AMC's Babe Carey: Where the Writers Went Wrong

Disclaimer: Those people who absolutely adore Babe Carey on All My Children and defend her every action probably won't want to read this entry. Not that I'll be completely bashing Babe, but I'm certainly not defending her actions either.

I've been thinking a lot about Babe Carey lately. Mainly because on one of the message boards I used to go to, people have started to defend her every move without remorse or thought. However, I don't find her to be all that appealing, and with this blog entry, I hope to detail why exactly I feel this way.

First of all, the first episode she appears in, she sleeps with Jamie Martin. This, in itself, isn't a horrible thing. It's kind of labeling her as the new town tramp, and I could have lived with that. However, the reason she slept with Jamie is that she was scared to meet her new husband's (red flag #1) parents. Even this is not so bad. However, then we find out that her husband is none other than JR Chandler, who happens to be Jamie's stepbrother. There's red flag #2.

OK, so that certainly doesn't make her the town saint, but I still didn't mind her. She did have some redeeming qualities, especially her friendship with Bianca. She didn't judge Binks at all, even after Bianca came out to her. They even ended up being pregnant at about the same time. (Bianca was raped, Babe got pregnant and some SORASing occurred in utero.)

This is when it all started to fall apart. At this point came the baby switch plotline that also involved OLTL. Now, this story idea wasn't all that bad. In fact, I kind of enjoyed the storyline in the beginning. What happened was Babe and Bianca got run off the road during a storm and ended up both giving birth at the same time. Bianca ended up passing out due to blood loss, and Babe called her former husband (who she had been married to when she married JR... I forgot to mention that before), Paul, to help her and Bianca. It turns out that Paul's sister Kelly was desperate for a baby to hang on to Kevin. So, Paul hatches this plan to steal Babe's baby to give it to Kelly. However, things go awry when the Chandlers catch up to the faked helicopter crash. Adam was so adamant about getting Babe's baby that Paul was forced to say that Bianca's baby was Babe's. This led to intensely emotional scenes in which Bianca is told that her baby died. (I cried like a baby during those scenes.)

Anyway, this baby switch things happens and Babe doesn't believe that she'd given birth to a girl. She was certain she had a boy, but everyone convinces her to go with the flow and not worry about it. Eventually a DNA test is done on the baby to determine if it really is Bianca's, and Krystal (Babe's mom) switches the labels to protect Babe. This is nothing new for a soap. DNA switches are about as common as people coming back from the dead. Plus, it's just a plot point to keep the baby switch story going.

Babe eventually figures out that her baby was the one that actually "died" in the helicopter crash. And this is where the writers really took Babe down a path of no redemption. If I were writing the show, I would have had her give Miranda back to Bianca, and tell JR that it was their baby that died. Then they could have bonded more over their grief. Does Babe do this? Of course not. Instead, she keeps Miranda (whom they're calling Bess) because JR has fallen in love with the baby. Never mind that Bianca is supposedly Babe's best friend and is still grieving the loss of her child. Babe even goes as far as to make Bianca godmother to Bess. Like that's going to make up for keeping a baby from her mother.

Then Babe found out that her son was actually alive and living as a Buchanan in Llanview. She proceeds to get Jamie wrapped up in a plan to kidnap Ace and take him on the run. She also writes a letter to JR saying that Bess isn't their child and their son actually died in the crash. It's at this point that Babe finally gives Miranda back to Bianca, who is understandably ticked about this whole turn of events.

Again, if I had written the story, and left everything alone up until this point, I would have had Babe figure out her son was alive, but instead of not telling JR, I would have had her plot out a way to get her son back with JR's help. That way their toxic marriage may have had a chance to become more a marriage of love than what it now is.

Of course, she didn't do that. JR eventually caught up with her, and there was a huge custody battle for Little Adam. From then on, she basically stayed with JR, even though she led Jamie on a bit as well.

Some time after that (I don't remember quite how long, though) Babe did something (probably involving another man) that made JR angry, and he ended up plotting to kill her. Unfortunately, he ended up putting Kendall under a pile of rubble instead. Naturally JR was arrested and ended up going on trial for attempted murder. Now, if I had written the storyline, I would have had Babe not say anything and let JR do his time in prison. However, Babe decided to lie and say that JR wasn't trying to kill her so he could avoid a prison sentence. This is where I started hating Babe. (Yeah, yeah, I know it was Dixie's idea for Babe to lie to get JR off of murder charges, but still. She could have let him rot in prison.)

Babe continues to use the excuse that he almost killed her to win fights about their trust issues. That's valid and all, but she'd done her share of damage to JR's trust when she continued to make googly eyes at other men. At this point, it was specifically Josh (Erica's unabortion--I'd go into detail, but that's another blog entry entirely).

The final straw, for me, was when Babe slept with Josh after JR didn't pay enough attention to her. JR had a good reason for this. His sister was presumed dead in a yacht crash. (She wasn't dead however.) JR was basically torn up by this and couldn't allow himself to feel any emotion. However, Babe doesn't understand this and goes to Josh for comfort. They end up at Fusion having sex on the office floor and the roof of the building in a kiddie pool, forever tainting my view of kiddie pools in general. JR ends up finding her on the roof, naked in a kiddie pool, and she offers a lame excuse that she was hot in the office and decided to go up to the roof to cool down.

If I had been writing the show, this wouldn't have even happened, because one of my changes above would have taken effect and taken this storyline in what I would hope to be a completely different direction.

JR goes on a bender after Babe finally admits that she boinked Josh, and ends up throwing himself out a fourth floor window at the Valley Inn. Babe is distraught that JR was nearly dead, and I figured this might be a turning point for her.

And it is, for a while. They come to a tentative truce, and are happily in love for a bit.

Then along comes the Satin Slayer story, and Dixie ends up eating poisoned pancakes that were meant for Babe. This pushes JR over the edge yet again, especially after finding out during Dixie's dying breath that Krystal is carrying Tad's baby instead of Adam's. JR proceeds to use this to blackmail Babe into giving him custody of Little Adam.

Babe is torn on what to do, but doesn't have much time to contemplate her decision before she's attacked by the serial killer. She's presumed dead, but really she's been spared by Josh and others and is recuperating in the sub-basement of Zach's casino. It is at this point where she seriously considers kidnapping Little Adam and running away with Josh. And it is at this point where I hate Babe yet again, because she's done this before, yet hasn't learned anything from the last time.

All this brings us to the present, where everyone knows that Babe is alive. And we're now at the point where I think the writers really screwed up in their intentions with Babe. I don't think I'd hate her so much if more people in town hated her for the chaos she brought to town with her. We have Tad basically gushing that she's alive. (He also helped her instead of his own stepson when she ran off with Little Adam the first time.) We have Bianca forgiving her for keeping Miranda from Bianca for nearly a year. Bianca also asks her for a chance to be friends again. That's what irritates me most, by the way. It should be Babe begging for forgiveness from Bianca and asking for another chance. We also have Kendall setting aside her hatred of Babe for the time being. There's Josh, who's so over the moon about Babe that she's all he thinks about. JR has turned over a new leaf to keep Babe as his wife. Colby now loves Babe, when before Babe "died" it was Colby's sole purpose to get the Careys out of the Chandler mansion. Basically everyone, except for Erica, is singing Babe's praises, even though she's hurt just about everyone in town in some way or another.

This is the point where the writers really made Babe completely unredeemable in my eyes. If she was the town pariah at this point, I wouldn't have as big an issue with her. But she's become the town saint, even though she hasn't done anything to deserve that reputation.

So, this is why I can't stand the character of Babe. She could have been written so much better, and probably have been less hated by me in the process. But because everyone sings her praises even after all the things she's done to make everyone's life a living hell, I can't stand her.

To close, I just want to reiterate that the writers really screwed up on the character of Babe Carey. The one thing they could have done is show how she's making amends for the things she's done, instead of having every other character tell us what a wonderful, walking miracle she is. It's at this point that I've become completely ambivalent about what happens to Babe, and would rather see her off my screen than have her constant presence in Pine Valley ruin my enjoyment of All My Children.