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written by Margaret Royal
Love, Lies and Voldemort
The Lianca Recaps
Monday, August 18, 2003
Bianca, in a blowsy, sleeves white dress, steps slowly down the stairs at Myrtle's. As she reaches the landing, she turns and smiles. Lena, standing in the living room, blinks and beams up at her. Hee, it's totally geeky. And Lena is wearing the strangest sweater vest. It's beige, with these weird cheese-puff-shaped figures running in a diagonal pattern all over it, and it has one of those false collars that makes it look like she also has on a yellow, v-neck, sleeveless polo on underneath. Anyway. Binks walks down the rest of the steps grinning, and when she reaches the bottom, she goes to Lena (who has moved to the end of the staircase) and strokes the side of her face with her right hand. Lena takes it in her left hand, and Bianca raises her own left hand, on which she wears Lena's commitment ring (heh—those rings appeared the day of the rehearsal so, technically, "three days ago"), and closes it around Lena's. "You ready?" Lena says. "Yes," Binks grins. Lena kisses her hand as we see a close-up of their clasped, be-ringed hands.
"Now, chickens, off you go, and have fun!" says Myrtle, who appears with an enthusiastic Maggie and Boyd, who wheels forward a rolling suitcase. They all wish them a good time and give them their love. As Bianca and Lena leave hand-in-hand, we hear Myrtle's voice again: "Darlin', can I help you?" Lena snaps out of her reverie. She's still at Myrt's, same clothes. "Oh, yes," she stammers. "Yes, at least I hope so. Myrtle, I don't know who else to turn to." She wants Myrt to tell her about Bianca; is she okay? "Haven't you talked to her?" wonders Myrtle. "No," Lena says, sounding defeated. "I thought it best if I didn't keep trying; uh . . . she doesn't want to speak to me, obviously." She sighs, and changes her tone. "But I can't give up on her, I just can't." Myrtle thinks she's "right not to." Lena continues: "I don't want you to break any confidences, but I know how close you are to her. Has she said anything to you? About me?" she says, shrugging a little. Myrtle shakes her head gently and crosses. Lena exhales; she's been "wracking [her] brain" trying to figure out what's wrought such a change in Binks. She sighs again in exasperation and asks if Myrtle might know of anything that had happened that she doesn't know about. Weird, it's almost as if "yesterday's" confrontation in Maggie's room hadn't happened. She might mention, at least, that Binks has been acting so crazy she thought the freaking Hot Polish Fox would believe that she had thrown her over in favor of Maggie Mid-Term McScandal—who coined the HPF's nickname, after all. And come to think of it, given said confrontation, it's odd that Maggie would appear so chipper in her fantasy. Hee hee. Maybe Lena knows that a BFF of Binks is an F of hers.
Anyway. "I'm afraid you may be right," Myrtle says grimly. Lena's eyes get huge: "So there's something?" Myrtle looks ready to spill, but Boyd comes in the front door and announces confusedly that there are some policemen outside who want to talk to her. A plainclothesman with a corny accent introduces himself as Detective Israel, produces a search warrant, and asks Myrtle to vacate the premises. Mr. Mosad explains that her living room is a crime scene and that the forensics team needs to search it. "Oh, dear Lord," Myrtle whispers, but allows the team inside. Lena and Boyd are confused. "Oh, my God," Myrtle says, "my God, it . . . it happened here."
Bianca sleeps fitfully under a yellow chenille blanket on the couch at Erica's. "Get out . . . this is . . . stop it. No!" she cries, and starts awake with a gasp. She's breathing rapidly; Maggie comes in behind and says her name, which startles her. She confirms that she had another nightmare. "He was here again. He won't leave me alone." Maggie goes and sits next to her and asks if they're not getting better. Binks thinks she can't take David's pills anymore, because "they make everything so much more real," but if she doesn't, she won't be able to sleep at all. Maggie says that it'll be okay, and that Michael was just arrested. But to Bianca that means "more questions," more people wanting to know "every single detail from that night." Mags tells her to relax and take a deep breath. She has the halfwit idea of turning on the stereo, which plays Michelle Branch. "Relax, Binks! While your ears bleed!" "I hate this," says Bianca. Binks? Freaking word. Maggie knows. Binks goes on: "I mean, not just for me; I hate the pain in my mother's eyes. It's her nightmare come to life." Maggie reminds her that Erica "wants [her] to fight, and she wants to do it with [Bianca]. For [Bianca's] sake and hers." Binks wonders what else Erica was supposed to say. Maggie tells her that "the worst thing that [she] could possibly do is to hold on to all of this." She reminds her that Erica "lived with her secret for years," and although Bianca protests that she "brought it all back for [Erica]," Maggie says that that's not how it works. "You have to—get rid of all this; you have to cut it away. And your mother, she's telling you, the way to do that is to speak up, and don't be afraid to do what she wasn't able to do." Thinking, Binks looks at Maggie. "I can't believe she was fourteen years old—" "She lived through it," Maggie replies. "Look at this wonderful, brilliant life that she's had after being through all of that. That's because she's strong. And you inherited that strength through her. You did." There's a knock at the door, and Skittish!Binks whips around. Maggie, arms flapping, goes to get it. It's David. Binks looks down and back up. "It's time, isn't it?" she asks. "I know this is gonna be hard," he says. Binks: "David, you have no idea." He tells her that it's important, so they can make sure she's okay. She knows, but she "just [does]n't know if [she] can do" it. Maggie sits next to her and tells her she'll be there with her. "Okay," Binks whispers. "All right, let's go." "You are on my side; you get me," Michelle Branch anvil-whines in the background.
At the PVPD, Jack breaks the hug with Erica and gestures for them to go back into Anna's office. Once they're both inside, he closes the door and says, "We will fix this." "Really?" Erica sniffles. "Fix it? Can you take us back to before Michael Cambias did this horrible thing? Can you get Frons and McTavish fired and have the next head writer make the whole thing into a bad dream?" "No, I can't do that," Jack replies. Dammit! "But we can get justice for Bianca." Maybe on another show, you mean. Erica tells him that she knows why he wants to rip Asshat to pieces and that she herself fantasizes about strangling him with her bare hands (wouldn't it be easier to rip his jugular with one of her talons?), and when she does, Michael knows he's dying because of what he did to Bianca. Jack tells her that they can't let their hatred of Michael poison them. "I know that," she replies. "I know having these thoughts about Michael is torturing us again, and it's, it's making me feel so angry and so helpless, but that's all I have right now." There's a beat or two, and then Jack says that that's not true, because she has Bianca, and "getting her through this is going to be tough enough, so you better save yourself for that." Of course, Erica says, crossing to him; "of course I'm going to think only of that." Jack suddenly realizes that that's what Erica "came to see [him] about" the day after the wedding, i.e., "yesterday," although they don't call it that; why didn't she just tell him then? "Because . . . you wouldn't let me," Erica says defensively. Jack agrees that he was angry, but she should have explained nevertheless. "No, you know something I learned something very valuable," she says. "I learned that as much as we love each other—and we do—that, uh, you can never really trust me, can you?" Will deVry? Did you watch this scene, grasshopper? Take some lessons from Confucci about the proper placement and treatment of verbalized pauses. Jackson stares at Erica for a half a beat before suggesting that they not "do this now." "No," Erica replies, her hand lightly raised in a stop sign, "the fact is, I can't count on you either. And so probably, I will have to get Bianca through this whole thing all by myself." Jack passionately guarantees her that she won't have to do it alone: "You know that I would do anything—anything—for Bianca." Erica knows, and moves into his embrace again. She breathes that she wants them to be able to "put [their] differences aside" for Bianca's sake. He says they will, and apologizes for not listening when she came to see him. They stand silently for a few moments, and then he declares that he'll do whatever he has to for Binks. Erica tells him that Binks really needs him; despite having kept quiet about it for so long, she needs both of them, "all of [them] now, more than ever. You know. Except Lena." Jack wonders why Binks waited so long to say anything. "For us," Erica answers. Jack is incredulous for a second, and then he remembers the wedding. "She wanted us to have a perfect wedding," Erica says. Jack realizes that that means that Bianca's been carrying it around "for weeks"—again with the return to a real calendar. Never mind that we've seen only about a week's worth of days pass since Voldemort. Just then, Anna comes in, apologizes, and gives Jack Bianca's statement. Commercials.
In Anna's office, Jack pages through Bianca's police statement. It goes like this, in voice-over, very well done by Finola and Eden to sound almost clinical, exactly like a read-through:
Anna: I know this is difficult.
Bianca: I've told you everything more than once.
Anna: Maybe you've forgotten something. Some detail. What happened after you stopped dancing?
Bianca: That was when I lost my temper. I shouldn't have; maybe if I hadn't—
Anna: No. No. You had every right. What happened then?
Bianca: He'd been so disgusting . . . so insulting. I insulted him back. Then he came at me; he was all over me. I tried to fight him; I tried as hard as I could, but he kept coming back at me, pulling me toward him, until I was [inhales] so close to him, and I could feel his breath . . . and I was fighting all the time, but it didn't do any good. Where was my strength? What happened to me, why didn't I stop him?
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