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written by Margaret Royal

Love, Lies and Voldemort

The Lianca Recaps

Friday, August 1, 2003

The Valley Inn dining room. Greenlee steps forward down the aisle. Jack wonders what Greenlee is doing, and Erica gasps that Mary must have put her up to it. Erica won't let Jack leave her standing there to go talk to Greens, so Kendall says she might be able to reason with her. Reggie: "What's with all the interruptions?" Jack: "Well, it wouldn't be a Pine Valley wedding without it, I guess." Erica says that Kendall will get rid of Greens, and Bianca reassures her that it will be okay.

Keeping her voice low, Kendall entreats Greenlee for "no scene" and tries to get her to walk out with her and talk. Greens won't budge. Kendall pleads with her not to "do this to [Kendall's] mother," but Greens says that Kendall doesn't know what Erica's done to her. Kendall tries to compose her expression. She totally can't hide her lack of surprise, so Greenlee knows she knows. "I shoulda known," she says. She ascribes it to Kendall "suck[ing] up" to Erica. She refuses to let them finish the ceremony. Tad, Hee!Jamie, and OhNoSheDi'int!Brooke watch; David stands up as if to intervene, but Anna stops him.

Greenlee homes in on her target—Erica—and steps purposefully forward. Reverend Ritter calls this "most irregular." Ah, the uptight TV priest. Nice to see you again, Reverend! Greens says she's just following protocol, since she "objects to this union," while Jamie grins in the background and Tad stands up. Greenlee continues: "I object to you, Erica. In so many ways. I certainly object to this wedding and you marrying my father. I object to this man being my father. I object to the whole damn thing." By now, the murmuring is loud. Jack stares in confusion and disbelief, while Erica stares in mortal fear. Commercials.

Jack wants to go outside, but Greenlee doesn't want to do things "reasonably." "The truth's coming out, Erica," she says. "Live with it." Reverend Ritter is clueless. Erica asks the guests to sit tight.

Jack talks to Greenlee. He thought they had agreed that Mary's plans were crazy, but Greens says that she didn't know the truth, and "you know what they say: you can choose your friends, but you're stuck with your family." Greenlee realizes she was wrong about Jack being too good for Mary. Jack, getting frustrated now, thinks Mary needs to just accept that he and Erica will be married. "For the record, your taste in women stinks, Daddy," Greenlee crows. Jack emphasizes again that he's not going to be Greenlee's stepdad or surrogate father or whatever. "Right!" Greens says. "You're the real thing." Jack's eyes grow troubled as Greens tells him he's her real father—"biological." Erica yells at her to stop. "This is hateful!" Hee.

Greens tells Jack again, and he denies it again, but a new voice chimes in: "Yes you are, Jack." Erica throws her hands up. It's Mary! Yessss! She's cleaned up, wearing a suit, and weighed down with the newest set in the Crazy Bitz line of clattery jewelry! "I had to tell her," Mary says. "I couldn't let her go on—" but Greens, not interested in Mary's spin, cuts her off; Mary's confession, she says, was anything but "selfless." "You're no better than they are," she says. "Maybe worse." Erica shouts to Greenlee that the story is a lie, but Greens tells her she's "busted." As Greenlee tells Erica that her secret is out, Bianca steps forward to beg her to stop. She and Greenlee overlap. Bianca: "Greenlee, don't do this now. Just leave, okay, just let them get married, just let them get married!" Greens: "No, Binks, it's too late. It's out of your control. Mine too." Mary tells Jack to "think about the timing," and he'll know that Greenlee is his. "No, she's not!" Binks yells, and lunges at Mary. "Just get the hell out of here!" Whoa. Action!Binky is in the house. Kendall and Maggie have to restrain her! Mary looks a little freaked by this. She even sniffs! Hee, Anna Stuart rocks. But yeah. Whatever you do, Mary, don't sleep with Bianca and then steal something from her mother's safe. You'll get some of the scariest, iciest looks and most withering sarcasm known to man—and maybe even humiliation at a press conference. Action!Binky is nothing compared to VengeanceIsMine!Binky.

Erica whines to Jack that Mary will do anything to ruin the wedding, but Jack tells her she hasn't. He tries to find a way to address Crazy Bitz. GreekChorus!Jamie is grinning with pleasure in the background. Hee hee. Jack tells Mary she can still leave to preserve "some shred of self-respect," but Mary knows "[she] sacrificed that a long time ago." Jack, livid, shouts that he "meant it" when he ended things with Mary "all those years and years and years ago." Kendall and Maggie flank a frail-looking Binks. Jackson doesn't want Mary to use Greenlee to interfere. Mary protests, but Greens knows she's being used. But she thinks Jack and Mary have using people in common—"Right, Dad? Didn't you use Mom when you took her to bed?" Oh, burn. Jack thinks that's "hardly the subject," but Greenlee disagrees. "Sure it is. The pool boy beds the virginal heiress?" "Stop it, Greenlee, now!" Jack yells. "Ooh! Very good, that sounded so parental!" she snarks. Greens points out that Jack and Mary's tryst was nine months before her birth. Mary tells him to think about it. Erica, childishly, says that Mary was "probably seeing three or four men at the same time."

"Oh, which brings us to the reading portion of my program here," Greenlee announces. She heads to the front, next to Reverend Ritter. As Erica suggests that Jack have the guests leave, Greens asks what she's afraid of. Reverend Ritter wonders what Greens hopes to accomplish (and he calls her "young lady," but he's pretty babyfaced himself, which just reinforces the dumb uptight TV priest cliché). Greenlee's not sure, but tells him to "stick around." She flips through the diary and finds her selection. She reads it aloud, mocking every syllable. In the entry, Mary rhapsodizes about Jack's "glorious" lovemaking and fantasizes about their future together with a house and family. The camera pans to show the room full of guests, whose faces register snarky glee (Jamie), befuddlement (Stuart), royal discomfort (Erica and Jack), and itchiness to do something (David). "Well, the house prediction was a bust," Greens says, "but, hey, the family? Me? Mary was ahead of the game. Although she didn't know it when she made that entry."

"Worse and worse," Opal groans. "Better and better," Jamie grins. "This is bad," Tad breathes. "Right, Dad," says Jamie. "You certainly know how Jack feels, dontcha?"

Greens recounts "what happened next": how the Greenlees had raised Mary a certain way, and while Jack was estranged from "the mighty Montgomerys of South Carolina," Mary needed a wealthy husband, "not some hippie leftover caught up in playing free spirit," so Mary broke up with Jack and took up with Roger Smythe— "the man I grew up thinking was my father"—who was a liar about his wealthy and pedigree, which Mary found out too late. "And where were you, Daddy?" Greens wonders. "What were you doing? Making a name for yourself in politics, among other things." Jack had "no attachments," whereas Mary was "just another summer amusement to you." She lambastes Jack for not making the connection when he and she met many years later. Jack "didn't want to know," she says, because he was going after Erica.

Jackson tells Greenlee that he doesn't deny the affair, but he thinks Mary is making the whole thing up. "Well, I have no illusions about my mother's lack of scruples," Greens says, to Mary's irritation. But she cites "blood tests" as proof of the whole thing. This sets off more murmuring. Jack denies taking a blood test. Greens reminds him of his recent hospitalization and the emergency blood drive to find him a match. She reveals that she was his donor, and "saved [his] life." Jack's face falls as we head to commercials.

Back. So Greenlee was Jack's blood donor, he asks? Erica shrills that the story is "a lie," as Kendall tells her not to "engage [Greens]." That's right, Erica. Don't feed the trolls. Reggie wants to know if "that blood stuff" isn't confidential. Jack wants to know how Greens knows. Erica: "Mary told her." Mary: "Yes, I did." Trying to seize on this, Erica declares that Mary has set the whole thing up. Mary tells Jack that his hospitalization showed her "how selfish" she'd been. Erica is all, "bitz, 27 years have passed! Who's selfish now?" Jack wants Erica to shut it. Mary tells him that she had been wrong to let him go, but that "Greenlee suffered twice as much," and she wanted to try to change that for Greens and Jack. Jack wants to know why Mary never told him when he was laid up. "I wanted to," Mary says, looking at Erica. Jackson remembers Mary being sort of stalkery with rekindling the romance—hence Crazy Bitz—but no hints about Greenlee's paternity. "I hinted," Mary says. "You just didn't catch on. Isn't Pine Valley lucky to have you as D.A.?" Except she didn't say that last part. Jackson is enraged. So why did she wait until the wedding day? Couldn't she have told him sooner? Or did she have to convince Greenlee first? No, Mary says. And she drops the b(lackmail)-bomb. In conjunction with the E-bomb. Gasps all around. Erica looks shocked for a split second before she half-laughs in disgust. Poor Myrtle looks horrified and confused. "Whoa," says Jamie. Tad looks skyward.

"Is there no end to your nerve?" Erica divas. She snarks on Mary's "fantastic story." "Mary . . . you've been reading too many cheap novels." Hee! Soap irony! At least they can snark on themselves. Good job, AMC. Mary, incredulous, is all, "hello, I have the dossier you used on me, moron!" "I'm dead," says Tad. Erica is tired of Mary's "drama," thus supplying us with today's Pot and Kettle Moment, sponsored by Celestial Seasonings, and she tells Mary she'll have her taken away if necessary. "I've got you covered, Ms. Kane," says Reggie. Mary tells Erica that Greenlee is right: "You can't stop this, and you can't make it disappear." Erica snaps back that Mary is "just a sad and lonely and desperate woman who cannot stand to see anybody else happy," and that apparently includes Jackson, who Mary "kept the truth from all these years." "I told you you wouldn't win," says Mary. Erica says she's not in competition with Mary, because Jack has made his choice. "Maybe," says Mary.

Greens tells her to shut it. She laughs at them—"so wealthy, so powerful . . . so pathetic." She lays into her mom for "sacrific[ing] everything for social position," Jackson for using Mary and living in denial about the consequences, and "the all-mighty Erica Kane" for keeping Jack from his kid. "I don't know what you've proved, except that you hate me more than you love him." Go on, girl. Greens mock-apologizes for the interruption and starts to leave, but Jack calls her name. She tells him to stay away from her. Mary tries, too, but she's "nothing" to Greenlee. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm an orphan." Yikes. Jack looks at Erica, then turns to follow Greenlee out, but he runs into David in the aisle, who tells him "[they]'ve all done enough," and that he'll go after Greenlee. Erica tells Jackson to let David talk to her. Jack says okay.

Erica asks the guests for a few minutes before the wedding continues. Jack demurs. Erica simpers and says that she does need to collect herself; then they can start over. "After everything that's happened," Jack says, in seething disbelief. Erica doesn't want Jack to let Mary and Greenlee ruin the wedding with "outrageous lies. Jack—you believe me, don't you? Not Mary Smythe?" she says. We got to commercials on Walt Willey's angry, jutting chin and furious eyes.

Jack is surprised that Erica wants to pretend as though nothing has happened. No, she says, "but we can still salvage our wedding." Jack says he "can't do this . . . can't do this . . . until [he] know[s] the truth." He wants Joe to show him the blood donor records, but Joe hems and haws about confidentiality. Jack knows that "every rule can be gotten around" and points out that Tad does, too. Ignoring a stunned Erica, he asks for Reggie's cell phone.

Marian remarks that this is not Greenlee's first wedding trashing, what with the Leo/Laura English nuptials debacle. Stuart shushes her and says he feels sorry for Erica and Jackson and Greenlee. Marian says they'll be just fine.

"Why didn't Erica listen to me," Opal moans, sitting next to Myrtle. Myrtle's all, "what did you do now?" Opal denies involvement and b.s.es about bad luck with brides and grooms seeing each other on their wedding days. Myrtle is troubled.

Jack is talking to a judge. He wants him to issue a court order, and of course he gets it, even though he's the worst D.A. ever. He wants Joe to go with him to the hospital. Erica's all "Hopsital whaaa? It's wedding time!" Jack assures Joe he wants to leave and angrily asks Tad to come, too. Anna offers her help, but Jack declines. He asks Brooke to call Lily's teacher for him.

"No, no," Bianca is saying to Maggie, "he can't just leave, this can't be happening, he can't just leave my mother right now." Bianca runs to Jack and pleads with him to wait till after the wedding. Jack tells her not to worry and that "things will work out exactly the way they're supposed to, okay?" Bianca pleads again, but Jack tells her to trust him and gives her a hug.

Erica, after whispering something to Kendall, steps away toward Jackson. Kendall goes to the front and nervously asks for the guests' attention. Mary is lurking in the background with Reverend Ritter, for some reason. Kendall says they're postponing—"just for a little bit"—and will be in touch when they reschedule.

Erica wants Jack to wait for her to change, but Jack doesn't want her to come with him. Erica says she's "deeply involved in all this." Jack goes icy. "Yes," he intones. He wants Erica to wait for him at home. She says she'll go nuts doing that. Jack tells her he'll let her know as soon as he learns anything. Worried, Erica tells Jack she loves him and begs him to come home as soon as possible. Jack says he will. She can't wait to be married to him. "We're gonna be an old, happy married couple. Forever." Jack doesn't say a word, and leaves.

"Oh, God, what have they done?" Erica shudders. Bianca comes over and embraces her. "I just wanted it to be perfect for you," she says. "I don't understand what happened; everything was supposed to be perfect." Erica doesn't want Binks to take it so hard. Poor B. Erica tells her they'll get married, "just not right this minute." She really sounds like she's talking to a six-year-old. But it works: Bianca grabs onto it and decides to get Reverend Ritter and make sure he keeps his day open.

Mary walks towards the doors to the lobby, but Erica meets her in the aisle. "Okay, can you give me one reason why I shouldn't just kill you right now?" she bitches. Mary thinks they've "given Pine Valley enough gossip for one day." Erica thinks Mary's the one who's given "the gossip and the lies." The wha? Mary's all, "hello, my gossip is true!" As the mother of Jackson's child, she points out, she should probably be allowed to live. She tells Erica to give up, because it's over. Erica thinks it's far from over. Mary points out the absence of a groom or "a wedding band on [Erica's] finger," which makes her the winner.

Boyd is escorting Myrtle out. Erica tells Myrtle she'll have to walk her down the aisle another time. Myrtle says she will, "and very soon." She asks if Erica needs anything, but Erica says she's used to jealous women trying to ruin her life; "[she]'ll be just fine." Myrtle says that if she's not, she can come to her. Boytle depart, and Erica is left to dissolve into angry tears. Commercials.

Bianca and Maggie are with Reverend Ritter, who will be able to stick around. Bianca's convinced that Jack will be coming back. The Reverend leaves. Binks looks a little nauseated, and Maggie offers her some aspirin or coffee or something to eat. Binks has forgotten about her hangover, which is good, she says, because she "need[s] to pull this wedding back together." She flits back and forth, manically grabbing programs from chairs. Mags tells her she doesn't have to do anything and that it's "not her job." But Binks wants to make sure everything still turns out perfectly. Maggie suggests she take a breather. This peeves Bianca: "Listen, Maggie, I realize that I kind of lost it a little bit before, but I don't need a keeper, and I don't need a babysitter." Hurt and annoyed, Maggie says she's just trying to be a friend. Bianca apologizes, ashamed. Maggie reminds her that she would be doing the same for Maggie, even "bossing her around." Bianca agrees. Maggie doesn't want her to ignore her "bender," but Binks says ruefully that "getting drunk isn't the worst thing that ever happened to somebody." No, Maggie says, but there's more going on, too. Bianca pulls herself up abruptly and asks in a change-the-subject! tone if Maggie "think[s] that's true." Maggie's all "Greenlee huh?" "Does it even matter right now?" "Well, if it's true," Binks replies, "it means that Greenlee and I are cousins." Heh. Bianca looks royally annoyed at the idea. Maggie points out that "if . . .when" Erica and Jack get married, Bianca and Greenlee would be stepsisters. "I don't want her to be a part of this family," Binks says. She hopes that it's all "another one of Mary Smythe's vindictive lies." Since when does Binks know so much about Mary? Maybe this is continuity and I don't know it.

Bianca is worried about the flowers not staying fresh, but Maggie thinks new ones are easy enough to buy. Binks wonders about a mister and starts to go to call the florist, but stops when she sees a smushed-looking white rose sitting in the aisle. She lists a little, but Maggie catches her as she stumbles. Bianca recognizes the rose from her mom's bouquet and wants to put it in some water. As she picks it up, several petals fall to the floor. She gets choked up, but tries to control herself. "This wasn't supposed to happen this way," she says bitterly. "My mother was supposed to be married. After everything that has happened, somebody was supposed to be happy." Bianca stares at the fragile rose. I know this is supposed to be related to Voldemort, since as she cleaned up Myrtle's wrecked living room afterwards, she found a white rose that had been knocked to the floor and stared at it hollowly, but I don't know what it might signify. Her own innocence, patronizingly? Hope, perhaps? That would make sense, but I don't know. I just hope they don't start to play fast and loose with the symbols.

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Screen grabs courtesy of Olga Online.© 2000-2003 (texts) are with the author. If not otherwise stated, the author is Ivanova. All rights reserved.