"Digest Salutes The Best In Daytime"
x-19 Marks The Spot,
All My Children
Truth be told, we were only cautiously optimistic when AMC announced Eva LaRue Callahan's return to the role of Maria. The actress's talent is undeniable, but we've seen our fair share of underwhelming, underwritten returns from the dead. The show had to convince us this was solid plotting, not a publicity stunt.
Well, consider us sold. It took a while for this plot to rev up, but from the moment Maria placed that first panicky phone call to David (!), it's been one bombshell after another. The fact of Maria's return, and its immediate impact upon "widower" Edmund and his new bride, Brooke, is but one dimension of this saga. The others are courtesy of a masterstroke in umbrella plotting: the revelation that Maria's amnesia was caused not by the plane crash that supposedly ended her life five years ago, but by the unproven drug-x-19-that David administered to her in its wake. As Leo said upon hearing the news, "Whoa."
Sure, there are a few holes in the David/Maria connection, but we prefer not to linger on them; it's far more fun just to revel in the juicy repercussions of David's actions. The twist works because Doc Hayward's morally dubious, law-bending conduct is perfectly in keeping with his morally dubious, law-bending character. His deceit has given Finola Hughes (Anna) and Vincent Irizzary (David) a conflict worthy of their considerable chops: Anna wants to believe in her husband's remorse, but she's smart enough to know that he's only sorry he got caught. "I'm a different man now, Anna," David pleaded when she declared their marriage D.O.A. "You're not different enough," she shot back.
Add in Anna's pregnancy, David's unholy alliance with Liza (he blackmailed her into hiding the x-19; she quickly turned the tables, and now he's knee-deep in Liza's quest for revenge on Adam), Tad and Jake's inquiry into David's "experiments: and the crush that Jackson is slowly developing on the police chief, and you have enough story to last through next November sweeps.
Ditto the Brooke/Edmund/Maria side of things. This triangle has no villains, only victims of circumstance. (Yes, Brooke failed to 'fess up to her initial run-in with Maria, but Maria did rope in her look- alike pal to make Brooke believe that her eyes had played tricks on her.) The scenes in which Brooke reunited Maria with her daughter, Maddie, underscored that this is a story of three good people in one very bad situation. "I'll never forget that day on the plane, when you asked me to take Maddie and make sure she was safe," Brooke said. I'm just sorry it took so long for me to have a chance to put her back where she belongs."
The principal players here have been sublime: As Brooke, Julia Barr is a bundle of guilt and self-doubt; John Callahan's Edmund is the picture of shell-shocked anguish; and LaRue Callahan has beautifully captured Maria's struggle to separate her own feelings from the expectations of the strangers she knows she once loved. (Making Aidan her confidant was inspired; of course Maria would feel at ease only with someone who isn't waiting for her to become someone else.)
Not that long ago, AMC's writers had to go to some pretty extreme lengths (Libidizone, anyone?) to bring characters from disparate parts of the canvas into one another's orbits. But if the fireworks surrounding Maria's return are any indication, such contrivances are a thing of the past.