Episode Title: Alterations
Season 07, Episode 17
Episode 147 of 344
Directed by Linda Day
Original Airdate: Thursday,
January 23rd, 1986
The Plot (Courtesy of
TV.Com): The police decide
not to prosecute Lilimae and Cathy, however a story about what happened is in
the tabloid that Sonny works at. Peter and his mother discuss her relationship
with Galveston, and how Peter is Greg's half- brother.
Jill tells Mack that the Governor wants her to work with him, and she'll be
moving into the office next to his. She gives him the key to her room at the
Bryant Hotel. Mack drives by the hotel, but decides not to go in. Greg calls
Abby, and Olivia picks up an extension. She hears Greg threaten to tell Gary
that Abby knew all along that he was the father of the twins, and that she knew
they were alive. Upset, Olivia asks the MacKenzies if she can live with them,
though she won't say why. Abby and Gary go to get her, and she tells Abby that
if she doesn't let her live there, she will tell Gary about the twins. Olivia
asks her how she could do something like that, and Abby leaves, very upset.
Welcome to Alterations. As usual, we’ve got a lot going on and a lot
of characters to talk about, so let’s just get started straight away with, say,
Lilimae. Why Lilimae? Honestly, it’s because the material Lilimae
is getting to work with at this juncture is, for me, some of the least
interesting stuff going on in the saga at this point, although it’s not my least favorite story at this moment
(take a guess on what that might be).
Anyway, as we head into Alterations,
the police have decided to drop the whole case against Cathy and Lilimae,
probably because they realize it has been stretched out over far too many
episodes as it is and they, like the audience, are eager to get it wrapped up
and finished with. Unfortunately, the
police dismissing the case does not signify
the end of this storyline, because we’ve still got more. See, near the middle
portion of this ep, Lilimae is going through the grocery store, doing her shopping,
making me wonder who exactly pays the bills for all the groceries needed at
Val’s house. Val is a big rich book
author now, right? So do you think she
just hands a big wad of cash over to Lilimae and sends her off to Safeway
whenever they need some groceries? Or do
you think, somehow, some way, Lilimae has managed to save up some money in the
last few years? I highly doubt that, as
when she was reintroduced into the cul-de-sac at the start of season three, she
was a homeless shopping cart lady using clever methods of deception to get out
of paying her hotel bills, and since moving in with Val, she hasn’t done any
work that would earn her some money (aside from a brief career as a Vegas
lounge singer back in The Rose and the Briar). In any case, it’s not
important, but it’s thoughts like this that fill my head as I watch the drama
unfolding onscreen, maybe because, by this point, the drama for Lilimae is not
interesting me.
See, she’s at the
grocery store, buying whatever, when she realizes that her face is splashed all
over the front page of some trashy tabloid paper along with a headline about
Joshua’s death, something about how there is a conspiracy and that probably
Cathy and Lilimae killed him. Never one
to cause a scene, Lilimae runs through the entire grocery store ripping the
paper out of everyone’s hands. This
scene was very amusing for many reasons, but the thing I noted immediately was
how it seems that absolutely everybody in
the grocery store is reading this paper. When have you ever been in a grocery store and
seen all the people standing around reading papers? The only people I ever see doing that are
those 900 year old fat white dudes who live in grocery stores and just spend their
whole days sipping coffee and reading papers.
Anyway, yeah, Lilimae runs around and rips the papers out of everyone’s
hands and, you know, that’s pretty much the scene. The big mystery here is: Why are these
articles being published and who is the person responsible for them?
Well, that leads us
nicely into my very least favorite storyline currently going on within the
show, and that would be, you guessed it, Cathy and Sonny. Buddy Repperton was last seen in the closing
moments of The Confession giving
Cathy a song and dance about how he would be there for her all before he pulled
out an evil tape recorder from his pocket and made an evil face for the
camera. In Alterations, we get a little more info on what this guy is really
up to. He is seen early in the ep having
a meeting with some newspaper editor, talking about how he’s getting good
information out of Cathy about the actual circumstances of Joshua’s death. The editor (who I really thought I recognized
but, when I looked him up, realized he’s a nobody and I’ve never seen him in anything
before) seems less than thrilled with Sonny and this story, telling him that he
needs to deliver more exciting news than what he’s currently bringing. Anyway, so far as I can remember, that’s
about all we get with Sonny in this episode, and I don’t like it and it’s my
least favorite story going on, so let’s move on to some good material.
While I’m underwhelmed
by Lilimae/Cathy/Sonny, the good news is that everyone else is getting great
material to work with right now, starting with the one and only Greg
Sumner. Oh, such joys Greg brings me
every time I look at him. I love
everything about Greg and I love everything about the way Devane brings him to
life, but I think what I love the very most is how multifaceted he is. While we have lots of scenes of him sucking
on cigars and sitting around his big office, making some sort of plan, we also
get such fabulous bits of comedic gold as him taking care of Laura’s kids for
the weekend. See, looks like Laura’s
gonna have to be out of town for a few days, so she leaves Greg in charge of
the kids, Daniel and Jason 4. Yes,
that’s right, we have now reached Jason 4.
It looks like Jason 3 (Danny Ponce) made his curtain call earlier in the
season with Until Parted by Death,
and then of course before him we had Jason 2 (Danny Gellis, who spanned from Community Spirit through Living Dangerously) and then of course
the easily forgotten Jason 1 (who was Justin Dana and was only in the Pilot episode). Well, I’d have to say this is our most
jarring Jason morph ever, because I was kinda getting used to having Danny Ponce around and didn’t realize he would be morphing randomly in the middle of
the season, but here it is. Jason 4 is
played by Matthew Newmark and he shall keep bringing Jason to life until the
immortal character finally leaves the series with Noises Everywhere: Part Two.
His IMDb resume isn’t too impressive, with nothing that really leapt out
to me as too terribly interesting. At
the moment, I don’t really have an opinion on Jason 4, but stay tuned because
I’m sure I’ll have thoughts later (except probably not, since Jason has never
really been a compelling character in any of his myriad of incarnations).
In any case, I love
seeing Greg play the homemaker with Daniel and Jason 4. When we catch up with them, it’s breakfast
time and, in lieu of preparing a traditional American breakfast of eggs and
bacon and toast, Greg has instead chosen to prepare hot dogs and beans for
breakfast. Devane is in rare form in
this scene, being unbelievably funny and charming and charismatic, telling them
about how hot dogs and beans are the greatest breakfast known to man, all while
juggling a call from Laura and a visit from an amused Karen. A scene like this really makes me wonder how
much improvisation Devane was pulling working with these kids. Do you think there was even a script for this
scene? Or do you think the creative team
just told Devane to act with the kids and do whatever felt natural? Do you think the kids were just sorta allowed
to react to him and make up their own dialogue based on his behavior? I must know!
Why hasn’t Devane written to me yet requesting to do an
interview? I’m more than ready,
Bill!
Anyway, moving on from
the beans and hot dogs, we also have some interesting new developments with
Peter Hollister, who is revealed in this episode to be, GASP!, Greg Sumner’s
half-brother. Last ep, we met Ruth Roman
as Sylvia Lean very briefly and listened to her and Peter exchange some cryptic
dialogue with each other. In this ep, we
catch up with Peter giving Sylvia a bit of a tour through the Sumner offices
during closing hours. There’s nobody
else in the offices, just Peter and Sylvia, and as he shows her around the
place, we get some key information revealed.
Basically the two are talking about how soon they will be coming into
money and Peter says something about how, after Greg finds out who he is, “How
can he deny his half-brother his birthright?” or something similar. Honestly, I’m enjoying
all this stuff a lot more than I remember enjoying it upon first viewing. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it back then
(remember that when I think back to my first viewing of the series, it’s all a
blur of constant brilliance and I just remember feeling very, very happy all
the time as I worked my way through the saga), but I just remember thinking it
was kinda there, a storyline going on that was mildly interesting but not as
interesting as the other stories going on concurrently. Now, however, I’m finding all of this very
compelling, and I think a lot of that has to do with the actors. I’m not entirely sure why Ruth Roman is a
famous actress (although I just did a bit of research and Wikipedia says Strangers on a Train is her most famous
role), but I am sure that I find her quite compelling onscreen in much the same
way that I found Ava Gardner so compelling last season. Her husky cigarettes-and-cocktails voice
holds a certain old Hollywood feeling that I greatly relish and I just enjoy
listening to her speak. The surprise for
me is how much I’m enjoying Hunt Block as Peter Hollister, a character I really
don’t remember having any particular feeling for one way or the other. I don’t know what has changed for me at this
point, except to say that I just like the strange, offbeat quality he’s bringing
to this character. I like how Peter
manages to seem like kinda a square but also kinda duplicitous and
untrustworthy but also kinda likable all at once. Now that we are meeting his mother and she
seems like a pretty normal old lady, it’s only making this character more
interesting. Oh yeah, and one last
little thing to note which amuses me: Basically every episode, My Beloved
Grammy will mention how much Peter looks and sounds like John Boy and she seems
utterly convinced that he is the same actor no matter how many times I assure
her that he is not. Since she keeps
saying it, however, I do confess I now notice a little bit of John Boy in Peter
Hollister, as well.
Moving on from that, we
also have fabulous and sizzling excitement between Mack and J.B., who has
announced she is here to stay and has also announced that the governor wants
her working hand in hand with Mack, basically working in the same office as
him. Of course, Mack goes on about how
he doesn’t like having to work so close with J.B., but we viewers at home
should all be very grateful to have as much J.B. in our lives as humanly
possible. Also, a certain key ingredient in our storylines for the
coming weeks rears its head in this ep when J.B. gives Mack a key to her hotel
room and gives him the open invite, saying how he can stop by anytime. Okay, get ready for me to go on for seventeen
days about all the possible motivations within J.B.’s brain. So what’s going on here? When she was first brought onto the show, she
was flirty with Mack and then, just before she ran off to disappear for a
little while, she confessed that she had fallen in love with him and that she
had to return to Sacramento for that reason.
Now she’s back on the scene and seems to be making eyes at Gary, who she
hit it off with a few eps back, but here she is giving Mack the key to her
hotel room. What changed? Is she still “in love” with Mack? Does she just want to enjoy at least one
night of nonstop passion with Mack before allowing him to return to Karen and
never mentioning what occurred again? Or
does she just need to get laid and Mack is near her and she thinks he’d be a
good lay? I’d say option three is the
least likely, because if she wants a good lay, Gary is right there, ready to
go, so why return to Mack? Anyone got
any ideas on this one?
Actually, I’d like to
parlay this for a moment to discuss the entire character of J.B. and whether
she is a good person or a bad person. At
this exact instant in time, pretending I’m a fresh viewer in 1986 with no
possible way of knowing the sweet joys of what lies in the future, I would say
that J.B. seems to be a good person and a person of ethics. I like that she is a strong independent woman
with a real job that is important and socially relevant, I like that she seems
pretty clear and upfront about her thoughts and her opinions, and I like how
she seems to think over her own decisions carefully. Because of this, I do believe that meeting
Karen and seeing the whole Fairgate MacKenzie family together made her decide
to stop pursuing Mack, but that still doesn’t help explain why she’s giving him
her hotel key now. I guess, if I have to
make a declaration right now at this very instant, I would say that she simply
can’t resist his sexual allure. She’s
working with him all day long, she’s smelling that manly cologne or whatever
the hell he wears (Dobsonator by Calvin Klein), she’s listening to him make
jokes and be super duper charming. For
J.B. to stand idly by and resist Mack’s charms would be just as impossible as
putting me in a locker room with a dripping wet and naked Sexy Michael Fairgate and
asking me to not immediately sodomize him, for I simply would not be able to
control myself. In this case, I think
J.B. just can’t resist the lure of M. “Mack” Patrick MacKenzie.
So she gives him this
key, right? This prompted My Beloved
Grammy to get very upset at the very notion of Mack having an affair, saying
how he wouldn’t do that, it’s not in his character, he’s too decent, all that stuff. Obviously she’s right, but we do see Mack
driving up to The Bryant Hotel and gazing somewhat longingly at it before
getting up out of his car and sorta walking towards it. Does he go in? We don’t know because we go to a commercial
pretty soon after that, but let’s all wash our brains out and try and decide
where we would see this storyline going if it was 1986 and we were watching
this first run on CBS. I definitely
would not think the chances were high of Mack having an affair, mostly because
I know my KL writing team and I know
they wouldn’t throw drama in just for the sake of drama. On KL,
character comes first, and it’s not in Mack’s character to have an affair. He loves Karen and he tries to be a good
husband to her. Why, then, does he drive
to the hotel at all? For me, it’s easy
to understand this, and Mack also helps to explain it himself as we move
further through the eps. Essentially, I
think he just needs to know that the possibility
is there. He needs to know that,
even though he’s now 43, he can still bring it and still be sexy and charming
to pretty young ladies (random: I just looked it up to see how old Teri Austin
would be here, and she would be around 29).
I totally understand all of this because I am an insane narcissist
obsessed with my own youth and beauty and I have a constant need to feel that,
as I go about my day, I am sexy and desirable to nearly everyone I encounter,
which of course I am.
All of these storylines
are good, but the very best thing about Alterations
is what happens with Olivia and Abs.
Oh yes, I had forgotten all about this, and watching it now, I have no
idea how I could have allowed that to occur, because this is riveting
stuff. See, near the midway point of the
ep, Greg and Abs are speaking on the phone.
Abs is at Westfork, sitting around and being bored and wondering if Gary
will ever come home, and I believe Greg is down at the cul-de-sac taking care
of Daniel and Jason 4. They’re going on
about all the drama of the last few months and, at the precise moment that Greg
decides to threaten Abs with, “I’ll tell Gary that you knew he was the father
of Val’s twins and that you knew they were still alive,” Olivia picks up the
phone and hears the conversation go down. Let me explain how
Olivia overhears this so that I can further compliment the brilliance of this
scene. See, Olivia is just hanging out
in her bedroom listening to some fantastic New Wave music (which seems to be
dominating the soundtrack lately and I like it that way) with a friend of hers
and they are talking about how positively no one just goes from liking rock to
liking New Wave. I enjoyed this little
exchange because it reminded me of how teenagers will assign a great deal of
importance to things that are really completely irrelevant and stupid like what
kind of music you listen to. I can
remember kids saying stuff like, “Well, you can’t
like this kind of music and also like this kind of music, it’s unheard of,
Bob Loblaw,” and that’s sorta the conversation Olivia is having with her
friend. Then Olivia says something about
how some cute boy from school has a sexy New Wave album that she wants to
borrow, so she picks up the phone to call him and that’s how she overhears the
conversation. I don’t really know how to
explain why I liked this bit of business so much except to say that I liked how
the writers managed to get Olivia to the phone.
While watching this scene, I was thinking about the New Wave music in
the background, about Olivia’s conversation with her friend, and then she picks
up the phone and hears all the “Val’s babies” business and I’m like, “Oh shit,
shit just got real,” and I love how it managed to catch me off guard. Right after this, we cut to commercial and
it’s the perfect place to put a commercial in, because who could possibly not keep watching this?
When we return from
commercial, we see that Olivia is sitting quietly, not speaking, appearing to
be in shock, and if I remember correctly, her friend just sorta runs off or
goes home or something. I like how we
can see that this news clearly rattles Olivia down to her core; this is not
just some new information that she is kinda surprised to hear, but rather
something that is deeply effecting her way down inside of her, and it makes
what happens next make a lot more sense.
See, after this, Olivia decides to run away much like she did in late
season five (and we even get a little shout-out to her running away back then
through some dialogue, which I appreciated).
We get a pretty creepy little scene where some old fat bald white guy
pulls up to the side of the road and asks her if she’d like a ride. They throw this snippet into the little
thirty second preview, probably hoping to make the audience think Olivia might
get kidnapped and raped and murdered, but nothing like that occurs since Olivia
is smart enough to say no thank you to the creepy old fat bald white guy, who
drives away all frustrated because he will have to find someone else to
rape. With him gone, Olivia continues
her big trek and winds up at the Fairgate MacKenzie house.
We have a lot of
footage of Gary and Abs being all scared and freaked out about where Olivia
could possibly be, making phonecalls to other people to try and solve the
mystery, but then we go over to the Fairgate MacKenzie house and see that Eric
and Sexy Michael are both helping her hide out, although they have reservations
about doing so. Olivia tells them how it
won’t be for long, that she just needs a place to stay for awhile, but for one
reason or another, it’s not too long before both Mack and Karen know what’s
going on and call Abs to tell her what’s up.
However, before moving on to those plot points, I want to pause to
discuss the character motivation of Eric and Sexy Michael. Okay, so I know that logically, they are
related to Olivia, right? Abs is their
aunt, so then Olivia would be their cousin.
Even so, people used to marry their cousins all the time and I have to
wonder if Eric and Sexy Michael view Olivia as something of a sister figure or
if they both really want to fuck her.
Olivia is now fifteen years old and she is clearly starting to turn into
a woman right before our very eyes (just wait for our next ep when she starts
busting out the makeup kit), so you have to think that Eric and Sexy Michael
are noticing the way Olivia is developing, no?
Is part of their willingness to help her out based in their desire to
“accidentally” walk in on Olivia in the shower?
I know they’re related and all that, but come on, these are two horny
teenage boys and horny teenage boys will fuck anything they can manage to put their penis inside of.
Anyway, let’s move on
to other topics because I think it’s becoming disturbingly clear where Brett
would choose to focus the stories if he were on the writing staff for the
season, but that’s not what the writers do.
Instead, they have Abs get the call that Olivia is at Karen and Mack’s
place and sorta throw a hissy fit about how she’s her daughter and she belongs
home with her, but when she comes to pick up Olivia, she sees it won’t be quite
as easy as all of that. See, Abs goes up
into one of the bedrooms (presumably Olivia is staying in the room that used to
belong to demon Hell-spawn Diana back in the early years) and starts trying to
convince Olivia to come home with her.
Throughout the ep, Olivia has been all pissed off and declaring how she
can’t live with her mother anymore, but she hasn’t told anyone the reasons why,
but she lays it all out on the table for Abs here and it’s a fabulous little
scene. She says how she knows the truth
about Val’s babies and she knows that Abs knew all about it, knew that they
were alive when everyone else thought they were dead. Ugh, the acting is so good in this scene,
reminding me of what an underrated little talent Tonya Crowe was. I think this is the point in the series where
the writers are starting to see what an actress they have on their hands and
are writing the storylines accordingly, giving her more material to work with
than she’s had in the past. The other
half of the scene is Abs, and of course Donna plays the part perfectly as she
realizes how much her daughter knows and how damaging this information could be
to her if it got out.
The most important
thing that I take away from this scene is the fact that Olivia’s opinion of her
own mother has been severely damaged, perhaps beyond repair. She’s had her little fights and arguments
with Abs throughout the last few years, but she’s always looked at her as her
mother, yet now she sees precisely how duplicitous Abs truly is and I think
it’s changing her very perception of who her mother is. I’m gonna focus really hard in the
coming eps and seasons to see if this permanently shifts Olivia’s view of Abs;
will they ever be the same again? Any KL fan should know what we’re in store
for when we hit season eight and Olivia starts to pick up a new vice, and I
feel like that’s all being planted right here in this scene; what Olivia has
discovered is so crushing to her that she can’t possibly ever love her mother
the same way again. Also, I definitely
think it’s worth noting that the tables have turned on Abs at the same exact
time that her daughter has clearly inherited her own ability to manipulate and
blackmail. After all, Olivia tells Abs
that what she wants is to live with Karen, and if she doesn’t get what she wants,
she shall tell everyone in the show about Val’s babies, who the real father is
and how Abs knew they were alive. It’s
weirdly beautiful and exciting to see Olivia turn into a mini-Abs while using
that ability to strike out against her mother.
Abs makes the walk of
shame out of the bedroom and back downstairs and outside, where a bunch of
other characters are waiting around to see what she says. Rather than leave with Olivia as she so
boldly declared she would, Abs leaves with only Gary and says, sounding all
choked up and emotional and talking kinda slow, “I think Olivia ought to spend
some time with her Aunt Karen.” From
here, Gary and Abs get into the car and start to pull away while Olivia looks
down from the bedroom window. Abs looks
up at her, all sad and depressed, the car starts to pull away, and then we
actually get a freeze frame ending (which I’ve noticed we’ve been getting a lot
more of lately) on Abs face and our “Executive Producers” credit and boom, the
episode is over. I really liked this
ending and it got me very excited for how things could unfold in the coming
weeks. The episode title is Alterations and I feel like the biggest
alteration on display in the ep is right here, and that’s the fact that Abs has
to alter her relationship with Olivia based on what she knows and how that
could damage everything in Abby’s life.
So yeah, that was Alterations. I’d say this was a huge step-up from The Confession, which I enjoyed but had
some major problems with, as well. While
I’m still not in love with the Lilimae stuff (just because it’s dragging on so
God damned long and I’m eager to see her get new material to work with) or the
Cathy and Sonny stuff (just because it’s so unbelievably contrived and stupid),
all the other stuff worked great for me.
I liked the little details such as Greg playing father to Daniel and Jason
4, but I also enjoyed the big story beats like J.B. testing Mack’s loyalty to
Karen and, most especially, the big developments between Abs and Olivia. Overall, a solid 48 minutes of KL.
With nothing more to
say about Alterations, I suggest we
move right along to our next episode, Friendly Enemies.
Peter Hollister does look like John Boy Walton! I have always thought that. I am sure someone else mentioned it somewhere, but this is the first place I have seen it articulated!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, new wave is a marked improvement over the public domain crap that played continually at the Ward's house between 1979 and 1981 or so :)
"Never one to cause a scene, Lilimae runs through the entire grocery store ripping the paper out of everyone’s hands." - favorite sentence
ReplyDeleteYou'll notice in this scene - and the one in which the tabloid photo of Lilimae is taken at the newspaper rag office - that the director/ editor has added comical sounding music. I think they were just having a little fun here, but yes, in general, this whole Joshua thing has been beaten to death.
DeleteSo far, I’m in love with Jill Bennett (well, maybe just Teri Austin...). I'm watching carefully to catch hints of the evil woman she is/will become. I know that the writers who created Jill didn’t foresee where the subsequent writing teams would take the character. But there has to be a moment in a future episode where we the audience will see the “turn”.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned finding Hunt Block attractive during this viewing as opposed to when you had seen the show originally years ago. I’m having the opposite reaction: I thought he was gorgeous while first watching the show in the 1980s but now – meh. Tastes change as we get older, I guess.
Hunt Block layer took over the role of Craig Montgomery for many years on As The World Turns. He does have an odd look to him if ya ask me. He's handsome, I guess, but not in a familiar way, if that makes any sense?
DeleteTeri Austin as Jill is just so fun to watch. She definitely sparks up this season. (Felt like there had been a lull from after Joshua died until she reappeared.) I don't think Jill is inherently bad at this point... will be interesting to see how she unravels. Perhaps it's that tumble down the hill coming later that injured her brain and made her ultimately lose it?
DeleteLots of great seeds planted in this episode... the Olivia/ Abby relationship turmoil yet to come, the scheming of Sylvia and Peter ... and sadly, Laura's cancer. In this episode, hasn't she really gone out of town for tests/ treatment, leaving Greg with the kids to test out if he could handle raising them were she to die? Speaking of Laura's kids... Daniel, or Dan as he is now called, is a spitting image of Constance McCashin. I believe he is still played by her actual son in this episode even though he is not credited. And he is adorable.
ReplyDelete