Maya and Lucy conveniently returned to the Hubbard household, just in time for Angie to see the baby for the first time. All was perfect as we saw flashbacks of a younger Jesse and Angie through the years, and their family posed for a group photo. Randi later announced she ‘maybe’ was pregnant (maybe after their elevator nooky from a few weeks ago??) So our anticipation should be that she and Frankie will be a future story arc when the show starts up again.Unfortunately, Maia will probably be in the mix too.

JR, grasping at straws in his hope that Babe was still alive, staggered around confronting anyone and everyone, trying to discover where his late wife might be. He even considered kidnapping AJ until Dixie talked him out of it. Kendall and Bianca were upset that Erica’s book and possible movie deal would expose too much of their personal lives. Ryan finally unloaded all things Cambias and created the Myrtle Fargate Foundation with the proceeds. Adam proposed to Brooke. Through all this, the characters did face-to-camera confessions of their inner feelings, deepest thoughts, and true observations of their situations, something that I thought felt awkward and completely out of place. Were the writers trying to emulate some reality show?

And speaking of awkward, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s cameo was a recipe for awkward, or maybe it was so random it was weird. She was brought into the hospital, and Maria just happened to be visiting and talked to her.  Sarah’s character insisted she was the daughter of Erica Kane. Yes, Sarah did play Kendall years ago, so it was a kind of recognition of that.  But it was so quick if you blinked, you missed her, and there was really no sense of the whole scene. It contributed nothing to the final stories, and was just a time-waster. I still like my idea better, that she would have been an actress whom Kit introduced to Erica as the perfect choice to play young Erica in the film. (Maria did have a little inside joke–did you catch it when she had to take an ‘important call from Miami.’ And Sarah mentioned she thought she was being chased by vampires.)

Anyway, Ruth and Joe decided to return permanently to Pine Valley, Opal planned to reopen the Glamorama, Jamie returned to town for no apparent reason, JR had visions of Babe, who told him she is not just merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead, and Joe remarked, “seeing all my children happy and settled with the ones they love -- it's all I've really wanted.” Tad and Dixie proposed to each other, to the delight of their family, and we got more flashbacks of them in their younger days. In fact, we got flashbacks of every character, if the same actor was still playing the role. 

The highlight of the week, that left me screaming for joy, was the revelation that Stuart Chandler was not dead after all. I got chills when Adam thought he heard Stuart’s voice. Stuart was the obvious choice for revival, of course, after David affirmed that he had a couple more patients stashed somewhere. It was wonderful to see David Canary again, in both roles, and their reunion was a tear-fest. It was matched by Scott’s arrival at the hospital, followed by Marion. I always loved Stuart and Marion; after her years of chasing every man she saw, it was fun to see the two of them fall in love. So knowing that they are reunited and it feels so good was comforting.                                                   

Michael E. Knight gave what had to have been a difficult out-of-character speech at the beginning of Wednesday’s episode; “The cast and crew of "All My Children" would like to dedicate this episode to the memory of our beloved friend Mary Fickett.” Mary, as you know, originated the role of Ruth Parker Brent Martin on the show, playing her from 1970 to 1996 and 1999-2000. She wanted to cut back on her appearances in 1996 so she let her contract expire, planning to go on recurring status. Instead, the show recast Ruth with Lee Meriwether until 1999 when Fickett returned for a year before retiring completely. While the show wanted her to return after that, she stayed in retirement and Meriwether took over as Ruth permanently. By 2007, Mary was in poor health, and her death earlier this month was of complications from Alzheimer’s.  Michael’s pre-show announcement was touching, fitting, and so sad. 

But there were more treats this week, most notably Jack delivering his Rhett Butler line to Erica right before he walked out on her. They spent the last day arguing about Erica’s (IMHO) totally selfish decision to trot herself to Hollywood to follow her lifelong dream of being a movie star. She totally believed that her dreams were also Jack’s dreams, which of course meant that the poor guy wasn’t allowed to have any dreams of his own. Erica finally admitted that she didn’t want to get married at all, and with that, Jack stalked out of the room and through the throng of people attending an impromptu party. When she ran clamoring after him to not go, to accompany her to LA, and that she loved him. Jack pulled up short at the door and retorted, “Frankly, Erica, I don’t give a damn what you want.” 

And then there was JR. Somehow, JR became the prime villain of the show, with no redeeming qualities at all. Dr. David had been the guy we love to hate, but with the whole Orpheus thing, he suddenly became an almost-respectable guy. JR, however, with his homophobic rants and ramblings, had nothing to make him palatable in the end. He told everyone he was leaving town, then snuck back into the mansion with a gun containing 3 bullets. He wandered around between the walls, listening in on conversations, and peeping at the party goers.  He even called Marissa and Bianca and lured them over. As the show faded to black, we heard a single gunshot. But whom did he shoot?

It was a great enticement for viewers to want to tune in to the show when it moves to the internet this winter. But if we examine things logically, we know that Jacob Young has already secured another job on B&B. So JR will either be off the canvas, or possibly recast. He might have shot himself, which would allow for the character to either exit or be recast. He could have shot either Bianca or Marissa, but if he did, I would hope neither would be fatally wounded, as I would hate to see their relationship story dropped. He could have shot his father, Adam. JR was venomous towards his dad during their last visit, and David Canary has retired from acting. Or he could have shot any one of a number of others.   

My guess is he didn’t shoot anyone, and the whole scenario was to accomplish exactly what I just mentioned, an enticement to keep the viewers interested.  

Tad gave a toast towards the end of the last episode, “because of the love and the help of everybody, everybody in this room, because that's how Pine Valley works. Always  has, always will. In tragedy and triumph, we come together. I wish the rest of my kids were here to see this, you know, because this is -- this is something to remember, folks. We'll be talking about this for a long time. But then again, I always like to think that no matter what, my family and all my children -- they're always with me.” He was right, we will be talking abut this for a long time, and All My Children will always be with us.

So the last week went into the history books as a week of big returns, with some big changes and some things that never change. There were hints about the future, and while most characters got a happy ending, we even had a cliffhanger. We got to see just about every major character as well as many minor ones (although Caleb was noticeably absent). So the stage is set for the show to rev back up in January, online, with many of the same actors, and a few recasts. Will you watch the new show? 

Viewer Melody wrote in, “With much sadness, I will say goodby to AMC. I was not a watcher from day one. With work schedules and lack of DVR back in the day I watched AMC from time to time, sometimes for a long period then not at all. Since retirement I have been watching regularly. I will so miss Erica, Opal, Kara, Jake, David, Jessie and all the rest. These are fine actors and my afternoons will be sad without them. I will not be watching ABC during that 2 hr time period, no matter how curious I may be to see what they think is better. Another food show? No, I don't think so! To the actors, my sincere thanks for the years, weeks, hours of enjoyment. I wish you all the best, NO, I wish you better! If PP does AMC, will this, your weekly update and comments continue?” 

Judging from my mailbag and Soaptowns front page poll, I don’t think a lot of people who were big AMC fans will be watching The Chew either, and showing their promos during AMC this week only angered us. You have to remember, though, that it is not about what ABC thinks is better, it is about what they think is cheaper to produce. If The Chew tanks, they will merely replace it with another cheap talk or game show. Over at CBS, the replacement shows for ATWT and GL are not getting any bigger ratings than the soaps did, nor are they attracting any different demographics. But those shows cost almost nothing to produce. As for my column, if my esteemed editor wants me to continue writing a column here when AMC returns, I will certainly do so.