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written by Margaret Royal

Love, Lies and Voldemort

The Lianca Recaps

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

The Valley Inn. Maggie walks a shaken Bianca into the dining room and asks if Michael is gone. David and Anna are there, too. Anna says she had an officer follow Michael to make sure he left, and she assures Maggie that since she put the "fear of God" into him, she thinks it's unlikely he'll be bothering Mags anymore. "Me?" Maggie asks, surprised. Anna repeats Michael's claim that Maggie pulled a knife on him. Maggie doesn't answer, instead searching out Bianca's eyes. Through all of this, David knits his brows and looks concernedly at them. Anna asks why Maggie would pull a knife, but Maggie is still looking at Bianca, who gives her a pointed look before walking away downstage with her back towards David and Anna. They turn to regard her. Maggie answers Anna that Michael was "acting crazy" and "frantic," and mentions the bit about the Dumpster. Anna is paying attention to her again, but David still watches Bianca. "So he goes after you?" Anna says to Mags, whose dress's third strap issue has suddenly been resolved, in aesthetically pleasing fashion, no less. "He's such a coward." Hello, Anna? Think. Thiiiiink. Use them investigative skills.

Anyway, she continues: "That doesn't make him any less dangerous." Maggie knows. David says that they can relax now that Michael is gone. Anna blabs about how she wishes she had something on Michael that would stick. Damn. Anna? Pick up line 3 on the Clue Phone. It's for you. She asks if Michael hurt Mags. "No, he didn't hurt me," says Maggie, with the slightest of emphases on the last word. Proving she does have more sense than a bowling ball, Anna picks up on this and asks Bianca if she's okay. Bianca responds, "The only thing I'm not okay about is what happened to my mother today. My problems are nothing compared to hers." Maggie looks pissed; Binks is wasting an opportunity to tell the truth to people who will support her. Anna "of courses" to Bianca's denial. The fuh? David gently tries to press Binks, saying "it would be great if [she] could help Anna in some way." Anna senses something from David but is too dumb to put it together, so she just agrees and says that Michael should be in jail. Bianca stares for a minute before saying, "Yes, but I'm sorry, I can't help you." Anna: "Are you sure? Did he say something, or threaten you? Did he touch you?" Bianca looks pale, pale, pale. Maggie urges her to "tell [Anna] what Michael did to" Binks. "It's not too late." Bianca thinks.

Anna asks Bianca what's wrong—did Michael Cambias do something to her tonight? Binks, looking a little nauseated, doesn't answer. David thinks perhaps it would be easier for Bianca to talk to Anna alone, so he and Maggie get ready to leave the room, but Bianca tells them to stop. She denies that Michael did anything to her tonight. David: "But if he had, Bianca, it's not going to serve anything to keep it to yourself." Anna tells her that they can help her; Maggie barely gets in a "yeah, that's true" before Binks turns away and yells that she's not the one who needs help. Erica was getting ready to be married, she says, fingering a rose in one of the arrangements, "and all that was blasted away by horrible lies. She held it all right in her hand, and it was snatched away from her. She's the one who's suffering right now. Not me." She stares down at her hands, seething.

Later, Bianca is sitting by herself in the dining room, next to one of the chairs Michael overturned on yesterday's ep. Maggie walks in with a plate of food and b.s.es about the "cheesy puffs" (is that a veiled and imperfect South Park reference?) being good when they're cold. "You don't have to make small talk," Bianca says. "Just tell me what a coward I am." Maggie doesn't think Binks is a coward; she thinks she's "extremely brave. And that's why I will support you. I can't even imagine what you're going through right now." Binks, touched, thanks her. "And trust you," Maggie says, "to know that you need to do [sic]. However long it takes." Bianca can't imagine how Erica would feel, after the wedding disaster, if Binks told her what happened with Michael, "just to make myself feel better." Not really knowing what to say, Maggie tells her that "if [Bianca's] going to put everyone else in the world first, [Maggie's] going to be there for [her]. Always." Binks hopes it's "not an excuse to rat [her] out." Maggie says, no, she wants help finishing the cheese puffs, and shoves the plate at Bianca, who says she's not hungry. Mags insists, since Binks "almost passed out" earlier. She begs Binks to eat the puffs, "before [she] feel[s] like the oinker from Green Bay." Gah. It's just a few cheeseh poofs, Maggie. Why are they making body image jokes with a traumatized anorexic lesbian character who just recently stopped eating again? The fuh? Bianca agrees, smiling, and says that it's the least she can do.

Anna, looking into the dining room from the lobby, wonders what Michael did to Binks. She notes that there were other people around. David thinks "it" didn't happen tonight but doesn't know when. He thinks Michael did "[get] to her, though," and did "the worst." Anna looks sickened. "What makes you think that?" she says. David explains how Bianca was "in a state of panic" after they walked in on her, Maggie, and Michael. Anna asks if he's sure. He's not, but Bianca's been acting strange, and Maggie wants to tell him something but can't. Anna understands that she couldn't if she had promised Binks. They agree that trying to force Bianca to tell them would just make things worse. David decides to scrap his plans to go to a surgical conference in Santa Barbara. Anna thinks he should go, to have "a couple of days of just being the Great Dr. Hayward." Yawn. But it is funny how David doesn't even flinch at this. She thinks he'll come back feeling "much better . . . a little better." David agrees and thinks Anna will help Bianca. They both surmise that she won't open up until she's ready. David thinks the one good thing about the conference is knowing he'll have Anna to come back to. "I'm not gonna take this for granted, Anna," he says. "You're the one thing in my life that I really can be grateful for." Anna smiles, but doesn't seem so warm. Maybe she's depressed. I don't know why she would be. "Whatever happens next," she says, "we'll face it together."

Erica runs to her door. It's David. She tries to send him away, since he's got rotten timing, but he tells her he needs to ask her about Bianca before he leaves town. She holds the door open for him to come in. She exposits that she knows Bianca broke up with Lena, and that that's why she's in such a "deep depression," but David asks if she's sure that's it. She repeats what Bianca said about being out late with Maggie, and claims to have been distracted. She wants to know what David is trying to say. David thinks that "something more is going on with Bianca" and is "pretty convinced" it also has to do with Michael Cambias. "Michael Cambias . . . oh my God," says Erica.

Valley Inn dining room. Bianca is still sitting; Maggie comes in with more food—shrimp, this time, which Binks refuses (yeah. Shrimp that's been sitting out for several hours? Eeech. Recipe for explosive diarrhea right there. Good call, Binks.), but Maggie tells her "they're already paid for; you might as well." Binks accepts (doh!) and calls her "Myrtle." Hee! "Hey . . . it could be worse, being like Myrtle," Mags replies. "Big red hair, always being the smartest person in the room." Maggie wants to "make a pact. To grow up like Myrtle." Bianca says she "can't even think about next week, let alone 50 years from now." Maggie thinks "baby steps" are in order, but Binks wonders what the point is of making any plans, since things never turn out the way you expect. She fills Maggie in on Lena offering her a ring. "Like a proposal?" Maggie asks. "Yeah, exactly like," she answers. Maggie thinks she should think about talking to Lena; Binks "need[s] her right now." But Bianca doesn't think she can: "It'll make her feel guilty about her connection to Michael Cambias, and—" "No, no, no," Maggie says. "She loves you. And right now, you need everyone who loves you so much around you." Binks hesitates. Eden Riegel is playing this scene very calm; it's sad.

Now Bianca says what's really on her mind. "Maggie, Lena is the last person that I can tell about this." Why, Mags wants to know. "Because, if she knew—" Bianca pauses, looks down as if scared to say what she's thinking, then looks up again—"she wouldn't feel the same about me." "Of course that's not true," Maggie says firmly. But Binks doesn't think so. "Why do you say that? I mean, I don't feel the same about me." Boo, sad. And you know what? This is the first time in all of this we've heard why Bianca is avoiding Lena, but we've heard about a kajillion times why she won't talk to Erica about her rape and how she's obsessing over Erica's wedding being perfect. I'm really glad they're doing such a good job of examining, in-depth, what Bianca's thinking about her relationship with the woman she loves. You know, they're really dealing sensitively with the emotional fallout of rape. Stupid writers. Commercials.

Maggie tells Binks that "[she]'ll always feel the same way about [Binks]." "Sure," Bianca says. Maggie goes on: "You will always be you, and I will always be me. Nothing will ever change that, no matter what." Right, because they're Best Friends Forever. I get it. "Maggie," Bianca says, "if you hadn't been there . . .for me to tell you . . . I think I would've gone crazy." Mags: "You know you can always come to me, don't you? Always." Bianca thanks her, but she seems maybe kind of lonely. "You know I love you," Maggie says. "Yeah, I know," says Binks. "Nothing can replace our deep, intimate bond, because you're my girlfriend and everything, and we've been through so much, and were planning a trip to Europe together just a few short days ago. Oh, wait." Maggie grabs Bianca and hugs her. Binks looks sad and a little ill before closing her eyes.

Erica and David at the penthouse. So, Erica thinks, Maggie was protecting Bianca from Michael Cambias? Hi, Emmy-winning directing team, this is weird editing. Maybe that little piece of exposition about Michael attacking Binks at the Valley Inn wasn't in the script at all, in which case it's the writers' fault, but it's jarring given how this show tends to repeat things over and over again to make sure that anybody who might have missed even the last ten minutes gets what's going on. Anyway, David says yes to Erica's question, "but if you had seen the look on her face . . ." He thinks Bianca's state has nothing to do with "a broken love affair."

Erica, looking more and more as if she knows but doesn't want to say herself what David is getting at, asks him what it could be, then. "What are you actually saying, David?" David looks down, shakes his head, looks away, and looks back at Erica, as if he doesn't want to have to say it to her. But that's enough; Erica recoils and dances back and forth. "You don't mean that Michael . . ." "I can't be sure," David answers. "But . . ." "Yes." Wow, that was some leaden, soaptastic (as in craptastic, as in the worst of soaps) dialogue. Ooo, and it continues: "Well, you certainly wouldn't have come over here tonight unless you thought . . ." "The worst. Yes." The Scary!Bass-Heavy!Music of "don't lock the door" (see Monday, July 28) kicks in. Erica pants and begins to lose her composure. "My baby," she gasps. David tells her that Anna is going to watch Bianca and make sure she's safe, and that she'd be happy to talk to Erica. Erica moves to the door. David tells her that he's only going to be gone for a few days, and that she knows that he'd do anything he could for them. "Yes," Erica sniffles, trying to hold it together. She asks David to "just go now." He's sorry he had to tell her. She knows, and thanks him. She closes the door and doesn't quite bring a hand to her mouth.

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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.