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AMC: Monday May 27, 2013 Episode Discussion


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To be clear, Finn wasn'tlet go--he wanted to return to New York as his focus is theatre (though they DID botch his story--apparently Broderick and all wanted Hillary there but Frons didn't--he was starting up his Liza story which Iloved.) Very very soon after he got the youngest son in Mike Nicholl's hugely acclaimed revival of Death of a Salesman and very strong notices and then last Fall he got great reviews as Chance, the male gigolo lead opposite DIane Lane in Sweet Bird of Youth. As much as I liked the actor and eventually the character,and I really did, his agent would probably shoot him if he ruined that momentum by returning to a soap now.

Serious I've never heard of this! Curious...

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I feel like the nipple talk was an OLTL thing given how FrankenRon loved to keep their guys shirtless and waxed. Could it have been Mark Lawson?

The big AMC thread fetish was over Jacob Young's ass. Every thread ended up being a discussion of his "ghetto booty."

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ICAM! I really liked Damon and was disappointed that D&D dropped Broderick's idea to bring on Hillary and play out the story of his parentage with Tad & her. Trent Garrett was okay in a role that really never clicked. I was a fan of Scott & Madison, but I'd take Pete & Celia over them if given a choice.

ITA! Hall brought the bitchiness that Colby should have, which was lacking with Moncrief, and I'm looking forward to what Brooke Newton does with the role.

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It would have made more sense plot-wise to root this story in someone's history and say Cassandra was intentionally targeted, because it's absurd that these supposedly dangerous international criminals who can make people disappear without a trace wouldn't do a background check to make sure a potential victim is the daughter of a police chief. I don't understand how Vlad even chose her - just hanging around at the airport waiting for a random victim to pop up? - after it sounds like they went to a lot of trouble with that other victim whose parents Jesse interviewed a few weeks back, convincing her that she was being recruited by a modeling agency and so forth.

But I think it cheapens the story to make it about another (male) character's vendetta, instead of about Cassandra. That shouldn't be the focus, and also in real life sex trafficking is not typically employed as revenge against people who are "important" enough to be on the radar screens of the perpetrators. Outside of a James Reilly/Charles Pratt production where "sex slavery" is used for gratuitous shock value and the victim can be an internationally photographed model or the daughter of an omnipotent supervillain, the real victims of trafficking are by and large powerless and invisible - and they're targeted precisely for that reason.

The one thing that would maybe address that gaping plot hole at this point without veering off on a convoluted "syndicate" tangent that dilutes the larger meaning would be if they acknowledged the racial dynamics at play. In other words, Vlad - not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree - just assumed that because Cassandra was black she wouldn't be missed by anyone who could do anything to help her. I could buy that. And one aspect of this story that has impressed me at times and that I still think may have been done deliberately without beating us over the head with it is the way that race has subtly played out. Race certainly factors into how trafficking plays out in real life, and slavery has certainly been a racist enterprise historically. Frankly, seeing Cassandra's captors talking about "selling" her, after she's been abused primarily by white men, made me even more uncomfortable than I likely would have been had they been talking about a white woman. It's also interesting that the white snitch was currying favor with Vlad, as if she had a sense of entitlement that made her believe she was in a position to make deals with her captors even after she's come to this point, while the other victim of color felt an affinity for Cassandra.

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HAHAHAHA, he was ok... no diamond in the rough and definitely rough around the edges when it came to acting. He was cool to look at and seriously though, Finn grew on me and gave some superb performances and I really liked him and Colby.

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I didn't know that about David's history. Sad that even on the network, a rape/pregnancy story that has been criticized for misogynistic undertones took a more sensible approach to this aspect. I maintain it is still the woman's choice, and it's understandable that the choice may well have changed when David was not only out of the picture, but in jail for the foreseeable future for a violent, high-profile crime. I wonder how many viewers, however they may personally feel about abortion, really found it entertaining to see a woman being publicly humiliated by her sperm donor for making a (legal) decision about her body.

And it troubles me that they're pounding the "abortion is murder" drum and apparently laying the groundwork for another exhausting search for a long-lost child whom a woman went to extraordinary lengths to give birth to in secret. Especially when so many of the stories involve women's sexual freedom being violated. Hearing this anti-choice vitriol makes me fear these stories will go in the typical network direction that made me turn off the TV when these shows were on TV: A long summer of Miranda hating Bianca - after she finds out about the circumstances of her birth, presumably from JR now that Bianca's been called out of town right before telling her - for being raped and/or not opting to tell her the gory details in a bedtime story, a la Lily Walsh. Cassandra recovering from her ordeal at the Miranda Center, where Bianca uses the "wisdom" of her experience to help her make the "right" choice and carry Vlad or the porno leather daddy's seed to term. Hey, as long as they're scraping the bottom of the barrel of network soap material, maybe she could even be pregnant with twins: one by each rapist. Ugh.

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I don't think they're being anti-abortion at all. Neither the show nor David is going around pounding the drum about all women who abort being murderers. David, the character, is only saying that to Cara, his ex, sheerly out of anger and spite and that's clear onscreen. I don't know where you're getting any of the rest of it from.

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You forgot the words "juicy" and "apple-like."

Not I. It still makes no sense to me how Damon could be Tad's son. The timelines don't jibe.

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A doctor in a medical facility screamed at a woman he believed had an abortion that she's a murderer. Nobody contradicted that, or had him escorted from said medical facility, where he was causing the disruption. To me, that's not realism and it's definitely not entertaining.

I feel like, for this horrific story about trafficking to have any genuine value, it should not be juxtaposed with degrading, tortuous scenes of women being raked over the coals for their decisions about their sex lives by male characters we're actually supposed to sympathize with. We live in a world where things like human trafficking exists...that's awful enough. There is value in the media accurately reflecting that reality, but women who are not being held against their will actually do have certain freedoms regarding their bodies. Why downplay - or show a woman reduced to tears for choosing to exercise - those freedoms?

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It's not realism - it's a soap opera. It's David, who is a gray character at best. He is hated by almost the entire town, a pariah. In a fit of rage he calls his ex who he believes aborted their child a murderer. He then leaves the hospital, where everyone but Angie hates him. Tell me where AMC condoned his viewpoint?

It was a two-second exchange. He called her a murderer and left. It was not some drawn out torture chamber. In reality, Cara's baby is alive and well, and AMC is adamantly pro-choice.

Sometimes real people say and do ugly things to each other in moments of hurt. David is no different. It is not a message about the show or women.

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