AMC: Thursday - September 15, 2011

[Skin]

I don't even think it's that much of an issue. They grew out of it and no longer feel as they did before about each other. They don't feel the need to be together anymore as they distanced themselves from each other and moved on. It's not as if JR couldn't have stayed in a relationship with her in Oak Haven for instance if he really loved and wanted her. He didn't have to try and get Marissa back the moment Annie was locked up in OH. It comes to a point where the characters just simply didn't want to be together. That happened tons of times in their very brief one year maybe relationship. That entire quad yo-yo-ed each other with their affection time and time again. When JR wanted Annie, she wanted Scott. When Annie wanted JR, he wanted Marissa. When Scott and Marissa dumped them both they still were held in a holding pattern and they still weren't together until months passed on both of their sides. So on and so forth. It went like this until they got together for a few months and then fell apart.

In terms of the way JR has acted and Annie as well I doubt they were ever one another's one true love. I doubt someone would say that JR means more to Annie then say Ryan the father of Annie's only child and the man she loved for two/three years before her pairings with Scott, Adam and JR. The man she initially went crazy for because she couldn't bare losing him to Greenlee, who she killed her brother for, etc. As for JR I would say Annie, Joanie and Amanda are probably the three relationships that mean the least to his character. While his relationships with Marissa, Kendell and Babe likely mean the most to him, when you look at his character history. You could say that those women are the three most important love interests for JR. The rest are just minor dalliances.

MCE and JY may have responded more to the Jannie pairing for obvious reasons they liked working with one another. But at the end of the day the show's writing staff felt differently and the show has spoken in regards to which characters still hold JR's heart and which characters do not. Annie is in a more neutral place because she now has no one, but that's a side effect of Ryan completing forgetting she existed to pair him with Greenlee again.

[EricMontreal22]

And JR never DID love her. I agree with Skin (for once )

[Skin]

Or if he did it wasn't enough to mean anything for him outside of the moment/haze of heat they were in. Much like his relationship(s) with Amanda.

[felicity22]

I am a big Jannie fan and have rewatched many of their scenes umpteen times. I refuse to believe that they were NEVER written to love each other because that is not what I saw on my screen. I did see love in their portrayal, in their words, in the longevity of their relationship. This relationship was inconvenient to the current storyline & so was completely disregarded for that purpose. It was NEVER explained why all of a sudden JR stopped caring about Annie & it was completely unrealistic. One minute he's crying over her picture, sobbing when they take her away; the next minute he's chasing after Marissa for the sake of his 'family'. JR never was given a moment of self-reflection. JY was convinced that JR loved Annie & that is what he told fans & soap mags; that is the way he portrayed JR. What JR has been written to feel (or NOT feel) since MCE/Annie left the canvas is completely inconsistent with what I saw between April '10 --> March '11. JR wasn't even allowed to grieve over Annie or to ever again utter her name. This was disrespectful to the many fans and also to the character. He has been written as a complete chump once again.

[felicity22]

Marissa? Really? JY had no chemistry whatsoever with BA's version and even less with SG's. Their physical relationship was barely a blip on our screens. How many promos did they receive? Marissa was JR's cancer wife, Ms. Pink Flannel; he was never truly physically attracted to her. And as JR has been written, he first has to have a strong physical attraction to a woman before other feelings will develop. With Annie, the attraction was magnetic. So strong that it overcame his feelings of love & loyalty to his father. His intent, after all, was only just to kiss her, remember? But in July, August, the relationship between JR/Annie progressed way beyond the physical. He got to know her, like her & began to truly understand her. She was the only woman who truly accepted him for who he was -- warts and all -- and didn't try to change him. With Marissa, he was always flawed and trying to 'change' to be the better man. She never once accepted the real JR, only the man who was hobbled by cancer & thus stripped of his true ambition & ruthless ways. Even with SG's version, he was always struggling to show her his 'best' side & it was always a lie. With Annie, he was free to be his true self; likewise she with him.

The writers only began to unravel Jannie & stopped writing them as a love story when MCE gave notice she was leaving. That is when they decided to try to decimate them, hire a new Marissa & hope that fans would accept that after Annie, JR was fickle & once again wanted Marissa. Sorry, but it was just not believable.

JY has said that JR's best two physical & romantic matches were Babe and Annie. And I'd have to agree that he loved those two the most (and it hurts me to admit this, because I very much do not like Babe with JR). But unlike Babe, who betrayed him countless times, Annie never did. And I believe they could have been a very strong PV couple had Missy not decided to leave.

[felicity22]

Ummm, I hate to quibble, but you definitely don't have your facts straight about JR & Annie. They yo-yo-ed with each other? When JR wanted Annie, she wanted Scott? That's just the thing, she tried to convince herself she wanted Scott, but she never truly did. Which is why she could never get JR out of her mind, even after she slept with Scott. Even after she married Scott. And likewise with JR. You said 'When Annie wanted JR, he wanted Marissa'. Really? When? JR wanted to 'save his marriage' & kept saying he'd do anything to do so, but he couldn't get Annie out of his mind even when he was purportedly trying to work on his marriage. When he went to the cottage, both times he was trying to get Annie out of his system and he completely failed at it. Even after she married Scott, he pretended he no longer wanted her, but couldn't hold his true feelings at bay. And even after Scott/Annie's marriage imploded & Marissa threatened to take AJ away if he went anywhere near Annie (that plotpoint completely forgotten, by the way; this time around, it's as if it's the first time EVER that Marissa has tried to take custody of AJ away), he could not stay away from her.

There was absolutely NO yo-yo-ing as far as Annie/JR's true feelings/attraction to each other went. Anybody else on the canvas was completely wiped out when they were in each other's presence. Did the combustible chemistry between JY/MCE create some of this, more so than the writing? Possibly, but it was still very much there. And no amount of re-writes will ever take that away.

[Marley]

I was/is a big Jannie fan and I agree with what Marceline wrote. I would love to believe that JR & Annie was a big love story & if I stopped watching when Annie was sent away & JR was sobbing over her then I could've continued believeing that but AMC went out of their way to ignore, disregard & disrespect that & can't ignore that even if I would like to & I have accepted that.

[marceline]

Again I'm over here in JR/Switzerland but I can definite say that IMO JR loved Anne. That was the story that was being told and that's what played out on screen and that's certainly how JY played it as far as I could tell. What's happened since is just the show trying to Jedi Mind Trick viewers that what we saw didn't occur. Soaps do it all the time. Greenlee ad Kendall's best friendship is a perfect example of selective Jedi Mind Tricking.

JR falling in lurve with Marissa didn't make any sense to me and not because I have some problem with the actors who play Marissa, or I love MCE or because I'm invested in JR, I'm so not. It just didn't make sense. After everything JR/Marissa went through, it would've made sense for them to reach a sort of peace and co-parent AJ but JR falling for her again and falling so hard made him look like a teenage boy who just got laid for the first time. And having the loss of her be the cause of his unraveling doesn't ring true anymore than the instant foreclosure and JR being voted out of the company but that's what they had to work with and JY's doing a good job with it.

[Skin]

What longevity? They didn't even last a year. They were barely together. They were together for three months and then he didn't care anymore. I would hardly call that longevity of a relationship, even on a soap.

JY liked working with MCE and he supported the pairing, none of this means anything in what the writers wrote and what the show has said to us since March of this year. What they have said to us is that Annie means nothing to him next to Marissa. That's what the show has told us. That is what JR has told us and that's what is canon for the show.

Again it doesn't matter that they didn't have chemistry or even if they weren't well liked by fans. What matters is the story that was told with these characters and what the story has told us is that JR loved Marissa and that he wanted her more then he wanted Annie, so much so that he completely forgot her existence and stumbled over himself to get back with Marissa once he realized his mistake. You can dislike that all you want but that's what was written and that is what the character of JR feels.

I don't understand why fans think they can re-write history in order to make their favorite couple more important to the show. What we know since MCE's departure is that both JR and Annie don't care about one another anymore and considering how brief their relationship was and how poorly they handled their obstacles to one another it's not that much of a stretch that they got over each other once the attraction between the two of them wore off. In terms of overall importance in JR's relationship's Annie doesn't rate very high. Kendell (the first woman he was ever attracted to and who was an important figure into his developing sexuality), Babe (the woman he went back to four times, shares a child with, married three times and wanted a fourth, and who he missed so much he married her twin, etc.) and Marissa (the woman who stood by him through cancer, married twice, and who he considered to be a great mother to his child, etc.) are the most important women of JR's life. Annie was an attraction he soon got over. Much like his brief relationships with Joanie and Amanda.

That's fine that is his opinion. Doesn't change the fact that him and Annie barely started and once they actually did they lasted for a few months and then their relationship died and they had both of the characters completely forget about the other one and go on with their lives. So how important could their relationship have been to both of them?

My point was that neither JR nor Annie were willing to just own up and be together right off the bat. Instead they chose to be with other people for most of their courtship or whatever you want to call it. They still spent most of their time with other people rather then just being with one another. Even after Scott was done with Annie in October of last year it still took them two to three months to be together and that was when they were both free agents. The fact that JR was willing/wanted to work on his marriage instead of committing himself to Annie just shows my point even more. Annie was the mistress (which was something that tore her apart) in the relationship and even she was afraid she couldn't live up to Marissa's place in JR's life as his wife. That was yet another thing that drove her up the wall that Marissa got to be Mrs. Chandler and Annie wasn't seen as the marrying kind or something. That was the entire reason she went insane again. Obviously Marissa was a threat to JR/Annie as was Scott prior to his incarceration. So I can't see JR/Annie as this great big love that was destined to happen especially when the characters themselves were willingly apart from one another through out most of their "relationship". The love they had for one another was fleeting and not strong enough to survive any kind of obstacles that were placed in front of it. When Annie and JR finally got together it was because Marissa and Scott had enough sense to get out of their way and let them implode.

[Khan]

I'm glad so many have exerted more effort analyzing the JR/Annie/Scott/Marissa quadrangle than the writers did writing it.

[felicity22]

You're saying they weren't together a long time even with soap standards...well how long was he actually together with Marissa before he cheated on her with Annie? How long was he with Amanda, since you said that she was higher in importance to JR than Annie?

Just because the writers chose to IGNORE & RE-WRITE what actually happened on our screens, does not mean it did not happen or that the viewers were dumb & misinterpreted it. Did you actually watch from April to December of 2010? Did you watch daily? JR was obsessed with Annie and it went WAY beyond the physical. He was never remotely obsessed with Marissa. Yes, he said he loved Marissa multiple times, and he probably did, but in the way that a man loves his best friend or his sister. He never really wanted to have sex with her & this was more than apparent in what we saw on our screens. After Annie, each & every time he attempted to kiss or be with Marissa, all he saw was flashbacks of his time with Annie. When he tried to go to the cottage to get Annie out of his head -- again, more images of Annie. When he tried to say goodbye to Annie at the cottage, he was crying & still couldn't get her out of his mind or heart.

After Missy left, JR/Annie were completely shoved under the carpet. JR wasn't allowed to mention her name. His quest to get Marissa back made absolutely NO sense, since HE was the one who decided to end it after finding out Marissa/Scott had slept together. HE was the one who went to stop Scott/Annie's marriage and told her that they were meant to be together, not with Marissa/Scott. The writers utilized the chemistry between MCE/JY as much as they could before they had to write Annie out. So maybe they did UNINTENTIONALLY write a love story, but a love story was STILL there. As a student of literature and a teacher of it -- that is what I saw on my screen. No amount of inexplicable re-writes will change that for me.

You say Annie forgot about JR as well? How much sense does that make since he was the reason she went crazy in the first place? Did it not strike you as quite odd that she never ONCE mentioned his name during the recent return? The writing to closet JR/Annie as a figment of our imagination has been nothing short of abysmal. Does it take away from what I saw on my screen for YES, a year? No! And when I asked JY about it -- he completely concurred. He said that as written, as he was directed, and as he portrayed it, JR DID love Annie. And he didn't understand why the writers have chosen to ignore it subsequently nor why either character weren't allowed to mention their relationship again.

And then you said that when they got together, it was because Marissa & Scott had the sense to get out of the way & let them implode? What show were you watching? Marissa did NOT get out of the way. Marissa, upon seeing Annie & JR together, decided to seek FULL CUSTODY of AJ because of her jealousy! JR/Annie were NEVER together OFFICIALLY because of Marissa & her refusal to let JR see Annie while retaining partial custody of his son. She threatened RESTRAINING ORDERS against him when he tried to see his son on Halloween! He decided to play nice to Marissa in order to try to WIN back custody of his OWN son! That's why he kept his relationship with Annie secret. He was planning a big trip with Annie to celebrate the end of his marriage & the custody agreement when Annie's actions accidentally caused Marissa to be injured....So Annie/JR were NEVER fully together or officially together and the only person to blame for that is Marissa.

So do I buy this big love JR had for Marissa? Absolutely not! He loved her as a friend, as a good mother to his kid, not in a soapy/passionate way the way he did Babe or Annie. Not even remotely close!

[Skin]

JR and Marissa were married in October of 09' he cheated on her in April of 10' that is already four months longer then JR and Annie's entire relationship which lasted from January of this year till the end of March. That's not even counting the time before they were married or when they were dating and "falling in love with one another." So your point whatever it was fell on deaf ears because JR's relationship(s) with Marissa were longer in duration and also had the added commitment factor JR was willing to give several times might I add, while he was not willing to do that with Annie. That particular part of their relationship drove her up the wall. JR spent more time "in love" with Marissa then he spent "in love" with Annie that's including their almost year pining period.

I didn't say that. I said that Annie along with Amanda and Joanie were the least meaningful relationships of JR's life and yeah if you time it I am sure JR spent probably the same amount of time with Amanda that he spent with Annie. Like I said before a three month period romance is not long at all. Especially on a soap. JR racked up some time with Amanda after Babe died and he was drunk with grief.

Then why did he marry her? Better yet why did he want to marry her a second time if all they had with one another was fraternal love?This is why I can't take it seriously, it's obvious that JR wanted to be with Marissa otherwise he would have left her for Annie as soon as he could. He didn't. He stayed with her for months on top of months and it was only when Marissa kicked him to the curb that he threw himself at Annie and wanted to try things out with her because he already lost Marissa. This reeks of a man who wanted to eat his cake and have it too. He wanted sex with Annie and stability, home, hearth, marriage, domestic life with Marissa.

Like I said before Marissa was done with JR back in August of 2010, Scott was done with Annie in October of the same year. Why did it take them two to three months to end up together if they were so compelled to be together? Why did it take Scott and Marissa not wanting to be anywhere near them and completely absolving themselves of the situation for them to finally fall into each others arms? At some point you have to admit that JR and Annie wanted to be with Scott and Marissa or at least they felt torn about their decision which already harms the Jannie one true love notion because no two people who loved each other that much would willingly choose to be away from each other. JR and Annie willingly chose to be with other people over their 'true love'. What does that say?

I think it's obvious Marissa won in the end. JR was willing to marry her twice, Marissa means more to him as we can see by him walking back to her with his tail between his legs desperate for forgiveness when he could have easily continued a relationship with Annie in Oak Haven and Marissa is the one that JR thought about for months trying to get her back while he completely forgot Annie existed. Marissa has been vindicated. JR throwing his tirade over Minx only drives this point further. He is pissed because he didn't get Marissa and that's where all this venom comes from. Even if you absolutely hate Marissa and are a Jannie fan at this point you have to admit Annie is not his most important relationship and what they had in terms of importance to JR pales in comparison to what he feels for Marissa.

Arguing against it at this point is just fan denial.

I'm sorry was Annie beating down the Chandler doors with baited breath when she sprung out of the psych ward? Was she tearing JR's clothes off when she ran away from Oak Heaven? Did I miss that scene? Cause I could have sworn that Annie was looking crazed and haphazard at Ryan's loft trying to jump over him to see Emma. Not once in any of her scenes did Annie ever mention JR. So how much could he have meant to her if she doesn't even say his name nor does she even attempt to go see him when she has the free will/time to do so? Yeah she wasn't thinking about him. JR was not on Annie's mind. So much for their epic love of all seasons. It didn't even last until Spring of the same year they got together.

He may have, it doesn't change the fact that the love itself was fleeting to the character. I am sure there was some kind of love in it for him. I would hope so after all he gave up for it. Just as I am sure JR "loved" Annie, I am sure some men who cheat with their mistresses, "love" them too. It doesn't change the fact that he couldn't have cared less about her once she was gone and that he had no plans to fully commit to her in a way he did with other women in his life (Babe 4 times and Marissa 2). Doesn't change the fact that while he was willing to sex up Annie he went home to Marissa, that while he was sleeping with her, he was raising his child with a woman he respected. While he may have strayed with Annie he still wanted his marriage to continue and made zero moves to end it and fully be with her. He continued to be with Marissa day in and day out when he could have left.

At this point I don't even see how this is arguable. JR had one foot out the door at all times when it came to Annie and he constantly used Marissa as an excuse time after time so he wouldn't have to fully be with her. This wasn't a small detail Annie herself noticed it too. This was the reason why Annie hated Marissa because Marissa symbolized everything that Annie was never going to get from JR.

What I keep hearing is "sexual chemistry" and while JR may have wanted to have sex with Annie multiple times a day that doesn't mean anything when it comes to actual relationships, commitment, marriage, worth and duration. He was never really with Annie. You yourself admitted it. So how could Annie mean something to him if he only put half of himself into even starting the relationship, then when he actually did decide to be with her he abjured himself from her and all things associated with her as soon as an out was provided for him. That's not big one true love.

All the evidence brings me to this conclusion: Jannie was about sex and the added stimulus/adrenaline rush of doing the wrong thing and it feeling oh so right because it was forbidden. When that was done their relationship torpedoed into non-existence and JR ran back to Marissa as fast as he could.

[felicity22]

The romance of JR/Marissa's relationship? That consisted of him getting cancer & wanting someone stable/safe/nurturing to take care of his son. That is why he married her, not because he had any great love for her. You say their relationship lasted from Oct -->April before he cheated with Annie? Well, pretty much that entire period, the man had cancer. That was one fun relationship/marriage! And they had one love scene before their wonderful marriage -- and it was painful to watch bc of the complete lack of chemistry between the two actors.

You say Annie/JR lasted from Jan-March? Hmmm, I don't think so. He was with Annie starting in Oct. '10, after Scott left her & went to jail. He tried to stay away from her (unsuccessfully) only because Marissa threatened to take AJ away. Prior to being with her in October, he was continually pining for her since April. He never stopped, even after telling Marissa about the affair & trying to kick Annie out of the house. Every time he tried to be with his wife, he envisioned being together with Annie.

JR only went to get Annie because Marissa left/dumped him? Again, were you actually watching??? Marissa did not dump him. She cheated with Scott because she found JR/Annie in the cottage and thought they were about to make love. She said...'they looked at each other like they were the last people on earth' and was convinced that they were in love. She then walked around guilty and heartsick after finding out that JR/Annie never slept together. She finally told him about her/Scott at the cottage at which point he rushed off to stop Annie's wedding. At what point did Marissa EVER dump him? And if she had actually dumped him, why was she upset every time she saw him with Annie? JR was the one who ended it with Marissa, not the other way around.

JR is a man who falls in love AFTER there's a strong sexual attraction. That's why I am convinced that he was NEVER truly in love with Marissa. Just look at their lack of flimed love scenes and you'll see who the true couple was. Marissa/JR were a huge DUD with the fans, both then and NOW. The writers knew this which is why they decided to test JR with Annie. And the results were combustion and a huge fan base. So they couldn't find a way to write Annie out 12 months later besides making her crazy and then having JR start chasing Marissa immediately after. But even that 2nd lame chasing of Marissa was done just to prop the future relationship of Marissa/Bianca. No one ever thought for a minute that it was about JR/Marissa or any great love they had for each other. Otherwise the love scene they had would have been more than about a 3 second kiss with a bad camera angle.

As for Annie being over JR since she never mentioned his name when she came back? Again, the writing is trying to RE-WRITE what actually happened and even why Annie was at Oakhaven. Annie/JR are currently inconvenient to the writers' big Orpheus plot-line which is why both characters have forgotten about each other. Too bad they can't wipe the fans' memories of it though.

As for JR continually using Marissa as an excuse not to be with Annie -- that is also completely unjustified. How is Marissa an excuse when she was trying to take his child away & he was playing nice with her in order to try to keep partial custody?

Whatever the writers did in their exit storyline for Annie though, and subsequently -- does NOT take away from what we fans saw on our screens! We saw them in love...and the rest is just a poor hatchet-job that the writers did in trying to ignore that they every happened.

[Skin]

Yeah safe to say I think all of my points still stand. JR and Annie was a brief relationship that they both got over which makes sense because neither one of them were willing to take the risk to actually be together when other options were available to them.

And to be honest if what you are saying is true and JR willingly chose to stay with a woman he didn't love rather then to be with Annie the supposed love of his life then it just makes the entire situation for Jannie look that much worse by comparison. And to be honest it just further makes them an even bigger joke of a couple/pairing/relationship. So much for this supposed great big love that consumed them to the point where they chose to be with other people for months. That just makes the Jannie pairing even less creditable. The bottom line persists why did it take Marissa and Scott finally leaving them for JR and Annie to be together? And why is it that even when they were together JR purposely chose not to commit to Annie and then forget about her the second he was given the chance to release himself from her company? Why was Annie so insecure about JR and Marissa's relationship that she went insane over their connection/relationship with one another? That doesn't make much sense does it, no woman would be threatened by a person their boyfriend isn't interested in.

[felicity22]

You're asking me if it made sense? HELL NO it didn't make sense! What the writers wrote at the end for JR/Annie made NO sense whatsover & was completely inconsistent with what they had written for the previous 9 months. Again, though -- Marissa did NOT leave JR, he left her. Scott did not leave Annie -- she ruined the marriage by sleeping with JR, whom she could not stay away from. Why did Annie all of a sudden become so insecure over a woman whom she'd previously dubbed 'Pink Flannel Love'? I have no idea, other than perhaps that was her pattern...to become irrationally insecure as soon as she was with a man she truly loved. She was NOT that insecure over Scott, who she knew had SLEPT with Marissa, as she was over JR, who was being nice to her merely to keep custody of his son.

Annie's whole exit SL smacked of lazy, rehashed, writing. Designed to let Missy leave & then start the JR/Marissa re-do at warp speed. Never mind that there was no explanation given for it. One minute, JR is sobbing after Annie, and grieving her being gone from the house (looking at the photo, crying, just like he looked at Babe's photo today, to the same DAMN song!). The next, he's chasing after Marissa in order to fill his house with 'family' again.

If you ask most people, irrespective of the words that came out of JR's mouth (I'm positive he was trying to convince himself which is why he kept repeating this supposed 'love' like a mantra), if JR never truly LOVED Marissa like he was supposed to -- I'd wager a large majority would say no. Not even close. Did he love Annie? Based on what I saw on my screen for approximately a year? Yes. But was this love respected by the writers or even remembered? No. And there was absolutely NO explanation given. We are, after all, like trained dogs, right? If you tell us something is so and we never saw it, then we never saw it. That is exactly what the writers have tried to do with JR and Annie. But sorry, I'm just not buying it.