Just a Simple Girl with a Dream

For Christmas, my bff got me Melrose Place Season 2 on DVD.  I also have Melrose Place, Season 1, but I think Season 2 is blog-worthy since it’s really the beginning of “Classic MP” which runs until about the end of Season 4. Gone are the characters that didn’t really work (Sandy & Rhonda), reoccurring characters like Sydney and Kimberly get more screentime, and Amanda moves in and shakes everything up.  Plus, the writers started earning their keep with the fast-paced (and out there) soap opera style plotlines. 

We begin the second season with a hangover from Season 1.  Amanda singlehandedly saved the series by buying the titular building and hi-jinks ensue.  My dad always wondered why a “good looking career woman like Amanda” would stoop so low to live in “a dump like Melrose Place”.  (While I didn’t really get it at that time, I now feel the same way.  Of all the fabulous places to live in Los Angeles and Amanda moved to Melrose Place?  Sure it was close to D&D and it had a pool (a rarity–at least in all the complexes most of my friends live in–JMTIV–yours doesn’t count!) but as Jake correctly points out, Amanda’s apartment is the only one with air conditioning.  Really, Miss Woodward?  I thought every place north of Santa Monica had to have air conditioning, but I digress.

These beginning episodes are really refreshing due to Amanda’s seemingly sincere desire to fit in with the MP denizens.  I get why she’s so friendly to Billy and Jake, but she also tries to bond with the ladies and Matt as well.  In the season premiere, Amanda throws a huge party in the courtyard for a bunch of people that Amanda claims are her friends or business associates.  If you’re watching at home, make sure to get a good look at this motley crue (put intended) because you’ll never see any of them again.  This is important because after Amanda manages to alienate basically everyone in her apartment complex and at work, it’s no surprise that she has to keep hooking up with Peter. 

Besides Amanda trying to make nice, there are two other story archs that take place: the reveal and resolution of Keith as Alison’s stalker (and really, what the hell was that about?) and the trainwreck that is Jake and Jo moving in together.  Let’s begin with the Keith subplot: Alison moves to Seattle with Keith, comes running back to LA, starts getting threatening phone calls and dead roses, and then magically, Keith is back looking to re-ingratiate himself into Alison’s life.  Of course, Billy, Alison’s new boyfriend, is instantly suspicious and tries to warn her repeatedly but to no avail.  Despite his creepiness, Alison keeps hanging out with Keith, even offering to drive him to the airport so he can go back to Seattle.  Upon arriving at his hotel, Keith attacks Alison but she is able to fight him off.  Keith is arrested but gets off on a technicality and it’s up to an open-mouth Billy to “teach him a lesson” but it’s more along the lines of punching him out at an environmental construction site.  The best part of this whole storyline is when Billy breaks into Keith’s apartment and finds like fifty framed photos of Alison that all appear to be from Glamour Shots or Olan Mills.  Seriously, I had to pause the DVD and wonder where Keith got all the photos.  Certainly Alison didn’t just hand over fifty different proofs, right?  That’s something that I can see Amanda doing, but not Alison.  I can however see Alison deciding that jeans, a tan top, and a floral vest would be a good look for a photo op.  Besides all of the picture frames, we know Keith is crazy because he sleeps on a mattress on the ground and basically has no other furniture.  Here is what I wonder: surely Keith must have had more furniture when Alison lived there, right?  So why did he just “take to the mattresses” when Alison left?  Was he like “this coffee table reminds me of Alison so I’m going to break it into a million pieces and then use it as kindling?”  Sadly, my questions are never answered because Keith calls Alison and kills himself over the phone, sending Alison into one of her patented vodka induced shame spirals.

This brings me to another interesting subplot that will be continued throughout her run on the show: Alison’s drinking.  I think it was really nicely done and effectively brought back up at just the right moments.  I feel that she paved the way for other soap opera drunks like Kirsten Cohen and Sam McCall (and, let’s be honest, if Dirty Sexy Money comes back, I see Nick hitting up the freezer vodka more often).

Moving on, I remember really liking Jo and Jake as a couple when I was younger.  I’ve re-watched these episodes several times as I’ve gotten older and I don’t get them anymore.  Sure, Jake is supposed to be this tough biker and Jo is “a hardened New York photographer” but at the end of the day they seemed really mismatched.  Let me explain: I think the show tried to present Jake as this rebel “it’s my hot body, I do what I want” type of guy — which he could be — but to me, he was like the show’s moral conscience in a way that Matt never could be (although he tried).  Jake was always having to save a damsel in distress (Jo, Sydney, Alison), expose fraud (the Palmer Woodward fiasco), or play Cain and Abel with his brother, Dan Cortese (shudder).  Jo, meanwhile, was supposed to be this New Yorker who was above “horizontal apartment buildings” but ran around in long, floral, Laura Ashley dresses.  Even when Jo tried to seem hard (a la riding a motorcycle with a concealed weapon to Mr. Wendal) she was still this vulnerable wreck that had to be saved by Jake (see above).  Plus Jo was always followed by the drama cloud (the abusive ex-husband, Reed, Reed’s murder, Reed’s baby and the kidnapping grandparents, Jesse, etc).  Basically, Jo was Jane in a brunette wig with 75% more spine.  I’m surprised they managed to live together for five episodes.

Next up: The return of Sydney, the Mancini divorce heats up, and Matt gets married (to a lady.  For immigration purposes.).