not about how many scenes he has, it's how he acts in them

[Cheap21]

JR is a grown ass adult around 30. I dont see at this stage in the game why anyone should be blamed for his behavior and poor choices. He knows the difference between right and wrong. Oh Dixie's a bad mom. Tad doesnt care about him as much as his real son. The Carey girls were awful to him.. Adam doesnt love him enough. Life sucks. Well guess what? You deal with it, you grow up and you move on. JR is solely responsible for JR. At what point is he expected to man up and be held accountable for his own actions, without everything being blamed on someone for making him be awful? He's too old for this behavior and only he is responsible for acting the way he is

[dragonflies]

I agree Cheap. The thing that bothers me is when the writer's try to say it's Adam's fault he ended up this way when he was raised by Tad and Dixie not Adam

[Clear Drama]

Which begs the question why is LoBro's incoherent ass writing him this way? Skank ass Babe redemption to me isn't a good reason, when does the blame go to the genius writer we, including I once thought AMC had. She's just as shi!tty as the rest of them for going this route.

[Skin]

You're not understanding my post. I said Tad was a very supportive father of JR during JR's childhood and adolescent years and that is largely beyond reproach. Tad was a great father to JR from 94-02' which was when JR went through his childhood and adolescence. No one could claim during this time period that Tad was a poor father to Jaime or JR but especially for JR. He made time for him, talked with him, tried to get him to go on the straight and narrow and was the one person who told JR, Dixie had died and helped him through her death. Say what ever you want about Tad post 04' but he was a very good dad to JR during JR's most critical years. When Tad chose Jaime over JR in 04/05' that was the first time in the character's history that he did that.

Agree.

[R Sinclair]

But that's just it. JR may be 30 years old, but he's had no real examples of how to be a mature adult when it comes to the difficult things in life. He's had Tad, who uses sex with women other than his wives (or other men's wives) when things get tough. He's had Dixie who makes it a habit of fleeing and staying away when things get tough (she ran off to Pigeon Hollow in the mid 90s; then ran off to Switzerland in 2002; then let the world think she was dead for 4 years). And he's had Adam who was billed as the boogeyman in his life until his teens ("Whatever you do, JR, don't be like your father!"). It's absolutely unrealistic to believe that a young man who has been surrounded by nothing but bad examples and/or mixed messages of "adulthood" will all of a sudden emerge sane, mature and wise. He's making it up as he goes along, and that's the problem.

[R Sinclair]

You're conveniently leaving out Tad cheating on his mother in 1996. You're conveniently leaving out Tad cheating on his mother in 2001. You're conveniently leaving out Tad bringing back the psycho he cheated on his mother with who held him captive and almost killed his mother in 2001. By 2002, Dixie was "dead" and the damage had been done.

[dragonflies]

How am I misunderstanding you? LOL. Yeah of his CHILDHOOD, but his adulthood he doesn't hesitate to throw JR under the bus anytime he feels like it.

I didn't misunderstand, I responded to what YOU posted LOL

[Skin]

I responded to the statement that Tad always treated Jaime better then JR, that simply isn't the case. I said that wasn't true and used specific examples from 94-02, you then said it was true that Tad has always treated Jaime better then JR and then proceeded only to used examples from 04 and 05'. How is that Tad always treating Jaime better then JR when he gave JR better treatment then Jaime for six years compared to Jaime's two and that was after JR nearly killed Jaime twice, framed Jaime and got him jailed, nearly killed Bianca and almost killed Babe by drugging her, then continued to drug her and blackmailed her out of town as well? I'm sorry that's flimsy reasoning at best. It took Tad witnessing all of that for him to finally 'turn' on JR. That makes more of a case for Tad then against him. Tad treated JR better then Jaime through out most of the 90's and the beginning of the 00's? You must have misunderstood me otherwise your response makes no sense.