All My Children....dates unknown.

Wow, when I read those spoilers about Adam walking in on Annie cheating on him, I thought it sounded kind of contrived--the previous bout of adultery with JR aside, she's been crazy devoted to Adam for a while now, and serious about her marriage to him--but Jacob Young and Melissa Claire Egan sold the hell out of the scene leading up to it. It was disturbingly hot: Annie shoving at him and yelling, "You sick, sick son of a bitch!!," JR physically picking her up and throwing her onto the bed--I said it was disturbing--both of them reacting to the high emotional content of the moment and succumbing to their (surprising) physical chemistry--hotter this time than the last, by my lights--going for sex, and then, of course, in walks Adam, just in time to see his young wife and his adult son rolling around on the bed, pulling their clothes off, doing exactly what it looks like they're doing.

Not bad.

I'm not an old-school fan, and I've never particularly liked either JR or his current actor (Young), who is really not one of daytime's most talented performers. He did have pretty strong chemistry with Alexa Havins' Babe, though, and so far as I have given it five minutes of thought, I wonder what the hell the writers were thinking when they a) introduced Marissa, who is among the most boring characters I have ever seen on television, and b) married her to JR--the actors are totally devoid of any chemistry whatsoever; JR and Babe were a strong, if somewhat loathsome pairing, and the producers must have been fucking desperate to even have tried JR and Marissa as a couple. I have no idea why they've stuck with them so far, when it's painfully evident that it doesn't work. But now! Though Young and Egan don't have the most spectacular physical chemistry I've ever seen--I mean, I've seen some reeeeally good stuff--it's pretty good, and the characters themselves have a classic soapy dynamic (good ol' hate/love, JR working overtime to destroy Annie, but getting caught up in the wake of her crazy intensity, plus the kinky pseudo-incest of an adult child with an agemate step-parent--ahhhhh, soap, which loves to go there). I don't think I've ever enjoyed Young's JR more, and Egan can sell anything, including a smoking hot affair with JR. When you throw in the additional drama of Annie's previous, never-made-it-to-an-affair entanglement with JR's sexy, tall cousin Scott, you have a great soap scenario. Bring it on, AMC.

But please ditch Marissa. She's godawful, okay? Just own it and move on.