Haywire (1980)

It can be argued that Lee Remick never gave a bad performance.  We have already seen her in Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder, where she gave one of the greatest miniseries performances of all time in a true story.

That may have been Lee's best work, but wait until you see "Haywire," where Lee plays actress Margaret Sullavan, alongside Jason Robards as her husband Leland Hayward.  "Haywire," technically the name of a Hayward estate, is a metaphor for what this family went through.  This is a character so full of knotty quirks that she defies any simple description.  It takes an actress like Lee Remick to make that believable, and, more importantly for a television audience, likable.

"Haywire" is based on a book by daughter Brooke Hayward from 1977.  Stop!  I know what you're thinking.  Don't even put this in a category with "Mommie Dearest" because bashing mom is not the point of the story.  Brooke states up front in her book that she owes it to her siblings to have their full stories told and it's really more about them than her parents, but what has made "Haywire" endure as a book where "Mommie Dearest" is trashy fun, is Brooke's penetrating ability to dissect her family members with staggering objectivity, not turning them into ghouls, in order to understand the tragedy that befell nearly all of them.  Basically, her parents married and loved each other and producing three kids.  However, after they divorced and the kids got older, problems really started to appear.  Brooke's sister and brother were both sent to mental institutions, Margaret killed herself, as did Brooke's sister and her brother did as well, but in 2008, long after the book was written and the miniseries made.  Leland spent the last months of his life as a shell of a human being after a series of strokes.

What makes the book "Haywire" so compelling is how three kids coped with what went on around them, all so differently.  Leland was a father typical of the times, putting business first and admitting he didn't understand fatherhood.  Margaret all but retired once she had kids, which led to some peculiar rules and typical teenager-parent battles, but this is not "Mommie Dearest" or "Detour" or any celeb's kid trying to make bank off a crazy parent.  It is about the children and how they ended up the way they did.  Both parents were loving, but their brands of love could be frustrating.  There are no midnight rampages, no cutting down of shrubbery, no heavy drinking or drugs, no abuse (in fact, the book has a very touching moment where Leland is forced to spank Brooke and promises while he's doing it never to do so again, a promise he remembers giving on his deathbed).

Brooke Hayward's memoir would be interesting simply because of the tragedy of her family life, especially since she's the ultimate survivor (a fact that she seems uncomfortable noting, but which is amazingly true), and the movie version just as touching.  However, the story is rather esoteric.  This is not Joan Crawford, Lana Turner or Bette Davis.  This is Margaret Sullavan, who made only a handful of movies and by the book's 1977 appearance was pretty much forgotten (outside of a few lovely movies with Jimmy Stewart).  This is also Leland Hayward, who was an entertainment "super agent" before the term exists and a producer of both film and theater, but a behind-the-scenes man, the kind only remembered decades later by those with whom he worked, not the general public.

That puts a lot of pressure on a movie version (produced in part by Brooke's brother Bill), because it means the movie version cannot trade on celebrity name to be noticed, and certainly not on camp (like "Mommie Dearest") because the story has none.  It means that a movie version has to be excellent and stand on its own, and luckily, 30+ years after it first aired on television, "Haywire" is just that.  I encourage everyone to read "Haywire," but if you can't do that, at least see "Haywire," because it is truly that special.  The movie is so faithful to the book that the screenplay often seems to be a dramatic reading of the text, which is not at all problematic as Brooke's writing is magnificent on the page.  Considering the shredding we have seen of other books-to-miniseries affairs, this one is a marvel of tact, taste and dignity.

"This is a story of carelessness and guilt, of people who lived in extremes, a story of one family, my own.  A family that had everything, grace and joy, a fair share of beauty, privilege and power…They seemed to be the fulfillment of the American dream, but something went dreadfully wrong…What distinguishes this particular story is the extraordinary effect my parents had on their children.  They failed as they succeeded, on a massive scale.  How could it have happened to us?  Why?"

That, folks, is the opening narration of this movie!  Daring, wouldn't you say?

The movie actually opens the same was as the book, with tragedy.  As plucky Brooke (Deborah Raffin, before "Lace II" killed off her career) is on her way to the theater where she is performing in an off-Broadway play, New Year's Eve, 1960.  When she calls to wish her mother and stepfather a Happy New Year, she gets the grim news that her mother died, suicide.  As Brooke sits on the train, she remembers snippets of her life, almost cinematic, becoming angrier and angrier that "just as I need her most," Margaret (Lee Remick) could have done such a thing.  Things get worse when she arrives at the theater, where her father's secretary informs her he's had the performance canceled out of respect, which infuriates Brooke.

Papa Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) is making all the arrangements for an ex-wife (one of many) he had barely spoken to in over a decade.  Seeing her father reminds her of a time he took the family to an airstrip (Leland was a licensed pilot and one of his hobbies was flying) where Brooke watched a plane plummet and kill the pilot.  Margaret wants to take Brooke, Bridget and Bill home, but Leland says, "nope, we're going up," intending to fulfill a promise he made to his children and also building them up, as strange as it may seem, to be fearless.

"Haywire" is smart enough to follow Brooke's lead on how it's written, which is a purposeful garble of time periods.  The scene with the children flying is followed by Leland telling Brooke every detail of Margaret's suicide, not sparing her anything.  That might seem callous somewhere else, but it's been established in "Haywire" already (just about 10 minutes in), that it's playing by its own rules (or Brooke's rules).

Brooke's portrait of her family members is always honest and the movie follows that lead too.  Little Brooke is in her mother's dressing rule at one point when Margaret talks about how much she hates acting and would love nothing more than to just be a wife and mother.  "I'd much rather you knew me the way I am at home, or any place but here," she tells her sensitive six-year old daughter as she tries to talk her out of seeing the play.  Margaret continues her rant after the performance, though Brooke was enchanted, saying "actors do not make good mothers and fathers, I see it all the time."  That's an awfully chilling line and the ones that follow are no nicer to the profession.

In fact, Margaret apparently went to great pains to make sure her children had no idea what her job was.  There is a harrowing scene where Margaret takes the children to the park and is followed by an autograph seeker.  Not only does she deny she's Margaret Sullavan, she launches into a blistering tirade at the woman for assuming she can get "a little bit of a person" by having a signature put into a book, but apologizes to her kids for "thoroughly bad manners" in how she treated the woman.  That's a fair and balanced portrait.

Brooke, as a child, was enthralled by her mother.  The kids were not allowed to see her movies, but understood that she would simply disappear for a job and reappear "like a comet," claiming to be "just a working mother."

At the funeral, Brooke narrates that "the two people I loved most in the world were my sister Bridget (Dianne Hull) and my brother Bill (Hart Bochner), though they had not been particularly close in the years leading up to Margaret's death.  Brooke and Bridget had a complicated relationship.  While riding in the hearse, Brooke remembers a time her sister was sleeping and she took the opportunity to tell mom how much she hated her little sister, causing Bridget to pop up from fake sleep and curse at her.  The difference between the sisters, which will manifest itself in increasingly bizarre ways, is evident from the way the view their mother's suicide.  Brooke wonders how someone could be so selfish and not think of her family, but Bridget says, "it was her life, she did what she wanted" without any trace of bitterness.

In truth, Margaret did have a selfish streak, evident on a grand scale when she moved the family to Connecticut from California where Leland's work is.  Without consulting him, she saw a house and bought it, moving the gang 3000 miles away.  Leland tries to reason with her, about his business and the kids friends, but Margaret trumps even that by saying their closest friends, Jane and Peter Fonda, are moving East as well (Henry Fonda being one of Margaret's ex-husbands did not get in the way of the closeness of their children).

In Brooke's book, perhaps the most interesting scene, full of contradictory emotions, is when Margaret insists the kids watch chicken being killed.  "It's part of nature's law," she says.  Leland refuses to watch and they bicker in terms that would frighten any child.  "Don't look," Leland says to Brooke, turning them both around as Margaret explains that the chicken will continue to run around after its head is cut off.  Brooke has her head buried in her father, but the other two watch and cringe in horror.

Leland catches Margaret writing in her journal about an almost venal need to be the perfect mother to her kids, whom she feels are slipping away, yet then dashes off to London for six months to do a play.  Rather than simply being a megabitch, Margaret is a complex woman, confident and assured, yet about what, she herself never quite understands.  Not only does that make for fascinating characterization, but imagine what Brooke must have gone through trying to figure out her mother before, during and after writing her book.

Margaret's three kids are not brought closer by their mother's death.  Bridget notes that the only way she imagined she could end her "struggles with mother" was to "push her in the river…I'd jump in after her and drown."  Bridget s the darkest of the kids, the most like her mother, which made their relationship the most complex in the family.  During their myriad arguments, which go in circles of mutual frustration, Margaret always uses the trump card of sending her to live with Leland, though Bridget sees through that ruse for what it is, a ploy for attention and guilt.

As for brother Bill, he had issues with his mother, but worse ones with his disapproving and distant father.  In a psychiatry session where both are present because Bill was kicked out of school for bringing a loaded guy ("I collect guns" is his defense, and a perfectly natural one to him), even the shrink feels Bill is best left in an institution, where he spent many years.  Bridget also spent her share of time in "nut houses," as Bill calls them, both resenting what they feel is Brooke's normalcy.

When Margaret goes to London to do a play, things crack.  First, she decrees that the kids cannot make a scene or cry as she leaves.  Leland begs her not to go and she chides him, saying, "you're breaking a rule."  In Margaret's desire to maintain order and perfect motherhood, she has a tendency to undermine or belittle emotion, which will have frightening repercussions.  Leland, who indulges the kids rather than parenting them in her absence, stops a drive at one point to reveal that when his parents divorced, "it ruined my whole life…I never understood my mother, never forgave her, cut me in half."  That, as we can all guess, is foreshadowing (in the book, Leland's mother is shown to be a rather charming eccentric who dotes on Leland and the children).  He then tells the kids, "that's one thing you'll never have to go through."

Is it any wonder that Bill would have certain conflicting emotions concerning Leland, who joked with his children at a young age that none of the things they wanted to be when they grow up would net them enough money to support him?  Even as a joke, that sort of things screws with a young mind.

The summer Margaret spent in London is the turning point for everyone.  "Somehow, life was never as bright again," Brooke narrates.  Margaret's return brings on a "family conference," the news that she and Leland are separating.  "You can't let this happen, you made me a promise," Brooke protests to Leland, who can't deny he messed that one up.

Though not in a Crawford-esque way, there is something ghoulish about Brooke's thought pattern regarding what divorce will mean.  For instance, though Margaret is careful to tell Brooke Leland's new woman is attractive and will probably be wonderful to the kids, Brooke says, "if she were dead, then there wouldn't be a divorce."  Margaret doesn't exactly disavow the notion, rather launching into an overdone Southern drawl (she was from the South) for a discourse on pride.

Leland marries socialite Nan "Slim" Hawks (Linda Gray), while Margaret starts to date British Kenneth Wagg (Richard Johnson), and the kids decide their mother will be happiest married again, so they do all they can to help Kenneth win her hand.

As the kids grow up, Margaret's nastiness regarding Leland intensifies.  He is more fun of the two parents because he lavishes them with gifts and let's them be carefree while Margaret is refusing to acknowledge they are growing up and forming impressions of their own.  Margaret sees clothes as "expensive presents," while Leland says they are "necessities" and buys his girls only the best.

Brooke is strong enough to see her parents for what they are, but Bridget's psyche undergoes irreparable damage.  She feels herself constantly living in Brooke's shadow, which is not true.  It's her stepmother who tries to coax her from her shell and be a positive influence.  Nan tells her that when she goes to boarding school in Switzerland, it will be her "chance to fly" and the advice is dead on.  On her own in Switzerland, she becomes both happy and unique.

Brooke does well at boarding school in Virginia, but Bill is having the most trouble, with plummeting grades and mischievous behavior.  Unfortunately for Bridget, "who had discovered a taste for living" while apart from her mother's smothering, Margaret decides that she cannot spend the summer before her senior year in Switzerland, mainly because she's lonely (Kenneth, his sons and Brooke are off in Scotland).

Cleaning up Bridget's room, Margaret finds a trove of stolen items that give her a window in her daughter's blackening soul, but there is worse not so hidden in the room.  According to Brooke's account, Bridget very carefully left a letter to a friend where it could be found.  The letter says, "I don't like mother.  The truth is, I hate her."  Bridget doesn't actually deny any of it.  Margaret sees the stealing as taking "little bits of people you love," but Bridget snaps that, "it's more than I ever had from you."  This scene exists in every Hollywood child's memoir, the part where a child is told, "you have been given everything," but this story has a few twists.  First, it's actually true.  Smothering though she may be, Margaret very clearly loves her children.  They are not props to her.  Second, Bridget has a plan beyond simply goading her mother into an argument (there is no "why did you adopt me?" harangue here); she wants to go live with her father.  It's not self-pity so much as budding self-awareness.

However, Margaret, somewhat understandably, does lapse into dramatics snarling at Bill that she supposed he wants to go live with Leland too.  She writes a lengthy letter to Brooke in Scotland, so Brooke and Kenneth rush home as Kenneth figures Margaret has "gone off the deep end."  When they spot her at the airport, gaunt and lacking in sleep, Brooke whispers to Kenneth that "she looks terrible" and Margaret crumples into their arms, muttering "hold me, hold me."  Brooke does her best to support her mother, who is still baffled by what she sees as the ultimate betrayal of two of her kids.  "Maybe parents shouldn't be an example.  Maybe they should be a warning to their children," Margaret tells Brooke in another of the movie's most frightening moments.

Bill is as adamant about leaving as Bridget.  Brooke finds both of them "stubborn" and "selfish," but Bill has his reasons for leaving, mainly that Margaret is always miserable and "she doesn't want to let us grow up."  "You're deserting me too, you know," Brooke tells him.  "I just assumed you'd come with us," Bill replies, figuring the three siblings share the same feelings.  When Margaret interrupts the conversation to help Bill pack, her self-control is gone almost immediately and turns so pathetic begging Bill to stay that Brooke has to turn away from watching the crumbling woman at the center of the scene.  So out of her mind is Margaret that she chases the car before falling on the grass in a crumpled mess.  "It will never be all right again," Margaret sobs.

"Mother was right, nothing was ever the same again," Brooke narrates, describing how Margaret, Bridget and Bill all ended up in asylums as "goodbye was to become the most common word in our vocabulary."

Fast forward to 1971, where Brooke is two-times divorce with three kids.  Bill calls to urge her back to NYC as Leland has had a stroke and is in the hospital.  The once-vital Leland Hayward, who could manage movies, movie stars and more all at once, is now a "slave to technology," as Brooke sees her helpless father in the bed.

This reminds Brooke of a pact she had with her father.  When she and Bridget were very young, they were singing in their bedroom during a party their parents were hosting.  Margaret repeatedly warned them to stop and threatened spankings.  When they disobeyed one last time, Leland tried to step in, but Margaret snaps, "it is not a parent's job to be popular.  You don't have the guts for it" and forges ahead with the spankings.  Leland has no heart for it and promises her after attempting it once, that he would never do it again, keeping his word as already noted.

Back in the past is the only way we can keep Bridget's story going.  Brooke remembers when Bridget was released from the institution and went to live on her own.  Though seemingly better, lines like "you   can have the clock when I die," anger and worry Brooke.

One of the most shocking scenes in Brooke's book turns into one of the most shocking scenes in "Haywire," if only because it's so utterly ludicrous (and way ahead of its time).  Brooke and Bill want Leland unhooked from all of the medical equipment to die at home with dignity  The doctor is aghast that anyone would willing let someone go, no matter the quality of life.  "Think of him as a pet…a creature you're fond of, that you love, that needs you to look after him," the doctor tells them.  "You know, doc, you're loonier than I ever was," Bill says, for once the voice of reason since Brooke is too shocked to reply.

Back in the past, 11 years earlier to be exact, right after Bill and Bridget left home, Margaret descending into wild self-pity faster than into the bottle, decides to go back to work as an actress.  Playing a nun on a television broadcast.  A misplaced prop causes a huge argument between Margaret and the young director (Christopher Guest), ending only when she storms off the set and refuses to return, all within 24 hours of the broadcast.  She ends up at their old family house in Connecticut, lying in the dirt in a depressed semi-coma.  Brooke visits her, informing Margaret that she's taking acting classes, much to the latter's chagrin.

In 1971, Leland is begging his children to let him die at home.  "Get me out," he says in a rare moment of lucidity.  Back into the past we go, this time following one of Bill's escape attempts from his Midwestern institution.  He and his rather ditzy companion are captured the next day.  Brooke tries to get Leland to free him, but Leland is adamant that Bill stay incarcerated.  Ultimately, Leland caves and rescues his son from jail.  Though not before Jason Robards makes sure to snag a whopper speech for himself (Lee Remick has gotten all of the good tirades so far).  A hissing Leland threatens to cut Bill out of the will, though Bill gets the upper hand quickly when Leland admits he and Nan are kaput.  Bill seems awfully sane, raging that Leland had him committed without a trial or any defense.  Bill works some kind of charm on his father, who gets the institution to keep him only three more months and then free him.

Also back in the past is Bridget, who has gotten a summer internship at the Williamstown Theater Festival after being released from her confinement.  She may even have fallen in love, but rather than enjoy it, she picks a fight with Brooke, only to then turning sugary sweet to end it.  She is quickly quickly slipping into a terrible fight with depression and medication, not to mention alcohol.

In and out of the past with Leland, Brooke and Bill seem to make their peace with him.  After a military stint, Bill even went on to co-produce "Easy Rider."  That leaves only Bridget and the summation of her story.  Sometime in the 60s, around the time she was fighting with Brooke at Williamstown she discovered she had epilepsy, which was still then considered by many to be emotional and not physical.  Apparently, this has been going on since she was in school in Switzerland and declared legally dead at one point!

Bill asks Leland who the top 10 most beautiful women are and sickly Leland has answers ready.  Three he married (twice to Lola, once to Margaret, once to Nan, though his current wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman is not mentioned), Kate Hepburn, Garbo, Fay Wray, a shock to all of them, Dietrich, Isak Deniesen, Justine Johnson and Esme O'Brian.  The last two are completely unknown to the kids, but when an attendant comes in to unhook him to take him home, where everyone has agreed he should be when he dies, he asks where Bridget is, a sign of certain confusion, though Brooke lets it pass without correcting him.

It's at this moment, very near the end of the movie, that the miniseries veers from the book, and really only for dramatic purposes.  What happens in the next few scenes with Brooke are actually part of the opening of the book.  There is no judgment to be made here.  The book had a very specific structure that used the past to explain the present, where the movie does have to make sure it keeps the drama going at regular intervals.  The outcome is the same and faithful to Brooke's interpretation.

That causes Brooke to flash back to a night about a decade before when a chipper Bridget called in the middle of the night to tell Brooke she was pregnant and that the next morning, she would cook her big sister a great breakfast.  It's an odd conversation, no matter how you look at it, unless you are Brooke.  From the outside, it's clear Bridget is suffering a manic episode, extreme happiness that slowly mutates into something darker, even if just barely.  Bridget herself even recognizes all is to well and brings up examples from the past to illustrate it.  However, Brooke, though puzzled, just chalks it up to a bit of sisterly strangeness.

Brooke shows up the next morning as planned and as she pounds on the door yelling Bridget's name, it's intercut with Kenneth doing the same to Margaret back in 1960.  Without having to say a word, it's clear what has happened to Bridget.  However, Brooke does have have the door burst down, because she had, in her own words, and "intense" desire to maintain Bridget's beloved privacy.  It's not until after a day of errands that Brooke arrives home to hear the news of her sister's death.

At a memorial service for Bridget, a friend tells Brooke that yes, she had the worst genetics a family can concoct, so "you either go over to that window and jump or you go on."  Back in the present, Leland asks her what is the one time in her life to which she would most eagerly return.  She declines an immediate answer.  He is taken home to die and soon Brooke is summoned to his home, but by the time she arrives, Leland has died.  She insists on seeing him, saying "there's something I have to tell him, I promised."  The theme of promises kept and broken is remaining potent and integral through the final moments.

The moment Brooke wants back?  A time Leland decided to drive to see Margaret, long after the divorce, to discuss Bridget's problems.  After a 12-year separation, Margaret is very nervous, but manages a calmness once she actually shows.  The tension is quickly broken and perhaps some wounds are healed.  In the present, Brooke becomes a mess of tears as she realizes her parents always loved each other, no matter the time spent apart and that was the moment that made it clear to her.  This she relays to her father's corpse.

"I wept for my family, all of us.  For excesses, our delusions, our inconsistencies.  Not that we cared too much or too little, but that we had been careless with the best of our resources, each other.  It's as if we had taken for granted, like our talents and interests and riches, another chance, another summer, another Maggie, another Leland, another Brooke or Bridget or Bill," Brooke narrates to close the miniseries.

What a perfect ending!  Why?  Because nowhere in that sentence is there even a scrap of Hollywood self-pity.  If it hasn't been obvious since the beginning, what makes "Haywire" so interesting is that it's about a typical family.  It may not seems so since there are famous names involved, but the celebrity aspect of these character is rarely even a plot point.  Compare that with most star or child of star autobiographies.  No, "Haywire" is almost a mental health primer for coping with the ups and downs of its various forms.  Most of the time, this family of five got it wrong and the consequences were sadly permanent.  However, that does not make them special as this story is endlessly repeated by hundreds, thousands, of families who lose control to such debilitating conditions.

So "Haywire" exists sui generis as a miniseries.  It's neither romance, history nor adventure.  It's the story of a family full of unique individuals who were like molecules bouncing a million times a minute, trying to get away from each other, when the reasons they were doing so were just what should have been keeping them together: it's the inside of the American dream, what goes on behind the picket fences and manicured lawns, behind the frozen smiles and apple pies.  It's the truths of the Hayward family, unpleasant, forlorn, depressing, yet accessible and understandable.

SEQUEL ALERT: Lace II (1985)

So far, we've avoided miniseries sequels, but I'm afraid we cannot do it any longer, folks.  In fact, they are nearly as old as the American miniseries itself.  Does anyone remember "Rich Man, Poor Man Book 2?"  It has neither the poor man nor the girlfriend and is pretty tough going, especially at 20 or so hours.  But, then there is "Roots: The Next Generation," which is fantastic.  So, in the first few years of the movement, we got mixed signals on whether sequels were okay or not.

(for the original "Lace" go back to January 30 on this blog)

When it comes to "Lace II," sequels are not okay.  "Lace II" is as brain-dead as they come.  "Lace" is utterly delightful in its dedication to camp.  Very few miniseries actually have lines that everyone knows, but who doesn't know "which one of you bitches is my mother?"

"Lace II" tries to equal that line but you only strike gold once.  Having watched "Lace" many times, it never occurred to me to question the paternity of our leading vixen, because it was so much fun just figuring out the maternity.  Paternity questions are ho-hum.  The excitement of "Lace" was watching three teenagers (played by very mature actresses) hide a pregnancy not only from everyone they knew, but also from the story!  Even daytime soap operas couldn't manage that one.  For many hours, we are forced to trudge along and find Phoebe's father, a completely uninteresting tale that is not only daft in the telling, but re-invents things that happened in "Lace" very differently, as if we won't remember.  Wouldn't the only people watching "Lace II" be "Lace" fans?  They won't forget, trust me!

And, "Lace II" is such a bad idea that the Bess Armstrong, revealed to be the bitch of a mother, passed on doing the sequel, in which her character is the clear lead!  From the moment she turned it down, everyone else should have also, but noooooooo, the rest are here.  "Lace II" has none of the lovable lunacy of the original and is in fact so inept as to be head-scratching.  But, that was 1980s American television greed, for you, just toss the product out there and hope for the best.

The credits unroll over a cloying pop song performed by Deniece "Let's Hear It For the Boy" Williams as a humongous billboard of Phoebe Cates is painted over the Palace Theatre (home at that point to "La Cage Aux Folles") in New York City. 

Phoebe is stressing over that night's movie premiere.  "Mother, what am I going to do about my hair?" she asks Bess Arm...oh, right, she didn't come back, asks Deborah Raffin (a sure sign of miniseries trouble) as non-moms Arielle Dombasle and Brooke Adams fuss over their outfits too.  Phoebe looks ridiculous in a clinging red number, but the fans are there to see her and they don't care, all fourteen of them. 

Phoebe picks the premiere of her movie to tell the world Deborah is her mother.  That doesn't sit well with Deborah's parents, as her mother passes out upon hearing the news that "that floozy" is her granddaughter on TV.  Now, Phoebe and Deborah have not only forgiven each other the heartache and hell of "Lace," but have such a good relationship that they sing about West Virginia together as they enter that state to visit Deborah's parents, in matching white turbans, no less.  All we've ever known about Deborah's character (or Bess' in the original) is that she was American and went to a European private school.  She did not have a lesbian mother or drunken Aunt Hortense to liven things up (since they killed off Aunt Hortense in the first one, Angie Lansbury can't help us out of this muck--not to worry, she did the sequel of "Rage of Angels").

Therefore, we did not know that the very same West Virginia town that birthed famous magazine editor Deborah was also home to astronaut James Read (who has the distinction of being in TWO of the worst miniseries sequels--we'll get to "North and South Book 3" eventually).  As the gals are driving into town, there is a parade in his honor, and the town is closed down, half-day, for the celebration.  "Banks too?" he says snidely, obviously unimpressed.  Reckless Phoebe literally drives into the parade, scattering it all over the place, to the consternation of the town fathers and bandleaders.  However, they get over it quickly when they realize it's Phoebe, who gamely poses for pictures as old pals James and Deborah get re-acquainted.  "The movie star most men want to be on a desert island with and the astronaut most women want to be in orbit with," the huckster mayor shouts as everyone crowds nearer.  Remember, this was before Buzz Aldrin did "Dancing With the Stars," so astronauts still had cache. 

Deborah's parents, Bruce Boa and Richena Carey, are quite a pair.  Imperious Richena allows no talk at dinner, until Deborah tries to break the ice.  After noting that she's illegitimate, thanks, Phoebe starts to get a little snide.  Richena says, "well, it's terrible to admit," as everyone braces for the worst, "but I've never seen any of your movies."  Relief!  Bruce has.  "When?" his wife asks.  "When I went to Baltimore with the lodge," that city of sin!  "You never told me," she sasses back, and Bruce only wants to know "what is going through your mind" when doing her sex scenes.  "New dresses, new shoes, new wallpaper, recipes, but I'll tell you something that isn't...the lodge members in Baltimore," Phoebe replies and everyone dissolves into gigantic peals of laughter. 

Trouble in husband-land.  When Arielle arrives home, her husband is in bed with the secretary, but I give him credit for using a different line than expected.  "It isn't EXACTLY as it appears," James Faulkner says.  Oh, such clever writing!  Arielle throws his clothing out the window and then declares that if he can have a midlife crisis, so can she.  It's better than poor Brooke, whose husband has a heart attack on the flight back to London!

Then the plot can finally start.  Phoebe wants to meet her father.  Deborah produces a picture of a man in a military uniform and says that's her father and he's dead, but Phoebe pushes, so Deborah pulls out the the story of Lucinda Lace she wrote all those years ago in private school and gives Phoebe a missing chapter.  "Oh, I better warn you, some of it might be unpleasant."  Ah, thank you.  Because Phoebe hasn't spent her whole life being unpleasant, suddenly a prude? 

The story starts with Michael Fitzpatrick (the only other major role from the first to be recast), the banker with whom "all three girls fell in love," repeating a scene from the original "Lace" but having to reshoot it with two new actors.  He's the one who took Deborah to the dance, requiring more reshooting and then in bed afterwards, a third reshot.  Deborah falls playing field hockey (yeah, put a wig on the ladies and they look positively...40!) and announces she's "just a little bit pregnant." 

Those who remember "Lace" will know that every problem was discussed head on, "srough sick and sin," with everyone putting their thumbs together and imitating Arielle's French accent.  Deborah wants an abortion, but how?  "There are ways," Arielle notes and skulks around a pharmacy until taking heaps of medication to force one.  That doesn't work, and I'm sure Phoebe is thrilled to be reading she was truly unwanted.  Her friends think Michael should know, but Deborah refuses because his family has planned his future, but they decide to tell him anyway, until they see him with his fiancee and chicken out.  "Three years later, he would die a hero's death in Vietnam," the chapter concludes, and the mystery of Phoebe's father is over.  Wow, a 30-minute movie, that wasn't so bad. 

It ain't over, don't get excited.

Phoebe isn't upset to have been possibly aborted because, she claims with pride, she had abortions at the same age.  Instead, she wants to read the rest of the book, but Deborah says, "it's silly schoolgirl stuff" and takes it away.

Plus, they have to rush back to New York because Deborah has been offered an interview with Walter Gotell, a reclusive Vietnamese "rebel leader" and for $50K, he'll tell his story to her magazine (she thinks that it's because her book on Vietnam was so good).  Phoebe is pissed because Deborah won't be with her in Los Angeles, "to make my first Hollywood film."  It will only take a week to do everything, so she'll meet Phoebe then.  Yes, folks, Deborah Raffin, and her hefty shoulder pads, are off to Vietnam!  Who the hell is she, Rambo?  In the 80s, Vietnam was a big deal, with the Republican Party trouncing the Left by making it unpatriotic to speak ill of the war, but what in heaven's name is it doing in "Lace II?" 

Off to Vietnam Deborah goes, taken from a tourist pack and hidden under a sheet in a boat to bypass the authorities.  When she finally gets to the remote area to meet the general, a few guards are murdered and then she meets Christopher Cazenove (another miniseries regular, but second-tier).  They instantly despise each other, which means they will, of course, fall in love.  She tells him, "I'm not very good on a horse," but that's okay, because they will be riding elephants as "they make less noise," Christopher tells her. 

Out in LA, Phoebe writes her name in the cement outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater, which was something no one had done for decades at that point, but her (seemingly decreasing) fans go wild for it. 

Christopher, his merry band of bandits and Deborah arrive at their location where they banter like all people who will eventually be in love.  She counts out the $50K in hundred dollar bills, until General Walter has her stop at $45K, saying she'll have no voice left for questions.  Oh, come on, let her count out the last amount, she got that far!  General Walter, who seems about as Vietnamese as Christopher or Deborah, taunts Christopher about his fancy education and then squirms out of being interviewed by Deborah. 

I can promise you will be absolutely mystified by the scene Phoebe shoots for the movie.  It appears to be some sort of music video, in which a bunch of extras in tacky clothing dance around a pool while Phoebe is shy behind plants and drinks and then gets pushed into the pool.  It doesn't make any more sense if you watch it twice or try to puzzle it out, so let's just move on.

After needing just one take, Phoebe goes to her dressing room, where two Asian men (or one, and one in heavy Asian make-up) grab her.  They are there to deliver a message and one wants to rape her, but thankfully there is a knock at the door. 

Plucky Deborah is kept from General Walter, but not from the truth.  She's there to witness the killing of a young man under Christopher's orders.  "He told us everything he knew, we can't afford prisoners," he tells Deborah.  She wants to contact Phoebe, but is told, "we don't have direct dial."  He pulls out a game and she snaps, "I didn't come all this way to play checkers with a stiff-upper-lip sadist."  Oooh, that's tellin' him, Deborah.  She looks and sounds ridiculous at all times, though somehow, he manages to pull off his "Apocalypse Now" role decently.  They play, but argue over British-American word differences like "lift" and "braces."  She wants to know what "noble cause" he shares with the general and he rattles off words like freedom and better life, but that's boring.  "Most girls fine me irresistible," he tells her and they banter more, before he lowers the boom everyone else has figured out but her.  "How long am I going to be here."  "It's hard to say.  It's rather up to that famous daughter of yours."

Yes, gang, she was lured all the way to Vietnam as a hostage for one million dollars.  "You may be overestimating my daughter's affection for me," but he's confident.  "The game isn't over," she yells, throwing the table aside.  He comes to hit her, she flinches and he merely brushes aside a strand of her hair.

I know what you are thinking: why did they kidnap her and why did they bring her to Vietnam.  I have no answers.  Of all the people in the world to use as a hostage, a magazine editor with a famous daughter is not the first I would choose.  There are far more valuable people.  And why schlep her all the way to Vietnam when they could just stash her closer to home and still get the money?  I don't think anyone thought of that.  So, just suspend all notions of reality and follow it along to the inevitable conclusions you can see coming miles away!  I'm not saying it won't be painful getting there...

Phoebe has to ask her producer for the million ransom as an up front payment of her salary, but when he refuses, he threatens to "sue ya."  "Go ahead, sue me for every cent I haven't got," while standing naked in her dressing room.  Phoebe calls her old pal Terence Rigby, the Greek shipping magnate, and begs him for money, again.  She promises never to ask again.  He hangs up on her after putting one of his expensive girls on the phone for a few seconds.  The magazine can't afford it either.  "The next thing for me is a trip to Philadelphia," Phoebe decides, to bilk her father's family out of the pocket change. 

She does herself up in kid gloves and a business suit, but her grandfather's secretary isn't fooled.  Peter Jeffrey is thrilled to see her because he's never met a movie star, only "presidents and statesmen," but he's confused as to why she's come to see him.  Not filling in all the details, she asks for the money and THEN tells him "your son was my father."  "You are not his daughter," he says and she goes off on one of her spaz attacks, but then retracts to get all simpering and sweet.  Peter tosses her out, insisting his son is not her father and very confidently. 

Deborah, wearing white, finds herself in the middle of a war zone when troops storm the not-at-all-hidden rebel enclave.  Wait for the moment when Christopher comes rushing by on a horse to scoop her up as bombs explode around them.  If that isn't romance, I don't know what is!  This much schmaltz and on free TV!  The general is dead, so Deborah thinks she's free, but not so.  "I read Lace and the other lurid tabloids.  Your coming here was my idea, and so was the ransom demand.  I even anticipated this eventuality, so nothing's changed," he says.  "So much for heroes on white horses," she snaps.  "Do heroines still believe in such things?" he ends, closing down that conversation.  Wait, you didn't see it coming that Christopher was in charge the whole time?

Remember Brooke Adams?  Her husband dies.  Remember Arielle?  She throws a party where she and her husband do nothing but insult each other while the rest of the guests do equally catty remarking, but Arielle flirts with Patrick Ryecart, who says he'll spirit her away to London and "flaunt" their passion for each other.  That's put on hold when a butler brings news of Brooke's hubby's death.

That news is also heard in the Kingdom of Sydon.  Remember King Anthony Higgins, the unfailingly polite monarch with the heavy bronzer?  We know he's always had a thing for Brooke.  So, he dispatches an envoy to the funeral with the message that "the timeless desert sand has been known to assuage deep personal grief." 

The kidnappers call Phoebe and want the money, but she gets an extension of seven days.  They aren't very good kidnappers, are they?  Since when does she get to dictate the terms?  So, she follows through on her threat to out the Philadelphia blue-bloods as her family.  But, Phoebe rifles through her mother's drawers and finds a secret addendum to the Lucinda Lace book. 

Next thing we know, Phoebe shows up at Brooke's hubby's funeral, interrupting the minister with, "I want to know the truth."  She does know how to make an entrance.  This forces us into ANOTHER flashback, with Deborah very pregnant and the others playing badminton.  Deborah goes into labor and tells Brooke the father might not be the man they all think it is.  Arielle decides to tell Phoebe what she knows, merely interrupting the flashback to send us into another.  This time, Deborah goes, as a reporter, to Vietnam, to tell Michael about their child.  "Tell me, are there any atheists in foxholes?"  "I'm not sure, but I do know there is an idiot who let you get away," he replies.  He apologizes for his family and for listening to them.  They declare their love for each other, he'll leave his wife for her after the war, so she shows him pictures of their daughter.  He's speechless, for a moment, and then launches into a big doozy that ends with, "I have never been able to have children."  Now we know why is father was so sure of himself, eh? 

"Before you go into mourning, I need your help to save my mother's life," Phoebe begs of Brooke, and Arielle of course.  Phoebe reveals that the chapter about her father was written three times and she needs their help to figure out her paternity and for some money, which neither of them has.  So, they have to figure out which of the three stories of Deborah "being violated" is true.  King Anthony's name comes up, and so does James Read's, someone we never knew existed back in "Lace."  Phoebe quips, "the daughter of a budding astronaut?  You might have been a Martian!"  That doesn't sit well with Phoebe.  She gets snarky and decides to do it all on her own.  "Through thick and thin, like hell!"

But, ignoring her tantrum, Arielle and Brooke suddenly remember some details and we're sent into flashback land again (if they just TOLD us what was happening, this could have all been wrapped up in a single evening, rather than over two nights of valuable primetime real estate).  They agree to help.  Brooks asks, "what do you want us to do?

"I want you to help me find out which one of those bastards is my father," Phoebe snarls to end the first part of the movie.  She did that in the first "Lace" and it was a fantastic moment.  Here it falls flat 

The press wants to know who her father is and she says they will have to wait until her big press conference.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Deborah has decided to turn her situation into "Taming of the Shrew."  She knocks Christopher's gun into the water and dashes for his horse.  He grabs her, they tussle and he gets her to calm down.  He then reads her diary entry about him, which is flattering.  "I didn't write what I really thought," she says, the dim bulb. 

Phoebe, Arielle and Brooke each take a version of the story to follow it through.  Arielle contacts the boy she slept with years ago, the soccer player, because one version says the rapist was on the soccer team.  They force Brooke, against her will, to go to Sydon and confront King Anthony, leaving Phoebe to tackle James Read, because she's "the only one who has ever met him," as if asking him about violating a woman years ago would be any less awkward from a stranger?  "I am prepared to do anything to get that money," Phoebe tells her mother's pals and is brought into the "sick and sin" pact, she and her camel toe. 

Deborah, punked by the locals into eating spicy food, takes advantage of a moment when no one is watching her to get all "Mission Impossible" and escape, though again in white, not at all an obvious color.  She stops at every pillar to look around, not very good at this disappearing thing.  She comes across Christopher, wounded and passed out from a fierce battle with the other side of whatever he's rebelling against.  She wants to run, but she wants to help.  Run?  Help?  Run?  Help?  I think you know which it is.

First up is Arielle, off to see her former soccer love, hunky Francois Guetary, who has been reduced to being a gym teacher.  Arielle drives her fancy car and sits on it all sexy-like, except the car is not fancy and she's not dressed for sexy.  He wants to speak to her, and she agrees to go back to his place.  The man on the hockey team is Patrick Ryecart, with whom she has been flirting, the world-famous composer.  Francois expects a little fumble-and-tickle, but Arielle claims, "I'm pressed for time," stops and adds, "on the ice, you were so formidable" and blows him a kiss goodbye.  I used to think anyone with a French accent could get away with anything, but not our Arielle.  A combination of bad writing and even worse acting kills that notion. 

Brooke goes to Sydon where King Anthony is there to meet her as a helicopter pilot.  "Welcome back to my humble home," he tells her as they pull up to his castle.  The Queen is none too happy to see her, but the king's young son is excited. 

Even wounded and living as a rebel in the jungle, Christopher has his tart tongue.  Waking up to find Deborah keeping a vigil at his bedside, he says, "any relation to Florence Nightingale?"  "How about a fair trade?  I save your life," she says, to which he replies, "and because you were foolishly sentimental, you want me to do the same."  Ah, sweet bickering.  "I want you to be human for once."  "Sorry," he replies.  "What are you?  What are you doing here anyway?" she thinks to ask.  There's a story, thank you for asking.  Like Zorba the Greek, he always has a story, this rascal.  His father was a diplomat who didn't agree with the government and was killed.  That story of tragic boyhood loss leads into the following: "and what are you?  Editor?  Nurse?  Woman?  To conclude the interview, I do regard self-sacrifice as an essential part of life" and pulls her in for a kiss.  I'm sorry, what?  How did we go from his father in front of a firing squad to the cascading of a thousand violins and sex under the mosquito net?  Everyone watches their silhouettes from outside and are probably wondering the same thing. 

King Anthony has important problems.  His peasants are starving because there is no water.  "How can I lead them into the modern age?" he wonders.  She says she's seen worse people with money.  "You must learn to distinguish between unhappiness and misery," he says, with a veiled reference to perhaps someday being his queen, or at least a harem gal.  We've had the helicopter, a boring classical recital and a long horse ride and still she hasn't broached the subject of Deborah in the past. 

Waking up after a night of gettin' busy, Deborah asks if she can go.  He says he so desperately needs the money for the people, and now she's, of course, sympathetic.  But what if Phoebe can't get the money.  Yeah, that's a problem because he didn't anticipate falling in love with her, but "she has to raise the money."  "You aren't human.  You just aren't!" she starts, leading into, bar none, the absolute worst dialogue exchange in all of "Lace II."  She claims he has "an Orestes Complex, which means, sexually speaking, you're all mixed up."  "That's not what you said last night."  If this were Jerry Springer, we could cue the audience on that one!  "Oh no she didn't!"  But, there is no Jerry Springer, so the writers go for more nonsense, such as "Judy.  We just made love.  You can call me Judy!," her character's name. 

Arielle has a box at the symphony all to herself to watch Patrick conduct his orchestra.  Watching him, we dissolve into flashback to the dance we saw in "Lace" and though it's refilmed, I will give them credit for remembering that the song playing was "Summer Place."  The rest is pretty brand new.  Deborah sees Patrick and thinks he looks "miserable," wanting to "cheer him up."  They also remember the next song was "Mack the Knife," but at no point in "Lace" did Patrick break into the dance and try to take Deborah.  When Michael tells Deborah they can't be together, she accuses him of just "wanting a body."  Fleeing Michael, she meets Patrick on the street, where he leads her into a scary taxidermy store.  She's creeped out and tries to leave, but he stops her.  Violation #1.

Arielle and Patrick go driving through Paris singing opera.  Did you know Arielle had a world-class opera voice?  Neither did she, but she lip syncs decently.  Their attempted seduction of each other is laughable.  The puns and the accents are big hazards, but unsubtle Arielle tries to trap him.  "I find this conversation increasingly boring," he says.  She makes her accusations, they play the longest cat and mouse scene and he declares, "Countess, you have no proof.  No proof at all," as she grabs her fur and storms out of his Paris abode. 

Things have to start moving faster, because we only have an hour left and two options to go, one that should be somewhat romantic and one that will be just awkward.  And then we have to wrap up the plot.  I'm so glad we've wasted 3/4 of the whole thing on unimportant gibberish!

Luckily, astronaut James Read happens to be in Paris, so Phoebe doesn't have to trek back to the US to find him.  She just has to put on her favorite outfit of a fur and hanky over her head, with sunglasses, and James can see her in the not-so-big crowd, knowing at some point he must follow her, to what turns out to be a very remote location outside the city (where he is staying as well)

The second version of the violation takes place during a brand new time period we didn't even know existed back in "Lace."  Somehow, Deborah found time to go home to West Virginia during her fertile few days (the other two possible stories take place at school, reasonably enough).  There is a hay ride, songs by a campfire, hide-and-go-seek in the dark and bing-bang-boom, Deborah finds herself in trouble.  James traces her to an abandoned barn.  Apparently she is the ONLY woman of them all to think to hide in there, giving her alone time with James, who always looks and acts the good guy, so he's not believable as a menacing rapist.  Then again, we don't know if this version is the truth, so it could just be (not at all) good storytelling.  Where the first version found her abused by a crazy man, this one is worse because we get the "you know you wanted it" rapist.  Violation #2.

Phoebe is all dressed up when James arrives, with a fire lit, flowers on display, everything that one would want for a really good seduction.  Wait!  Wait!  A seduction?  Isn't he possibly her father?  She's going to seduce him into revealing the truth?  That's taking a chance, eh?  We've gone into trash overdrive, but possible incest?  That's too much even for "Lace II."  Phoebe calls James and tells him to go out onto his balcony.  Naturally, she has the next one over and tells him to "jump" the space between them.  "It's a two story drop," he says.  "You can do it.  One small step for mankind, one little leap for Lili," she giggles.  Being an astronaut does not make him particularly coordinated and he almost falls, but is finally able to climb onto her balcony.  "It must have been wonderful to grow up on a farm.  How big was it?" Phoebe asks after a few glasses of wine.  "Pretty big," he says, not talking about his farm, we assume.

When he goes to touch her, she finally realizes this may be too much and reminds him she's just his old gal's "little girl."  He removes his hands, but only for a second.  "Do you want to go to bed with me?" she asks?  "How much?"  "Very much." "A million dollars much?"  "No, no roll in the hay is worth that much," she replies, with an apt pun for how he might have gotten to be her father.  She's the one who mentions incest and he's shocked, denying it completely.  "She wanted to be the most important person EVER to come out of Haddington," he says, bursting her bubble about her "good little mother," "and I beat her there too!" he explains, telling Phoebe that Deborah was also so competitive with him, of course she would invent lies about him.  Phoebe tosses her threat to him, one million at the Ritz on Saturday, or she goes public.  "One thing you should know about astronauts, honey, they don't scare easily," he says and darts from the room. 

That leaves only King Anthony.  We pick up that flashback where Brooke runs from his room after he tries to have sex with her.  That happened in "Lace," so we're good so far.  At the same time, Deborah is leaving Michael, so she bumps into King Anthony on the street, but she won't be able to make it back to school since there are no cars around.  Crying that "I'll be expelled," she brings out the gallant in him.  He sneaks her into his hotel so they can come up with a plan.  "My tutor said a good lie is always rooted in the truth," King Anthony tells her, apparently having formulated a plan in his mind already.  Speaking of his tutor, coincidentally, "he gets expert tuition in how to make love," he throws out there just in case.  He grabs for Deborah, noting "I will not be rejected twice in one night."  This version of events is the most idiotic yet.  We know King Anthony to be a gentleman at all times, madly in love with Brooke.  In fact, he's never bothered to even meet her friends, let alone pick one up on the street.  On top of that, "Lace" showed that Brooke did not make it back to school, instead returning to King Anthony's room and making love, most romantically.  But, "Lace II" has us believe that in the few moments between when she left and when she returned, Deborah was snuck up to his room and raped AND that after that, Anthony redressed and was ready for more, sweetly, in a snap.  Violation #3.

Brooke can't sleep because she has yet to confront King Anthony, despite being in the palace for days.  She grabs a robe and goes walking through the palace, where no one is standing guard, and is able to get into the throne room and sit in the queen's chair.  King Anthony apparently couldn't sleep either and arrives only a second later, in a caftan.  "Did you enjoy what could be...?"he asks.  "What could have been?" she corrects him.  He gets on his knees and promises to "give it all up" for her.  Oh, suddenly he's Edward and she's Wallis Simpson?  "Sorry, I forgot my moral restraint, I must wait for a more appropriate time," he claims when she rushes away.  Finally, she gets to the threat.  She asks if he remembers Deborah, but he doesn't remember.  She tells him Deborah is being held for one million dollars ransom and that Phoebe is Deborah's daughter ("ah yes, such scandal reaches even here").  Brooke tells him she intended to blackmail him, but the story is so ridiculous, she's had trouble.  "You realize what you're accusing me of is a capital offense in a Muslim country," he says, furious.  "I'm not accusing you.  I don't believe it, I've never believed it!"  "But you want me to deny it!  I'm the King of Sydon, how dare you!"  Brooke runs from the room in tears.  But King Anthony follows, looking so damn in the shadows that there's no resisting him.  She's ready to have him right then and there, but he merely kisses her hand and tells her to leave.  When daylight comes, she leaves, in the same outfit that brought her there, so they must be her traveling togs (or they filmed the arrival and departure at the same time and didn't think to change her costume).

The press is hounding Phoebe for the revelation of her father, because apparently that's all that's going on in the world.  Truly, there are more paparazzi than fans at any given moment.  She puts them off, saying she wants to wait for her mother.  They insist she fix a time and date, so she does.  "Don't forget to show up," one of then says all angry as she drives off.  She goes to find Brooke, who is, as always, drunk.  "I lost the respect of the only man I ever really loved," she tells Phoebe, who is not at all concerned if it doesn't mean Deborah's release.  "We all have to keep praying until midnight," she tells Brooke. 

With tears streaming down her face, Phoebe watches the clock tick toward midnight.  Finally, a taxi pulls up to the hotel and a man with a briefcase gets out, but we only see the briefcase.  He knocks on Phoebe's door just in time.  The man is...

...Michael Gough, a banker who has brought the money.  He has no idea whose money it is.  "Our function was just to deliver it to you," he tells her, "but there was a personal message."  There is a note that merely says, "to my daughter, belatedly and with love," but it's not signed. 

The money gets to Vietnam in record time, by the next scene!  There is no direct calling as Christopher snapped at Deborah before, but apparently wire transfers are all the rage.  Deborah is free to go, but Christopher chases after her with a big open-mouthed kiss.  "Would you have really killed me?" she asks.  "Neither of us will ever know," he replies and Deborah is off to freedom. 

Wait!  Wait!  All that, the kidnapping, the threats, the bickering, the sex, the love, and Deborah just leaves Vietnam without him?  Wow, romance just isn't her thing!  In the course of this movie, she's been violated three times and held prisoner in Vietnam.  No wonder Deborah Raffin signed up after Bess Armstrong passed!  Who wouldn't want to play this version of Judy Hale?

Reunited, Deborah chirps, "it's nice to have a rich daughter," but Phoebe says she's not (another problem that I didn't want to mention, because in "Lace," her character was wealthy beyond imagination, and there has been no explanation of where her money went--bad stocks?) and that she got it from dad, "who finally acknowledged me."  Phoebe explains how she, Brooke and Arielle "followed Chapter 12 through to its logical conclusion."  Logical?  In "Lace II?"  Logic died the minute the credits started.  Hell, logic died the minute they gave "Lace II" the green light. 

"If it's any consolation, you have royal blood," Deborah tells Phoebe when the latter insists on knowing the truth.  Wow, that's anti-climactic, as opposed to "Lace" where it took ten minutes for Bess Armstrong to walk back to Phoebe's room, while Phoebe did that weird bird-gyration thing in her teddy and they finally met as mother and daughter.  Now, our four hours fizzled with one line, and the answer is the dumbest of the three possibilities, though the most inevitable.  It wasn't going to be one of the guys who was new to the story, come on!  You had this figured out already, I know you did.  "He was promised secrecy in return for the money, but why shouldn't I let everyone know?" Phoebe asks.  "It would make me feel better."  "Then this time, it's up to you," Deborah tells her.  "Yes, mother, it is." 

It's time for the big announcement.  There are droves of reporters and cameras in the hotel.  Phoebe arrives, saying, "I don't know what all the fuss is about."  You are the one who called the press conference!  Your paternity is apparently more important than world peace (or Vietnamese freedom fighters).  Arielle and Brooke are there to support Deborah and Phoebe.  So is King Anthony, watching from a balcony above the lobby.  She...talks...very...slowly...to...take...up...all...the...remaining...time...as...everyone...waits...with...baited...breath.  "My...father's...name...is..."

"is"

"his name was"

and she claims Michael was her father.  Sure, it's easy to blame the dead guy with no active sperm.  I'm sure they are going to be thrilled to death in Philly!  Since he was a nobody who died in Vietnam, the press isn't all that excited.  Deborah and Brooke are happy with that answer, and of course, so is King Anthony. 

The four women hug in slow motion, turn to the cameras and freeze.  That's the end of "Lace II." 

Not to worry, as of 2011, there has been no "Lace III."  I'm sure you are just itching to know who Phoebe's great-great-grandparents are, but alas, the movie just has not been made.

"Lace II" really is abominable.  It has an insane story, terrible acting and a storyline that takes so long to tell and goes nowhere, with a hokey ending.  "Lace" was delightful cheese all the way through.  It knew how to keep the camp sharp, but there is no effort to even try in "Lace II."  Turning Phoebe's character into a wonderful daughter is not believable and not at all in the spirit of Shirley Conran's book.  It gives Phoebe nothing to play, and even less to poor Brooke and Arielle, who agreed to make this crap.  Deborah Raffin no doubt thought she was signing up for greatness.  After all, "Lace" was enormously popular, so why the hell not go for a sequel?  Well, "Rage of Angels II" should have been a clue.  It's one thing to make a sequel to "Roots" or "Rich Man, Poor Man" because those books are true classics, with characters that, even at their worst, have possibilities for more.  The story of "Lace" is self-contained.  It's a gooey romance saga with excitement and glamour and a big twist, but it all ends neatly.  There is absolutely no reason for a sequel, and certainly not because someone gets kidnapped in Vietnam! 

But the sequels didn't stop with crap like "Rage of Angels II" or "Lace II."  Oh, no.  "The Thorn Birds" had one, "V" had one, "North and South" had one (though, to be fair, that one actually came from a third John Jakes' Civil War novel).  Hell, even "Hollywood Wives" had a sequel as late as 2005. 

We'll just never learn when it comes to sequels.  I mean, "Lace II" should cause us to stop and think, but we'll never REALLY learn in the end.