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Friday, July 22, 2011

AMC: Goodbye Jane Campbell

The dual role story that Susan Lucci has been playing has come to an end. Erica Kane forgave Jane Campbell for kidnapping and pretending to be her.

The story began when Erica planned to marry Jack. She was kidnapped before the ceremony and brought to a room that mimicked her bedroom. Everyone knew about the kidnapping, and subsequent explosion in a quarry. What they didn’t know was the wrong person came home with Jack to Pine Valley as Jane took Erica’s place. Jane left Erica alone with Ben, her henchman and held her hostage. When Jane had time she would look in on Erica, but mainly Jane had to rely on what she knew about Erica from the press to be like Erica.

Most of Erica’s family and friends thought she was acting strangely, but chalked it up to post-traumatic stress disorder. The idea that someone would get plastic surgery and pretend to be Erica didn’t cross their minds. Of course, this isn’t something that happens often in Pine Valley so I can understand to an extent why they thought it was something like trauma or that she fell off the wagon.

Meanwhile Erica looked back at her past. We got some clips of her former weddings, her mother Mona, and her rape by Richard Fields. It was nice to see some different flashbacks along with some familiar ones. Erica and Ben became friends of sorts, though she wasn’t really suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Ben admitted to Erica what motivated Jane's actions and why he was helping her. Jane had lost her daughter due to a car accident and Ben was the cause of her death.

The one person who saw through Jane and did something about it right away was David Hayward. He had a nefarious plan to use Jane to get what he wanted. At first, he had wanted to blackmail Erica over Kendall shooting him, but since “Erica” didn’t remember the shooting he was confused. Finding Jane with beer and other foods she would never eat, also confused him. Finally, she got an allergic reaction to fennel seed. This wasn’t something Erica dealt with and he found medicine that she used if she ate some by accident. Seeing that made David sure he was dealing with a fraud, and with that information he could blackmail her.

David though didn’t just take advantage of Jane financially, but emotionally and sexually. With her help, he got re-instated as a physician and also was able to get back ownership of Pine Valley Hospital. They were intimate (supposedly her first time, but perhaps they meant since she had the surgery), he proposed to her and she accepted.

Everything that Jane did horrified Erica’s family. They couldn’t believe how she was acting, by being distant, being mean to Opal and not supporting anyone. The fact that she was now on David’s side was even more extreme.

This story came to an end when Erica was able to convince Jane free her. Ben said he cared and would be there. Erica’s pep talk was enough and Ben blindfolded her and they left her confinement. She appeared at ConFusion as herself and tried to tell Jack and Jesse what had happened. They were skeptical, and David made it seem like Erica was deluded. She became so frustrated so as Friday’s episode ended, she was choking David.

It will be interesting to see where they go from here. Jane left with a whimper, but Erica returned with quite a bang.

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