All My Children Discussion Group

Topic: A Long Lurker's Rant: Good Guys and Bad Guys on This Show

I mainly just lurk here, but the rampant stupidity of this storyline forces me to post, so I can scream at something besides my television.  As a disclaimer, I should say:

(1) I have never hated any characters, in any form of media, more than I hate Ryan and his smug, little goon-squad. (Except maybe Sonny over on GH and I quit watching that show because he was going to make me break my TV in pure explosive rage.)  I just DETEST every single, 'good guy' on AMC, right now.  Because they're so obviously not 'good.'

(2) The only characters on this show that I can stand at the moment are David, Adam, and sometimes Annie, mostly because she makes Ryan so miserable.  (Also JR, but he's not really part of this storyline.)  Anyway, Adam, David and Annie are supposed to be the 'bad guys.'  But, I find them so much more sympathetic.  Really.  It's not just 'love to hate them' voting for the 'bad guys' because they're fun.  No.  It's crazy, but I'm genuinely voting for them to win, because everyone else is so delusional and infuriating.

It's not that I think David's right.  I like him because of his badness, most of the time.  He keeps things interesting.  But, I can't stand the double-standard.  Why is he the only one who's going to get punished?  Ryan and Zack and the other 'heroes' are breaking so many laws and... No one cares.  Not even the police.  They drugged an old man with a heart condition and forced him to hear the voice of his dead twin.  They nearly drove him to suicide.  He had to be rushed to the hospital and then they showed up to torment him some more.  It's just evil in every sense of the word.  I don't care that Adam really shot Stuart.  They didn't know that and neither did he.  They just wanted what they wanted and screw the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, David's now the villain in this.  The one who needs to pay.  How can Adam and David be on opposite sides and still both be wrong, while Zack and Ryan float around untouched by any of the mud they've slung?

I think the writers want this storyline to go both ways.  They want David to be the 'bad guy' for drugging people.  But they want Ryan and Zack to be the 'good guys' for doing the exact same thing.  Did David drugging Adam lead to Stuart's murder?  Yep.  Did Zack drugging Adam nearly lead to Adam killing himself?  Yep.  So, what's the moral difference?  If drugging someone is a scumbag thing to do (which it is), then okay.  I can get behind that.  It's wrong, and bad, and needs to be punished.  So then writers, DON'T HAVE THE 'HEROES' OF THE SHOW FRIGGIN' DO IT, TOO!

Is it that hard to figure out? 

Really? 

How can David be the one punished for helping to carry out Ryan and Zack's scheme?  How can it be wrong for him to hand them the drugs, but not wrong for them to administer them to a sick, grieving man?  If David is the 'evil' one for helping, what does that make Ryan and Zack for coming up with the plan in the first place?

It seems more than a little hypocritical. 

And then there's Jesse, who a few months ago arrested his own wife for planting drugs in David's home, but now he helps to conspire with Zack.  He's complicit in this entire thing.  Adam is the second person they've drugged now and he's just fine with it.  Why?  At first, Zack was blackmailing him, but now I guess I'm supposed to forget that and think it's all because Jesse wants to help Kendall so much.  (Another disclaimer: I think Kendall's a friggin' moron.  Seriously, she's like one of those stupid kids in a horror movie who gets killed in the first reel because she won't stay out of the haunted house or whatever.  It's all her own fault.  At this point, it's like Darwinism if she gets caught.  The best thing for the species.  Just let her rot in jail, so her stupidity can't contaminate anyone else.)   

Anyway, the point is, Jesse said it was wrong of Angie to plant the drugs with Tad (or was it Jake?  Whichever.)  He was real clear on the moral line they'd crossed.  And that's his wife.  But, aside from some hand wringing he's apparently okay with Zack and Ryan's reign of terror.  In fact, he wants Angie's help with the cover-up.  Hey, why do we even need laws?  Let's just send vigilantes after everyone they think might be guilty.  The cops can just pat their heads and spend their time getting ready for the next dance-a-thon, I guess. 

How can the writers not see the contradiction here?  

There are literally different laws for different people in Pine Valley.

What the heck is going on with this show?

I guess you can argue that David should be held responsible for the last time he drugged Adam, on the night of Stuart's death.  But, the writers have created a Catch-22 with that.  After all, David thought he was justified.  He thought he was protecting a child.  He thought he was saving Little A from the evil Chandlers. 

Sound familiar, Ryan?  Yeah, it's the same BS justifications you pull out about Emma.  Annie's evil.  She'll hurt Emma.  I'll do whatever it takes to protect my daughter from Annie, blah, blah, blah.  It's the same darn argument.  Criminals always have a reason for their crimes.  But, that doesn't make it right.  EVERYONE who breaks the law needs to be held responsible on the show or no one can be.  The self-rightious attitude of the 'good guys' makes me crazy, since they're ALL terrible people, now.  

Basically, I'm sick of the double standards.  Ryan and Zack can do anything they want and it's noble.  Jesse can cover for criminals and it's all part of the greater good.  But, David's the evil one for helping them commit their crime-spree.  I'm seriously angry about this and I haven't even seen today's show, yet.  I'm the only one in my household who likes David, so maybe I'm just sensitive about his character but WTH is going on with this storyline?  Who can I even vote for if everyone's guilty and nobody cares?  Why should I care, as a viewer?

I just want some standards that everyone has to live up to if they're going to be the 'heroes' of the piece.  For instance, no kidnapping and drugging people.  Is that really so hard?  Otherwise, the random morality of this show will drive me nuts.

Okay.  That was super-long and someone's probably going to get mad, but I feel a little better.   

*Whew!*

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Kendall and Zack are so incredibly self-involved that it's boardering on parody. Really, it's incredible. They don't care who the endanger or whose lives they disrupt. And the fact that Jesse would risk his family, job, marriage and also Angie's job for Kendall is just stupid. I hate this whole storyline. I have no sympathy for any of the 'heroes' and I've lost all respect for the characters involved in this mess. Such a shame that the writers have done this. I feel bad for the actors and for me for having to watch it. Katierose/eom

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Posted by: LDB
Date posted: Fri Nov 6 5:51:50 2009
Message:

Oh, for the days when the Marian/Phoebe murder mystery with the purse "W" was really and "M"."  Did I just date myself?  Not literally, of course.  I don't actually date myself.

Remember that intrigue?  It was classic/vintage SO.  How can things have gone so wrong?  It isn't the internet.  It's the writing and TPTB, etc.  So sad.

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Sadly, I started watching AMC regularly around the time of the baby switch. I missed the real golden years of the show. Still, even the fall out of the baby drama was more interesting than this Who Shot Stuart fiasco. The people who'd helped Babe, the 'good guys' in the story to the writers mind, at least had some cummupance. I remember David getting sentenced to community service at the hospital and Palmer and Adam taunting him. He vowed revenge and Palmer said something like, 'What will it be, Hayward. Squeegees at dawn?' I mean, that was funny. The SL went on forever and was pretty dumb, but at least it the dialouge was good. Now, it's all just terrible. An endless loop of 'Kendall, Kendall, Kendall.' KatieRose/EOM

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Posted by: Lee
Date posted: Fri Nov 6 0:04:15 2009
Message:
''Who can I even vote for if everyone's guilty and nobody cares?  Why should I care, as a viewer?

I just want some standards that everyone has to live up to if they're going to be the 'heroes' of the piece.  For instance, no kidnapping and drugging people.  Is that really so hard?  Otherwise, the random morality of this show will drive me nuts.''

This is precisely what has made me turn off this show lately.  I literally have no one to root for - I just don't care.  Nobody deserves my empathy.  What happened to the 'Guys in White Hats'?  The ones who don't live in an anarchy?

 

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Anarchy. Yes. That's exactly the word for it. Pine Valley has no laws, at all right now. Even the police and doctors are corrupt. The 'good guys' are kidnapping people. Drugging them, assulting them, bullying them, breaking into houses, and staging jail breaks. I'd literally rather take my chances with David, Adam and the 'Black Hats,' right now. At least I know where I stand with them. Frankly, the 'good guys' scare me. Really. I find Zack and Ryan's zealot hatred frightening. They're unstable. Katierose/EOM

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Posted by: buddz
Date posted: Thu Nov 5 23:26:19 2009
Message:

Good job describing the mess, KatieRose!  You've nailed the main problem:  contradictions in characters, motives, plots, intentions.  It's a puzzle, wrapped in a bloody body bag, atop a filthy garbage scow, floating down a river of deceit, lies and corpses straight into the pit of hell. 

And you failed to mention the Queen of Contradiction herself:  Krystal Carey Chandler Hayward Martin.  She stole babies, destroyed lives, ruined all of her marriages, aided her daughter in ruining several marriages, lied about babies and adulterous relationships, repeatedly lied about pert near everything --- yet that horrid trollop still manages to don a self-righteous cloak of knowledge and wisdom to lecture others on parenthood and love.  Geesh, what a crock of crap.

The worst is that there's hardly anybody to root for any more.  Who's the good guy?  Who deserves to win?  Where's the joy?

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You know, it's funny. My first draft of the post did have KWAK, but I edited out because the post for soooo long. I haven't liked Krystal since she and Babe stole JR's baby. The latest reason she drives me nuts is because she and everyone else forget that she wasn't a VICTIM of David's schemes... She was his partner in them. (At this point in my argument, my mother -who is not a David fan- usually points out that he drugged her. But, since she stayed married to Dave AFTER she learned about that, I don't see how it matters. She made her choice.) Anyway, she was in on trying to steal Little A. She knew that David had drugged JR. She was a-okay with David's plots, when the benefited her. It's just when she got all bent out of shape about Amanda that Krystal decided she was an innocent victim of David's plotting. If you want to be a bad guy, be a bad guy. More power to you. But, don't take all the benefits of a life of crime and then -when things get sticky- act all innocent and expect me to buy it. She's as two-faced as any of them. Katierose/EOM

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Posted by: Mark Dalton
Date posted: Thu Nov 5 22:35:01 2009
Message:
I totally agree with you, too.  Besides your post being very well-written and expertly analyzed, the part about Kendall is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.  Zach and Ryan can now join Tad in the Self-Righteous Bullies Club, headquarters in Double Standard Valley.

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Thank you! Yes, Kendall inspires all the snarky-ness in my soul. There has truly never been a more stupider, more useless soap character. She and her band of merry men think they're entitled to everything. That they can just do whatever they want and the rest of the town is just there to serve them. And, for some reason, the rest of the town thinks so, too. After all this is over, Kendall won't even care that her false confession disrupted so many lives. She'll be the victim, somehow. Very frustrating. Katierose/EOM

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Posted by: gjm44
Date posted: Thu Nov 5 21:58:42 2009
Message:
I totally agree with everthing you just said.  That's why as a former Kendall and Zack fan I no longer care that they will be gone with the move to Ca.  It's the same reason I no loner care about Jake and Amanda and whether they will ever be happy together.   

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I used to like Kendall and Zack. Zack, especially. I used to like Angie and Jesse, too. I used to like Amanda. For about two seconds, I even liked Erica, back when she was helping Adam keep Little A from David. Now, though, the show has literally made me detest most of the cast. They've beaten the story into the ground, over and over with the same dialouge, in a endless circle that goes nowhere, but down. No one's going to come out of it looking like a good guy. There's no one to root for and the only reason I'm looking forward to the 'who shot Stuart' reveal is that it will finally be OVER. As for David and Amanda, voting for them is like voting for the coyote over the roadrunner in the cartoons. You know David's smarter than them. I hope he runs circles around their stupid plans and winds up 'meep-meep'-ing his way to victory, while they hold up little 'yipes' signs. What's the point of rooting for such dummies? They've brought it all on themselves. I just seriously hope that Trevor really is David's. Writers, please don't change that. **crosses fingers** Katierose/EOM

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Posted by: goldie
Date posted: Thu Nov 5 20:37:41 2009
Message:
I totally agree with you, I have been mad for weeks over this. You left out Erica though, she is right in the middle of this hypocrisy, yeah right Kendall is her daughter but Kendall confessed to the murder, Annie didn't turn her in and have her sent to jail. And Jesse, so sad, he not only was in on the planting of drugs in David's piano, but he did the cover up for North's murder and now he is helping Zach and the mob. All the so called "heroes" are bigger criminals than the ones we are supposed to hate. I really wish David had told Angie to stick those pills up her you know what. Jake's name was on the bottle not David's. I so wanted him to just laugh in her face and walk away. The whole thing is just so warped. Angie knows Jesse is a crooked cop and she is no angel either, she stole the drugs to plant on David.  And when all this mess is over, they will all come out smelling like roses and David will take the fall. Even though Kendall didn't commit the murder, will she go to jail for prison break? Of course not!

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Of course, you're right. Erica's insufferable. Yesterday, when she said something like, 'Oh, let me talk to Adam. He trusts me. I can get him to confess.' UGH! I just can't stand her, anymore. Yeah, writers. Erica's a great heroine. Of course, I'll vote for her and Ryan to light the torches and burn the witch. Even though they change their minds every other day about who the real killer is. It's Annie. It's Adam. It's anyone but Kendall. She's completely innocent. Even though SHE WENT TO THE MANSION WITH A FRIGGIN' GUN INTENDING TO KILL SOMEONE, she'd never really kill someone. How could anyone think such a crazy thing? Even though she confessed, it was just the once and she's totally over it now. How many 'even thoughs' does the explanation need before it's just stupid? How many many justifications can the show come up with for the double standards? **eye roll** Katierose/EOM

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