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written by Margaret Royal

Love, Lies and Voldemort

The Lianca Recaps

Monday, August 11, 2003

At Erica's penthouse, the storm is raging "outside," i.e., behind the nighttime Pine Valley cityscape backdrop. StraightHair!Erica, clad in a tight red short-sleeved top (is it cashmere or something?) tucked into what trancer at TWoP described as "peach leather pants with extended camel toe zipper [hee]," opens the door for Boyd and thanks him for coming over so quickly. Boyd exposits that the message sounded urgent and wonders what's up. Erica is worried about Bianca, whom she can't locate. Boyd hasn't seen her "since the announcement about Jackson" (which was "yesterday" according to various window cityscapes and characters' wardrobe changes) and guesses that she wants to be left alone. He mentions how hard she took "the breakup with Lena." Erica crosses, looking distressed. Boyd wonders if something is wrong. She says that she's seen Binks "shut down like this before," and hopes she's not doing it again. She says that she would want Binks to come to her about anything, but she's "not sure that's what she's doing right now." Boyd offers to look for her, much to Erica's relief. He tells her not to worry too much and goes. Erica rakes her hand through her hair, then crosses to the phone, but before she can dial, there's a knock at the door. "Bianca," she calls, and runs to open it. But it's Crazy Bitz! Aw yeah. Erica brings her hand to her face and whines, "what do you want now, Mary?" Mary tells her that they've got "a major problem on [their] hands" with trying to reconcile Jackson and Greenlee, and she's willing to take any insults if Erica will listen to her. Erica thinks Mary is playing her for a fool.

Mary tells Erica that she doesn't want to argue; she's concerned about Jackson and wonders if Erica was able to calm him down after she left his apartment and whether they've rescheduled the wedding. Erica tells Mary to rest assured that she and Jack "will be husband and wife," which Mary takes as a "no, you did not reschedule your wedding." Erica tells Mary she wants her to go, and tries to close the door on her, but Mary blocks her and yells that she'd like to go find Greenlee, because "the poor darling is utterly . . . freaked!" Erica thinks that Greens is lucky, because Jack will always do the right thing by her, and if Greens is "smart enough" to take "the olive branch," then at least she'll have "one decent parent." Heh. Still blocking her from closing the door, Mary says, "I guess you're right, I, maybe, that the sins of the mother are visited on her children, and [pretending to come to a realization] that probably explains why you have daughters that are an anorexic lesbian and a tramp." Oh no she di-int! But she did, and Mary rules. "Oh, my God," Erica says. "There's just nothing beneath you, is there?" She slams the door on Mary and covers her eyes, then says, "Oh, Bianca, honey, where are you?"

Later, Erica watches the storm and leaves what is apparently another message on Bianca's voice mail or something, talking about "Karl" fixing a meal. It's Coral, the cook, but La Lucci pronounces it like the man's name. Erica hangs up and regards the ABC publicity pic photo of Bianca. As she holds it, she replays her conversation with David from "last night" and with Myrtle from "today." There's a big clap of thunder that startles her out of her reverie, and she's startled again when a hand touches her shoulder, but it's Kendall.

Kendall apologizes for frightening Erica but says that she seemed preoccupied. "Well there's a storm coming up again, for heaven's sake," Erica says, and Kendall replies that that's why she came over, to make sure that Erica was okay. Erica appreciates the concern but says she's fine; her preoccupation was about Bianca (she gestures toward the thunder and lightning outside). Kendall thinks that Binks must be fine; "I mean, she knows to come in from the rain," she says, dropping an anvil of dramatic irony. Erica doesn't say anything but is clearly troubled. Kendall offers some tea, but Erica blows off the suggestion rather rudely, so she offers to go, since although she thought that after the last storm, Erica might want some company, she clearly doesn't feel like talking to her. Erica asks her to wait. She brings up what Kendall had said a while ago about seeing Binks in the park in the middle of the night after the last storm. Kendall rehashes how Binks was acting weird, seemed off, and was standing over the garbage can (she doesn't call it a "thing" this time) with a lit match, and made up a nonsensical excuse when Kendall asked her about it. Erica wonders if Binks might not have lost an earring after all. Kendall mentions going back later, when they were all looking for Missing!Binks, and finding Bianca's burnt shirt in the can. When she asked Bianca about it, she was told "to mind [her] own business, more or less." "Well, why didn't you just keep asking her?" Erica presses, a little incredulous. "I mean, since it seemed so odd, why didn't you just keep after her?" Kendall wants to know what this is all about—after all, why can't Erica just ask Bianca about it? "Maybe it's too late," Erica says cryptically. Frustrated, Kendall says that Lena is probably the problem, and that breakups can cause people to do some weird things. "I mean, what's the big deal, anyway?" Erica can't believe what she's hearing. "My goodness, you find your sister standing there in the park with a match in her hand and you just let it go?" Kendall is a little stunned and tries to offer a weak apology, but Erica keeps going: "Didn't it seem odd to you; didn't it seem even dangerous to you? I mean, why didn't you just stop for a minute and really talk to Bianca? What kind of a sister are you; don't you even care about Bianca at all?" Harsh, but, well, word, Erica. On the other hand, if this storyline weren't so bullshit contrived anyway, Kendall wouldn't have had her head up her own ass in quite so extreme a fashion. Kendall looks a little pissed but confused.

She defends herself to Erica, saying she left Bianca alone because Binks asked her to, and Erica should realize that Binks is "all grown up." "Well, she needs us," Erica replies. "She needs us all right now." Kendall thinks that Bianca will simply get over Lena eventually, and adds, "I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Lena and Michael can fall into a hole and never be heard from again." At this, Erica spins around and asks if Bianca mentioned Michael. No, Kendall says, but Michael did make some comments about her, about her being "a lot sweeter" than Kendall, "and how if I was more like Bianca, he would've liked me better." Eww. Those comments are a lot more disgusting when Erica's hearing them second-hand than they were when we first heard them coming out of Will deVry's mouth. Erica is taken aback and denials that "it just can't be true, not Bianca, not my baby." Kendall asks what Erica thinks Michael did. Erica turns and looks at Kendall with her hands pressed to her chest, but doesn't say anything. "Oh, no . . . no," Kendall says, horrified. Commercials.

Sitting down now, Kendall remembers the "panic in [Bianca's] face," and Erica mentions what David said about Bianca's panic after Maggie held a knife on Michael at the Valley Inn after the wedding (again, "last night," according to cityscapes and wardrobe changes, but they'll probably say it was a week ago or some shit). Kendall doesn't think that means anything necessarily, but Erica thinks it means something that David thought it important enough to come talk to her about it. Kendall reassures Erica that her imagination's probably getting the better of her, and that they're all afraid of Michael, "even though [they] don't want to admit it," which is why Jackson has guards for them—not like we've seen them lately, though. Erica looks like she wants to believe it for a second, but she shakes her head again and says that "something happened," since Binks hasn't been the same "since that night." She ticks off the running away from Myrtle's, not eating, the clothes-burning—"and I don't think it's Lena; I've never thought it was Lena." Hee! That's some bullshit right there. Erica, do you remember offering Lena $3 million to stay away from Binky? Sigh. One of the last glimpses of Real!Lena.

Speaking of Erica's revisionist history, it's interesting that she chews out Kendall for not paying attention to Bianca's state and all the weird clues, but she was too self-absorbed the day after Voldemort to think anything of Binks's jitters, fear of being touched, and intense interest in how to deal with rape. Of course, it is absolutely like Erica to displace her own self-indictment upon other people, so it's definitely consistent for her to chew out Kendall like that. Anyway. Kendall, starting to freak out a little, tells Erica to stop. "You can't think that Michael . . ." she swallows . . . "that he did . . . to Bianca what he tried to do to us?" Erica regards her sadly for a moment, but the door opens, and it's Binks. "Hey," she says flatly. "Mom, Boyd said that you needed me?" Erica and Kendall stare at her worriedly, and Binks stares back, looking like she's waiting for the roof to fall in.

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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.