SEQUEL ALERT: Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3

Oh, I know, the fact that I'm referring to "Heaven and Hell, North and South, Book 3" as a sequel is not going to sit well with everyone.

The "North and South" novels of John Jakes came out in 1982, 1984 and 1987.  Miniseries of Books 1 and 2 had both aired by mid-1986.  Why not Book 3?  There are differing answers on that one (Kristie's character was killed near the end of Book 2 and Patrick was well into movie superstardom to return to TV), but timing and Jakes' writing no doubt were factors.

North and South, Book 1
North and South, Book 2

However, as I see it, Book 3 is a desperate grasp as a miniseries.  By 1994, when it aired, the American network miniseries was moribund.  I've already noted in these pages that I consider "Scarlett," airing in 1995, the true end of the movement, so by 1994, certainly the networks knew they had just a few gasps left.

So, what could they do to go out with a bang?  Well, they could have gone the route of "Scarlett" and used recent novels, as the Krantz and Steel factories churned out books faster than anyone could read them.  They could have gone for a real-life or true crime story (which they did).  They could also keep trying Stephen King books.

Or, they could dredge up past glories for a can't-lose movie, a last attempt to breathe life into a clearly dead genre.  There was a "missing years" "Thorn Birds" miniseries that was dismal, Clavell would have been way too expensive, to say nothing of Wouk.  Ah, but the "North and South" books of John Jakes (who already had a trilogy made into a miniseries in the golden days a decade and a half previously) had a dangling finale that was not filmed.  Both "North and South" miniseries in the 80s were critically hailed and gigantic hits with audiences.  Bingo, let's do it for the money.

Only, doing it for the money is a lousy reason to make a miniseries and it was bound to fail.  One only need to look at "Lace II" for proof.  Book 3 has a stale feel, a sad aroma of decay to it.  A lot of the same actors are back, but you would hardly notice.  Philip Casnoff is given one of the worst parts of his career, Leslie-Anne Down is turned into Scarlett-after-the-war, Terri Garber has very little to do and even the magnificent James Read looks totally bored.  Thus, assuming money-grubbing decisions, I add "Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3" to the sequel pile along with "Lace II" and the equally unwatchable "Rage of Angels" sequel.

To be fair, "Heaven and Hell: North and South Book 3" is not a disaster like the two mentioned above. It is harmlessly impotent and dull, that's all.

Uh oh.  The miniseries starts with a bit of narration by John Jakes.  Who does he think he is, Judith Krantz?  It's only a review, but it ends with Jakes telling us that somehow Philip Casnoff is still alive through some "quirk of fate."  Oh, come on!  He could have figured out a way to say that far better, but perhaps he was under torture to speak the line exactly as written.

Philip and his beloved Terri Garber, already overdoing it in her first lines, have come to extort money from the character once played by Patrick Swayze, but in this case an obvious double used in a nighttime scene.  Terri trots off to have it out with Lesley-Anne Down, making a crack about "uppity" former slaves and Lesley-Anne's minuscule black heritage.  Philip, drowning in dry ice haze, follows the man with the cane, stabs him and then relays a bit more plot review.  At exactly the same time, Terri informs Lesley-Anne that she's going to take "everything you have…so enjoy it while you can" and flounces out the door.

When Terri makes her way through the fog and unlit streets exactly to the empty place where Philip has just killed her brother, she's horrified.  She thought Philip was going to extort money.  "What about me?" she asks.  "I don't need you for what I'm going to do," he callously warns her.  Hey, Ter, you lie down with dogs…

Enraged, Terri screams and runs in slow motion, pushing Philip off a bridge and one supposes he drowns, but of course one supposed the last time he was killed he actually was dead, so we'll wait and see if he's that lucky again.

Naturally, James Read is upset at his friend's death.  "He survived it all only to have some coward knife him in the back?" he growls to his patient wife Wendy Kilbourne as he fishes out his half of the $10 bill that he's kept since early in Book 1.  It's Wendy who tells him to go help Lesley-Anne.  Probably not wise advice on any level.

The character of dead Patrick Swayze's brother, now being played by Kyle Chandler, meets Rya Kihlstedt, a penniless but pretty actress who declares he "will hear of" her, despite his knowledge of theater being limited to Edwin Booth (nothing can top the plight of 19th Century actors like "Centennial").  He's also in the military under an assumed name, though a squawking officer thinks he should be fired since he was part of the South.

Rya, as noted, is an actress, and wants to work with a troupe headed by a truly bizarre slumming vet.  Not Liz Taylor from Book 1, not Wayne Newton from Book 2, but one of the least likely slummers in all of show business, Peter O'Toole.  He isn't interested in her acting, he just wants someone to manage his books and "keep him sober," a delicious in-joke.  "Everyone thinks they can act," Peter tells her, not having seen the rest of this movie, and tough Rya holds out for lead parts in exchange for taking care of him.

Another relative swoops down into the story, Robert Wagner, playing the deed owner of the once great family estate.  A rather dour sort, he tells Lesley-Anne that if she fails to make any mortgage payments culled from her little vegetable garden run with the help of paid former slaves, he'll boot her out.  Hearing that Lesley-Anne is educating her former slaves, he is invited to join the KKK, but declines, only to be reminded, "the war may be lost, but the cause ain't."

Mariette Hartley is hired as the plantation's teacher.  She tells Lesley-Anne she was an abolitionist, as if that matters now (or in light of Lesley-Anne's efforts to help runaway slaves).  A desk and windows are promised her as the school is being built, and she takes the job, "with enthusiasm," though it looks more like complete boredom.  However, she shows spark soon after, when Lesley-Anne is turned away from church because of her racial history.  "There is no blessing on this house of abomination," Mariette snaps to all, including Robert, who is uncomfortably in the middle of the ado.  He again refuses to join the clan, but doesn't leave with Lesley-Anne either.

Into all of this, like a gallant knight, comes James, apparently not planning to stay more than a five minutes because he rides to the ruined plantation just on a horse, nothing else.  He inquires about her husband's killer and is told no law and order actually exists in the South now.

Cue Richmond and the insane asylum where a raving lunatic holds court.  Yup, once again, Philip Casnoff has cheated death!  Tied to the bed, he remembers his rank, "the great sovereign state of Georgia" and a whole bunch of other things, but not his name.  The doctor thinks he's perfectly sane and has him released.

Ever the pragmatic entrepreneur, James offers Lesley-Anne a business partnership in order to build a sawmill, which will only help her meager efforts.  She keeps declining until he, of course, brings up that ripped $10 bill.  "I do believe we have ourselves a deal," Lesley-Anne gushes.

Philip, walking no doubt to some magnetic dream of retaliation, stops, pulls out his knife and writes his character's name in the dirt.  Has he remembered something?  No time to dwell, we have new lovers to visit: Rya and Kyle, who has attended her performances and actually stayed awake.  He wants to go out West, and though Rya assumes it's to "fight Indians," his kiss cancels out all worries, but they can't have sex in that little outdoor patch, "not for my first time with you," she notes (thats a rarity--a woman in an historical miniseries who openly admits she's not a virgin), so we take the act inside with glowing candles, sexy bodies and acres of violins and drums.  Considering Kyle Chandler is the most handsome man in all three "North and South" miniseries, it's nice to look at, though stereotypically handled.  After being insulted by a superior officer in a restaurant while with Rya, Kyle decided to pay a visit to his fie-year old son, explaining the story of his birth and his fiancée's death and promising a return to his new love.

Out in Santa Fe of all places, Terri has become perhaps the crankiest hooker in all that dry heat, until a piano salesman comes to spend the night, a shy retiring type who offers to help her get her home back (that pile of charred rubble, as we remember).  She coos that the last man who tried to help her was killed.  This guy doesn't even flinch hearing that.  Said man is riding on the back of a wagon singing and crazy.

Kyle is set upon by his hateful superior and three others, beaten badly before Rip Torn shows up garbed as an Indian to chase them away.  Sillier is Terri's plan to start actually making pianos with her regular john, using the madam's gold, hidden in a hole under the desk.  "I don't have a gun," says Tom Noonan.  "Well get one!" Terri bleats in exasperation.  Silly and pathetic is Philip's plan, under an assumed name, taking a job in a railway station in order to bide time until James returns from his goodwill tour of Lesley-Anne's south.

With Reconstruction not even a possibility for such fluff, the movie lurches from one inane attempt of mid-1860s history to another.  Rip Torn is, as you may have guessed, not an Indian, but rather a fur trapper with a "slightly touched" nephew who needs a partner good with a gun, since the last one was carved up by Indians.  Forgetting his son and Rya, Kyle agrees to go into partnership with Rip and they continue on their westward journey.  "I'm gonna learn you good about the Cheyenne…gonna learn you good so you can keep your head of hair," Rip, pure comic relief tells his new partner.

After a howler scene where Peter O'Toole was clearly not acting drunk as much as living it, Rya makes it her life's work to find Kyle and prove he's no deserted.

The sawmill is built on Lesley-Anne's land lickety split, and it seems Lesley-Anne is falling for her dead husband's best friend, who is feeling the same, but doesn't realize it.  There are few worse acting mistakes than trying to out-ham one of the greatest hams of all, and Terri Garber, laying it on thick through three movies here, seems to think she can get away with the histrionics of Peter O'Toole.  Not in a million years, sweetie.  Even Peter O'Toole has no idea how to do it.  Terri and Tom go to steal the bordello gold, though Tom has a conscience about it.  She even has to kill making an escape.

There is a great deal of tension when Rip and company get to the Cheyenne settlement and warriors show up to do bate.  They run into a "medicine tent," comparing it to a church, a sanctuary in which no blood will be spilled.  The chief frees them, but the Indian who caused the flare-up is definitely not finished.  In one of the other main plots about racism, Robert Wagner is unsure of whether to join the Klan or not.  He doesn't feel he needs a hood, but their propaganda is strong and they give him the honor of lighting a cross.  The Klan comes to Lesley-Anne's and former slave Stan Shaw sees them first, telling his fiancee to fetch the lady of the house.  Lesley-Anne is brave in front of the hooded Klan, telling them to go ahead and burn the school in defiance, recognizing even RJ's voice, and they do torch Mariette's one-room schoolhouse.

The bad guys far outnumber the good ones, so while Wendy is waiting for her husband's train to bring him home, crippled and savagely bent on revenge, sneaks into her house.  He rambles with a knife to her neck until James' horses can be heard and then stabs her.  After finding his wife dead, he sees that Philip has written his name on the mirror in blood.  "You bastard, I'll kill you.  By God, I'll kill you," he avows with thunder crashing to heighten the effect. That's a natural way to end the first part.

"Heaven and Hell" is, so far, not any worse than any other miniseries of its time (admittedly faint praise), but it's not in a league with Books 1 and 2 because they had a centralized tension that was a part of every plot line.  Yes, it was an overly familiar one: separation of family and friends across the divide of the Civil War.  However, it had potency and believability, plus a whole lot of soapy plots as a distraction.  What this one lacks is that centralized tension.  Everybody is the same and feels the same.  There are bad people, but only in a cardboard sense.  When James Read and Patrick Swayze tangled over their opinions, it was painful to both of them because they knew they would be torn apart by them.  Here?  Well, Terri is a hooker stealing gold, Kyle gets mixed up with a shady fur trader, Lesley-Anne is so good to everyone that the Klan has to step in.  So far, it's just a series of vignette plots adding up to…well, not much.

Stan and his cohorts vow to rebuild the school on the same site and defend it as well.  Miniseries rules declare that when everyone smiles and makes promises, deus ex machine, a house falls on their metaphorical heads.  A telegram of Wendy's death sends Lesley-Anne scurrying go meet George, whom she fears will never forgive himself for spending extra time with her and the school, though she does admit that Philip is a wicked man who…pause…pause…killed her husband!  Mariette, the very prototype butch schoolmarm, convinces Lesley-Anne to stay put so the sawmill can be run and James' letter told her to stay away since Philip is on the loose.

We are re-introduced to Jonathan Frakes, James' brother with the shrewish wife, now played by Deborah Rush.  Deborah wants Jonathan to run for the Senate and uses he funeral as a social gathering to push her agenda, even with General Grant.  Deborah even has a scheme to use Jonathan's place at the Freedman's Bureau to go down south and buy cheap land, though he warns her against it.  James says he's in no state of mind to decide anything, leaving decisions in his foreman's hands so Deborah doesn't do anything stupid and then hires a Pinkerton detective to find Philip (who is standing in front of a mirror trying on Wendy's earrings).

Hold in your laughter for the worst political gathering in miniseries history.  The Republicans come to town to whip the former slaves into becoming loyal party members with the slogan "Liberty, Lincoln, Lee"  and then reminding everyone that there are still potential slaves because there are still potential masters.  Shameless huckstering is stopped by Stan, who gives a violin-laden speech about how even if they have not been paid yet, they are doing what they are going "because we want to…we is free now, and free men choose.  What's the point of being free if you can't choose?"  That stumps the politico and silences the room until the politico proposes Stan be the first delegate or the upcoming Charleston convention.

Terri and Tom are now in Chicago making pianos, and the first one is just about ready.  Her plan to put one in every "cathouse" in the country seems to be foolproof.  Except it has enough plot holes and idiocy to it to sink a fleet of ships.  The soon-to-be husband and wife do not get along because he knows she's "vicious and greedy and vain" and the threats fly back and forth.

Covering a wanted sign of his mug, Philip goes to a war office to find out about Kyle, and is given an address of a man who corresponds regularly with him, though not currently since "sixth tree from the fourth hill in Indian territory" is not easily located by the Pony Express.  Speaking of, Indians attack our threesome, killing Rip and the "touched" boy, leaving Kyle to bury them and continue on alone.

While Stan is celebrating his wedding with dancing and song, Lesley-Anne decides to go back to the house to tend to her child.  Two Klan members want to lock the door and burn the revelers alive.  Just as they are about to rape Leslie, a man arrives to chase them off, the geologist RJ hired to find out what is really on the land Lesley-Anne owns.

The snakes are assembling, which means Deborah pays a visit to RJ, flirting her way into finding out what she needs to know about the phosphates found on the land.  Deborah has everything worked out to fine detail.  She will give him the money he needs, he will have to worry about buying out Lesley-Anne and because of the "problem of labor," they will fund a general store where everyone works on credit, thus giving the owners "complete control."  RJ tells Lesley-Anne of his plans, but the land isn't his until she defaults on payments, which is a distinct possibility given that the Klan busted the sawmill

Kyle's homecoming does not go as planned.  Shabby, bearded and dirty, his son is afraid of him and Rya is angry.  But, he cleans up, finds out about Philip and tries to dump Rya.  She halts that by inviting him up to her room to "hold each other."  He has a serious miniseries illness--the one that happens when you leave polite society for a time and have trouble readjusting when you return.  Luckily, Kyle is still sexy to Rya, so some sex seems to be the cure.  Well, to some degree, because he still takes a civilian scouting position, hoping also to hunt down Philip.

"I am regaining what you and others tried to take away from me…pride!" bellows Robert when Lesley-Anne begs him to drop the issue of credit that will lead to a new form of slavery for her friends and coworkers.

At a family dinner, James' sister-in-law Genie Francis returns and she's frightened because James has become so obsessed with Philip.  Cue the Pinkerton, to say there is a woman out west whom Philip raped, but luckily she's alive, "but barely" and can hopefully provide details.  He fears Kyle is Philip's next target.  In an army camp, Kyle meets intelligent trickster Steve Harris and they become fast friends.

The Convention of Colored Men opens with Billy Dee Williams giving a rousing speech, eventually followed by everyone's favorite, Stan.  As expected, his speech is beautiful and full of basic human heart and tears.  Even the inevitable violins don't go too far into overdrive since this is one of those shoot-for-an-Emmy speeches (thought well done and not cynical).  Stan is overwhelmed by the positive  response, but when Billy Dee calls him "Mr.," he's happier than ever.  "It ain't never been done before," he says, crying.

And, my miniseries minions, you don't need even two guesses to figure out what happens next, because we all know that when people are overwhelmingly happy in a miniseries, the worst is about to happen. Indeed, the Klan comes out of hiding to ambush him, sending his horse away (it makes it to the house where the women grab guns and form their own pose).  Stan is lynched.  Lesley-Anne chases them off.

Steve, doing well rising in the ranks, informs Kyle that his men want to see a play, so he goes to the theater in Leavenworth where initially no one will sell tickets to black men, but it's Rya who insists they sell the tickets or the company will not play in that theater.  Their reunion is awkward, but even worse is Rya going all-out doing "King Lear."  It's not the greatest rendition, but the again, Shakespeare wasn't always a guaranteed hit in Kansas.  This time is different, though Peter carps during curtain calls to Rya that she changed lines and his staging.  "I had something to say," she says.  "And you said it," Peter-as-Shylock replies.

The month comes when Lesley-Anne cannot pay the mortgage and Mariette begs Lesley-Anne to go directly to James for help.  She initially refuses, but Mariette spits out a sentence full of alliterative S sounds that convince Lesley-Anne.  James wants to help, but he also wants Lesley-Anne, who feels the same way.  When did these feelings arise?  Certainly not until Book 3, because after all those cape-and-church clandestine meetings in Books 1 and 2, she and Patrick had eyes for no one but each other.

Finally, Kyle comes across the Indian who killed Rip when the Indians attack a wagon train of settlers. The wagons circle and from inside spring soldiers.  The whole thing was a trap, but when Kyle, Steve and Steve's men rushed the area to help, they infuriate a commander who remembers Kyle, calling him a traitor and hoping he'll be hung.  "You can go to hell," Kyle says and rides off.

Philip, in a new guise that has him looking like a Shakespearean Moor, kidnaps Kyle's son and writes his name in flour on the kitchen counter where bread was being made.  As for Kyle, he's gone to the Cheyenne to ask for permission to kill the man who killed Rip and to warn them that soldiers are coming.  No sooner does that sentence escape his mouth than the commander with the attitude starts howling again about how "they breed like rabbits" and "red devils" seem to be his preferred moniker for the gang.  A slow motion montage shows a complete slaughter of the Indians.  Kyle aims for the commander, but decides not to kill him.  At least not yet.  As the commander reaches for his gun, Steve steps him and stops it from happening.  Kyle leaves and only the Indian he has been chasing is still alive to exact revenge in a war that would last far longer than the Civil War.  So ends the second part of the movie.

In the miniseries least interesting plot, Kyle and his Indian nemesis (Gregory Zaragoza) meet alone in a field.  The fight lasts about 8.2 seconds and Kyle doesn't even break a sweat besting Gregory.  However, he doesn't kill him.  He harms him and then tends to his wounds.  Awwww, new friends.

On Capitol Hill, James visits his brother Jonathan Frakes, who, in one scene, attempts to dethrone fellow overactors Terri and Rip Torn, and even makes headway besting Peter O'Toole.  Jonathan pretends to be shocked when James tells him of the scams down south, but says "we have no jurisdiction there."  He has no idea of the fact that his wife Deborah is behind it all while he works at the Freeman's Bureau and forced her to sell her interest in her company to James for $1.  Jonathan throws his wife out of their house, telling her, "I never want to see your face again!"

Also unhappy is Deborah's business partner, Robert Wagner, who agrees to work with them since the other option was to bought out.  But, James is in his element with a new project to keep him busy.  He has a list of demands for the foreman, undoing all of the evil at the plantation and general store.  He also gets closer to Lesley-Anne, who packs him baskets full of food for picnics.  When Philip's name comes up, James says over and over, "I'll get him."  And he probably will, since miniseries heroes always get their man, but most of the time because of an accident so no one has to be hauled into court.

Unable to sleep, James sits outside where Lesley-Anne pop over and finally they can confess their love for each other.  Their sex scene is notably awkward, at times just plain creepy!

Pure happiness in a miniseries is an oxymoron, because James received a telegram saying Philip has kidnapped Kyle's son, so he's dashing to St. Louis to take care of the situation.  Lesley-Anne begs him not to go and he says he's only doing it for the family, promising to return.

Terri and Tom buy the most expensive house in DC and manages to get a list of all the most influential people, throwing a party and doing Scarlett O'Hara again.  Tom is not at all thrilled at her behavior, asking what he can do to make her even happier and she says the only thing is her family plantation.

Detective James visits Rya, promising to bring Kyle back.  He then enlists Kyle's army pal, the magic-loving Steve sends him Abilene, where Kyle has become the town drunk.  He is passed out and Philips finds him in the drunk tank, teasing with the viewer by giving Kyle a shave.  But, he doesn't kill him.  When James and is ever-increasing band of merry men find Kyle, they also find a map on the way that Philip left for them.  There has to be something bad afoot, because that would be too easy an stupid.

As if the kid understands, Philip tells him his entire plan for killing everyone left in the story.  Most baffling is that he decides to go into Indian Territory to create his own kingdom where he can kill whoever he wants.  As the good guys plan to capture Philip and get Kyle's son back, Robert Wagner, who is wearing a false beard so ungainly even his acting style which is to barely twitch a muscle, is in danger of knocking it off, is with his KKK buddies.  He has more important things to do than hunt ex-slaves.  He wants to destroy everything James has.

Slowly, James, Kyle and Steve track Philip across the whole Indian Territory (which seems to be about 10 square feet because they keep passing the same trees over and over again.  What Philip doesn't know is that Kyle's son is dropping rocks like breadcrumbs of children's stories.  A woman whose husband is trafficking buffalo gives Philip and the boy, "not right in the head" as per Philip, feeds them, but doesn't believe Philip's story and pulls a gun on him.  Philip then kills a man for absolutely no reason and has the man's Indian lady friend bury him.

Who brings this news of having seen the boy to our trio of heroes?  Kyle's Indian friend, who says he will help and then that's it as "I won't owe you anything."

Just as RJ is making a deal, Terri comes flouncing in, agenda as obviously as her cleavage.  Terri has the money to buy it, but RJ reminds her that Lesley-Anne is there and making the payments.  Terri has a plan for that too.

Kyle's Indian pal locates the kid and offers to take the guys there.  Both he and Steve, neither of whom have a real stake in finding the boy, want to help.  Steve pretends to be in need of a place to rest, dragging out the story to give Kyle and James an opportunity to get into position, while Philip tells Steve the Indian woman "is for sale too.  $3 a whack."  The kid sees his father, which means everyone has to jump into a kerfuffle, killing the Indian woman, but getting the kid.  James rips his dead wife's earring off Philip's ear and in the middle of Philip's defiant speech, he's lynched.

That leaves just Lesley-Anne's plot to wrap up.  RJ and his cohorts plan to kill her and take what they feel is theirs.  RJ's wife hears the conversation, begging him not to be a part of it, but he roughly makes it clear this is not a woman's business and she best not say anything.  However, the wife slips away and informs Lesley-Anne of the plans.  James and Kyle rush to protect Lesley-Anne and fight the clan.  Rya is upset that Kyle is leaving again and tells him she may not be there when he returns, so he gets about 10 steps and decides to choose his lady friend over helping Lesley-Anne, but wouldn't you know, Rya reminds him that "you always keep your word," so she is confident enough in his word, she tells him to go.

A gloating Terri shows up at her plantation to inform Lesley-Anne that she bought the deed from RJ and wants Lesley-Anne gone.  They two are in the middle of an escalating fight when Tom shows up, telling Terri he never transferred the money from one account to another, so she doesn't own the property.  Terri sees that the only part of her ancestral home is that pile of columns and her version of fiddle-dee-dee is "you know, I didn't want it anyway."

Terri's plot has come to the end, but the Klan is still planning an attack.  Everyone at the plantation works together to erect barricades (which don't look very scary), they test their guns (very old) and anticipate the coming of the Klan, now singing around a burning cross.  Can the train carrying James and Kyle make it in time?

Lesley-Anne gets to comfort everyone: former slaves who have never fought, the overseer, who wants to kill RJ and a hysterical Mariette.  When the Klan approaches, it's the ragtag bunch who fire the first shots.  They have the dynamite, which helps them, but the Klan is losing this one.  "I will never surrender," one howls…and then gets shot to death.  Robert grabs Lesley-Anne and rides off with her though followed closely by James and Kyle.  RJ has the opportunity to kill James and Lesley-Anne, but hesitates and a fellow Klan member kills him only to be shot dead himself by James.

James and Lesley-Anne end up in a clinch among the ruins of the plantation, wondering whether to rebuild or not.

And now, we are officially done with "North and South."  Two out of three ain't bad!

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.

North and South, Book 1 (1985)

What Herman Wouk is to World War II miniseries, John Jakes is to Civil War miniseries, and that would be the inspiration to make the heftiest movies devoted to the subject.  Herman Wouk managed about 40 hours out of two novels, but John Jakes had three novels and got less time (let's be fair--World War II went on longer).  That turns out to be a plus in favor of the Jakes works because they aren't as chewy as the Wouk miniseries. 

"North and South" is far less sophisticated than anything Wouk came up with and it's basically just romance-during-wartime dressed up in great finery, but not all the finery is false plumage like so many similar miniseries.  "North and South" follows all miniseries rules, but in one particular case, it towers above all the rest: slumming movie stars!  "North and South" gets the biggest of them all in Elizabeth Taylor for one scene, crowded into a cast that also includes Robert Mitchum, Hal Holbrook, Jean Simmons and Inga Swenson.

However, cast-wise it's really about the not-yet-famous Patrick Swayze and the never-quite-made-it James Read and Lesley-Anne Down.  They handles themselves quite well, James and Lesley-Anne in particular.  Strong acting is essential to the success of "North and South" because it helps us get through the plodding story and over-familiar history (a lesson most of the actors in the Wouk miniseries seemed never to understand).  We've already been through "The Blue and The Gray," which is a similar story, but without the regal trappings of "North and South," which relies on them a bit too much.  "The Blue and The Gray" is far more efficient storytelling, but "North and South" is a great big affair, not interested in being efficient or dainty. 

One TV critic at the time called this miniseries "the 'Gone With the Wind' of television."  That's not an unfair comparison if, like me, you find "Gone With the Wind" a bit hokey and on the soapy side, with some truly ridiculous moments.  It's also not unfair because both aimed to be the biggest of historical fiction pieces possible.  Let's face it, if "Gone With the Wind" had been written a few decades later, it would have been a TV miniseries.  But, that's not the order of events, so John Jakes was able to sneak in a far more aggressive few books than Margaret Mitchell and he gets all the hours devoted to his.  No, Patrick Swayze and Lesley-Anne Down are no Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Olivia Cole is not Hattie McDaniel (she's better, frankly), Genie Francis is no Olivia de Havilland, but none of that matters much alongside epic storytelling done so well.

We start in 1842, Charleston, South Carolina.  To show how rich Patrick Swayze's family is, we first see his sisters skipping through the entire row of shacks where the slaves live, not even noticing the poor souls as they make merriment.  Anyway, Patrick is leaving and the house staff is gathered to send him off to West Point.  Mama Jean Simmons and Papa Mitchell Ryan are there, and those too plucky little sisters.  How Jean Simmons had two daughters under 10 by the grace of nature is never quite explained.  Or, for that matter, is the insane age disparity between Patrick and his little sisters. 

Patrick is riding off at a comfortable gallop, when nearby a carriage loses its horses.  Patrick goes over to rescue the inhabitants, but there is a snake in the overturned carriage, which Patrick bravely tosses off with a parasol.  Immediately taking note of his presence are slave Olivia Cole (in her umpteenth miniseries appearance) and her mistress, Lesley-Anne Down.  As Lesley-Anne tries to explain herself, Patrick just stares at her, having obviously just met the love of his life.  He volunteers to escort her.  "I haven't told you where we're going," Lesley-Anne wisely says, lashes batting.  Naturally, she is headed to a neighboring plantation, so Patrick scoops her up on his horse to take her there.  With a Creole accent as big as her raised eyebrow, Olivia watches in disbelief, probably more because they have left her standing there alone (with some vague promise of sending someone along for her and the luggage), but she would be flat-out laughing if she watched Lesley-Anne maneuver Patrick on their slow ride through the bountiful woods.  "Oops, I dropped something she says," all but throwing a hanky off the horse.  Patrick dismounts to get it and they kiss.  "I've never met anyone like you...I'd be honored if you'd write me at the military academy," Patrick says, smitten faster than anyone in the South even talks, let alone falls in love.

Lesley-Anne's father Lee Bergere, is already at the appointed plantation destination, walking around it with David Carradine, who offers a julep to Lee when Patrick comes riding along with Lesley-Anne.  She tells the harrowing story of the carriage, and Patrick, running his hands through his long lustrous hair like it was a shampoo commercial, adds, "anybody would have done the same thing." 

A few days later, Patrick arrives in New York City, where manners are obviously a thing of the past, the carriage driver simply tossing his luggage off the carriage.  A bunch of toughs push him around and insist on carrying his baggage to the depot...for $2.  Patrick is forced to fight them, but it's many against one, so he's losing until James Read helps him, the two cracking wise as they dispense with the thugs.  "I had no idea this trip would be so eventful," Patrick tells James.  He ain't kidding!  In less than 20 minutes, he's rescued a woman, killed a snake, fallen in love and now met the Irish.

"You're my first damn Yankee!" Patrick says on the train as he and Patrick admit each is the first Northern/Southern man he has met.  Just so we're clear that Patrick is a good guy, he adds, "some of us think slavery is outdated."  He also believes "mechanization is the key to the future," convenient since James' family owns an ironworks, but all of that will have to wait until after military school.  James has yearned forever to be a soldier and isn't worried about West Point, though Patrick fears the hazing and the "book learning."  James rips a $10 bill in half, to be returned by Patrick with a fresh $10 bill when he graduates.  You can already picture the scene, long in the future, when this happens. 

Back in Charleston, David is guaranteeing that President Tyler will wage war against Mexico over Texas.  "I encourage my daughter to read and question, sir.  She has an excellent mind," Lee tells David as Lesley-Anne shows her knowledge of world politics.  David isn't interested in her mind, but her cleavage sure seems inviting. 

"It's like I always knew it would be...only better!" James says like he's discovered Santa's workshop, when really it's just West Point, with the cadets going through drills like cutting fruit in half with swords.  James, Patrick and the rest of the newbies, each with no more than a small chest to contain two year's worth of belongings, are told by the cadet they encounter that they are "things," rather than plebes.  Roommate Andy Stahl is mighty angry to meet a man who owns slaves and tries to force Patrick out of the room.  You see, Andy's pa owns a small tobacco farm and because it's in the North and he has no slaves, he can't compete with Patrick's "kind."  Luckily, James steps in again to moderate the situation, keeping tempers from bubbling over. 

Literally seconds after Lesley-Anne tells David that Olivia is a free woman and her father does not believe in slavery, a slave pouring her coffee spills it.  Lesley-Anne apologizes to the slave and goes to change, leaving David to belt the poor girl across the face.  As if his angry faces and pushy demeanor haven't given us enough clues, he's officially the heavy. 

The drillmaster at West Point is hunky Philip Casnoff, who wastes no time in revealing his personality by lambasting Andy for not believing in slavery and Patrick for apparently believing South Carolina men are better than those from Georgia.  James is not at all cowed by Philip, managing to be snide enough to force Philip to seethe, while Patrick works hard to stifle a laugh.  "I shall use you to demonstrate a fundamental principle of marching, sir," Philip snaps at James, ordering him and Patrick to step forward and hold two buckets full of water at 90-degree angles to their bodies and kick their legs like Rockettes without spilling any of the water.  Patrick takes to it naturally, being a graceful dancer, of course, but James has a tougher time with this idiotic drill.  Philip keeps them going for a very long time, and it's Patrick who is the first to fall.  Only the intervention of Philip's superior ends the exercise.  Not just any superior, by the way, but Sam Grant, otherwise known to history as Ulysses.  In fact, nearly every famous Civil War general happens to be a part of the little clique, including Jackson and McClellan. 

Patrick Swayze fans can rejoice.  He gets a shirtless scene, but only briefly to write a letter.  James is also shirtless, but covered by a blanket and asleep.  I don't think anyone is really waiting for his shirtless scene, no offense.  The letter is, of course, intended for Lesley-Anne.  He writes to her that the training his hell, but thinking of her gets him through it.  Her Papa tells her that David is coming to town and she says she'll make sure he is wonderfully welcomed.  "Of course, Papa, he's your friend!" she says, causing Lee to turn away in dismay, his otherwise brilliant daughter not having caught onto the fact that she's being set up for matrimony. 

"You hold your saber like a ho, sir," Philip rails at poor Andy, who is not much of a soldier.  Philip seems to take great pleasure in attacking poor Andy.  "On the battlefield, you'd be cut to ribbons...and rightly so!  You, sir, are the sorriest excuse for a soldier I've ever seen," Philip snaps, cutting Andy in the neck for good measure and then turning his fury to Patrick.  Patrick's tresses flow in the wind as he shows Philip what a great swordsman can do, much to Philip's obvious dismay.  Patrick soon knocks Philip down and the intercession of Sam Grant, again, stops an imminent smack-down between the two. 

As time passes, Lesley-Anne mopes because Patrick has stopped writing to him.  A stern lecture from Olivia doesn't help matters as Lesley-Anne whimpers, but David arrives, hot for her.  When he tells her to call him by his first name, she's not happy.  He's brought her a gift, a music box with a unicorn on it.  She forgets how much she dislikes the man because "I just love surprises," and like a true dimwit daughter of the times, she only needs a new toy to amuse her. 

Patrick is in a snit too, because he's not taking to the book learning part of being a cadet, but James realizes Patrick isn't upset over facts and figures.  Patrick hasn't had a letter from Lesley-Anne in a long time either.  But, before we can get too far into that fluff, Andy announces he has to leave West Point because his father has had an accident and he has to now run the farm.  "If there's anything we can do..." Patrick offers, being a gentleman, only to get another one of Andy anti-slave owner tirades.  "You can save your sympathy and go to the bank with all your money," Andy snaps at Patrick.  Geez, didn't he get the note that Patrick is deep-down against slavery? 

James decides to take Patrick off-campus to the local tavern, even though he and Patrick "have more demerits than anyone else," but James says no one would go out on a cold winter night.  Naturally, Philip spies them leaving the barracks.  Patrick has a plan to keep Andy at West Point.  He and James will give him their allowances as a loan.  NOW we can get back to the silly stuff, Patrick's huff at not hearing from Lesley-Anne.  Oops, conversation interrupted again because Philip is following them and they are forced to run through the snow to avoid him.  Philips falls through a hole in the ice.  "That ought to slow him down," James says, ready to leave him there, but of course Patrick is way too heroic a character to let that happen and he saves Philip's life.  Philip is anything but pleased, "and that gracious thank you made it all worth it," James sarcastically notes.  Patrick has developed a terrible cough from his exposure to the elements.  He begs Philip to let him go to the infirmary, but permission is denied and he's given extra guard duty instead.  I bet Philip hates kittens too.  That's about the only thing that would make him more evil.

Who comes to Patrick's rescue as he's collapsing in the cold?  Yup, Grant.  He offers to have Patrick relieved of the duty, but Patrick refuses, which shows Grant how tough our Patrick really is before he falls face down in the snow.  Luckily, Grant doesn't listen to Patrick and sends relief, making sure Patrick ends up in the infirmary.  James and Andy visit him, joking about awful Philip, but Andy also has to apologize to Patrick for thinking so lowly about Southerners because he's accepted the loan.  What about letters from Lesley-Anne?  Patrick coughs too much to say more than a word about it.

Eighteen months later, James takes Patrick home to meet his family, most notably father John Anderson, mother Inga Swenson and sister Kirstie Alley.  "Do you keep slaves...are you evil?" Kirstie asks Patrick upon meeting him.  She's a staunch abolitionist, believing it's "God's truth," though her family taunts her for her views.  Patrick finds the ironworks "a revelation."  He also sees the workers there, living in squalor.  "At least our workers have a choice," James tries to offer, defending his system, not much better than slavery.  "I guess there's room for improvement on both sides," James says, since it's impossible for these two to ever disagree.  "That's why I want to learn from you Yankees," Patrick replies, still eager to open a factory in the South to make the cotton industry more efficient.  Talk of war with Mexico comes up at the dinner table, with Kirstie obviously against it, and everyone dropping Presidential names like Polk and Taylor, as if that makes the writing smarter.  James just hopes he and Patrick "don't graduate too late to miss it."  Kirstie goes wild ripping into Patrick about slavery, even leaving the table!  Yes, folks, Kirstie Alley walked away from a meal. 

Finally, after two years, Patrick can return to home, but he stops in Charleston to see Lesley-Anne first, never having forgotten his love for her despite their lack of letter trading.  No one answers the door when he shows up, told by a passing peddler that the house has been closed for a week (the week it took Patrick to get back from Pennsylvania, FYI).  So, Patrick trots off to see his own family.  Oh, he remembers them, how lovely.  Patrick tells his obviously ailing father about his ideas.  "We can't ignore progress...every year, the South counts for less on a national level, because we cling to manual labor," Patrick tries to teach his dad, but not sounding particularly convincing.  To make the slavery matter worse, the new overseer (Tony Frank), whips the slaves, which Patrick says "we don't do" at his plantation.  He shames the overseer in front of the entire slave population.  Uh oh, another enemy for Patrick!  But, Tony's actions are defended by his father, though their arguments are ended by Mama Jean announcing that they are invited to a wedding.  Who is getting married?  Well Lesley-Anne, of course...to David!  Lesley-Anne is a most miserable bride, hesitating on the "i do" portion of the wedding, and only getting it out a second before Patrick rides up to see he's too late (and to see David plant a really creepy kiss on his new wife). 

After gulping down a glass of wine, Patrick confronts Lee, who tells him he's the one who arranged the marriage, and Patrick rushes to leave.  Lesley-Anne catches him on the way out and both reveal they have been writing to each other the whole time.  "Papa, it was Papa!  He destroyed your letters," she finally realizes.  A heart-broken Patrick returns the handkerchief she once gave him as David arrives to pull her away, making a snide remark to Patrick as he does.  Lesley-Anne, also upset, has it worse: she has to face David and her wedding night.  "You're always so distant, but not tonight," David drunkenly says and then rips her wedding dress off her in order to rape his way into the marital bed.  Once David passes out, Lesley-Anne takes the handkerchief Patrick has returned to her and slides down the wall crying.  Patrick is at his plantation having...oh no...another glass of wine!  Thus ends the first portion.

Back to West Point, still 1844.  Patrick is not performing at his usual level, either on the field or in the classroom, because his mind is still occupied with having lost Lesley-Anne.  "It's impossible.  She's out of your reach now," James tells him.  His solution for his friend's gloom is to send him to the local whore.  Nope, that doesn't work either.  Olivia has the same advice for Lesley-Anne: "what good is it, remembering?"  But, there's no male hooker for Lesley-Anne.  She only has David.  "What kind of man is he?" Olivia hisses when they hear David returning.  Duh!  That's why Lesley-Anne is so doubly upset. 

Philip has had to pull back on his nasty antics toward Patrick and James, under the protection of upper classmen, but Andy is under no such protection, so that's just where Philip directs his ire.  He sends Andy out on a riding course on the horse Satan, all but a death ride since Andy is terrible on even the easiest of horses.  When Andy falls off the horse and tumbles away, Philip sends his horse back alone and coos, "good boy" to Satan.  Andy is injured from head to toe, but he refuses to name Philip for fear of retaliation. 

However, the men at West Point aren't stupid (well, okay, not all of them) and the powers-that-be haul Philip into a tribunal, where he out and out lies and they are forced to believe him.  So, James forges a plan to have one of Philip's superiors catch him with that same local whore.  It works, he's caught by his superiors, but the whore spills James' name, so you can bet there will be all sorts of vengeance in Philip's mind, especially since he's been "dismissed from this Academy...You two have conspired to rob me of a military career...Let me tell you this, I have friends in high places and one day, I will be highly placed, very highly placed, and you be on your guard because I won't forget you two.  I won't forget you to ever," the charming SOB rails at Patrick and James before he is banished.  Patrick warns that they will have to be on their guard.  "How long," James wonders aloud, "the rest of our lives?"  I'm afraid so, kiddo.  That's the way bad guys in miniseries work.  They live forever, just to spite the heroes any chance they get.

Two years pass and our boys are graduating.  James hasn't forgotten his bet with Patrick and Patrick pays up, even though he graduated near the bottom of their class, "and you pulled me up every inch of the way," Patrick thankfully says.  James has graduated at the top, but picked the infantry so he can go to Mexico with his pals.

There's a huge party at the mansion that is certainly no Tara.  Proud Papa Mitchell hosts the fete, in honor of both Patrick and James.  There is no North-South hatred with James around, thankfully.  I guess that's because everyone is too busy hating the Mexicans to hate each other.  Even the dialogue is cut-rate "Gone With the Wind."  "Oh, fee!" one of Patrick's little sisters grunts when told it's time for her nap.  David and Lesley-Anne show up for the party and James connives to have the would-be lovers spend some time alone.  "You don't love him.  You are not his," Patrick says.  "I could never be yours," Lesley-Anne responds.  Yes, we've covered that now...a few times. 

I spoke too soon.  There is some North-South bitterness, naturally coming from the mouth of David.  He is the first to speak of the dreaded secession, but book-rearded Lesley-Anne quiets the entire house when she tells everyone that the South "can't survive on speeches," since the industry is all up North, but David shuts her up in front of everyone, dragging her outside.  Lesley-Anne believes she's "entitled to my own views," but David sneers that she's not allowed to have a thought outside of his.  "If you ever speak out and embarrass me on any subject, every again, you will suffer as you have never suffered before," he warns, grabbing her face.  It's the same prophesy of doom that Philip basically issued.  Let's hope the two of them never get together because so far we don't have two other men to complete the quartet needed to make up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Patrick follows Lesley-Anne down to the river and begs her to meet him at an abandoned church the next day. 

Mitchell is forced to have the overseer "take care" of a slave who got drunk because he saw the overseer trying to mack on his girl.  James is horrified at the thought of what will happen to David Harris David Harris, and Patrick warns him not to do anything.  "You are a guest in my father's house and don't you forget it," he warns.  Wait, isn't this the same Patrick who told the overseer there was to be no more physical abuse of the slaves?  Priam is branded, and now Patrick does indeed yell at his father for allowing it.  Hmmm, that's awfully inconsistent, isn't it? 

Forget slavery, Patrick has his rendezvous with Lesley-Anne and shows up for it in a cape, like the hero of a French novel.  Lesley-Anne is already there, dressed in black, always the color to use when meeting your heart's desire.  They go through the usual, "I love you but we can't be together" round of dialogue we could expect from this type of scene.  Two people with hair as perfect as these cannot be separated forever and they kiss.  When Lesley-Anne pulls away, she says, "I want it as much as you do, but if we were lovers, you would never be free."  I'm not sure that makes complete sense, for a Southern man could certainly have a mistress, and if they were careful to hide their love from David, they could manage it.  Ah, well, we have hours and hours left to worry about them.

"I'm not sure they could care for themselves.  They are like children," Patrick tells James when James explodes about the ills of slavery again.  Patrick's take on the whole branding episode is that the slave "shamed my father" and had to be punished.  Patrick is in a foul mood and he doesn't back down on slavery this time.  "We are sick and tired of Yankees coming down and telling us how to run our lives...this is our way of life, it has been for over a hundred year," Patrick notes.  Only one hundred years?  No wonder this kid was second from the bottom in school.  He also takes the opportunity to remind James about the shanty folks used as workers in his Northern factory.  "We are good friends and if we want to keep that friendship, there are certain things we can never say to each other, certain things we can never talk about, Patric chides dramatically.  James diffuses the situation by noting, as I did earlier, "we're supposed to be fighting Mexicans, not each other." 

Philip goes to one of his powerful friends, Senator Charles Edwards (Gene Kelly, yes, that Gene Kelly, in one of his trademark toupees) of Ohio, to arrange a commission for him in the Mexican War.  Philip is Charles' illegitimate son.  "I've paid dearly for that mistake," Charles tells Philip when he reminds him of that fact.  Philip agrees to keep the secret if Charles gets him the commission.  Those of you who like to take your miniseries characters in for a bit of analysis will certainly make the connection between Philip being the bastard son of a powerful man who never knew his own mother and the anger with which he abuses the world.  Those of you who don't like to take your miniseries characters in for a bit of analysis will wonder what the hell Gene Kelly is doing in "North and South." 

It's the Battle of Churubusco, 1847.  It's fought initially in slow motion, but finally returns to normal speed when we see our leading men involved.  James and Patrick order their men behind a protective wall to fight, but it's too late for some and the casualty count is high.  Amid the carnage, Philip shows up as the commanding officers, saying "this is the reunion I promised you gentlemen" before sending Patrick on a crazy scout.  James dares to intercede, so he gets sent along.  They have no choice but to obey.  Philip watches with glee as Patrick and James are forced to confront the Mexican Army up close.  Back in slow motion, a cannonball explodes near Patrick and he's wounded.  James throws him over his shoulder and carries him to safety, with Philip clearly miffed. 

Our second legend in ten minutes is Robert Mitchum as an Army doctor who steps in when another doctor says Patrick's leg has to be cut off.  Wait, isn't Robert in the wrong war?  Looking dazed as ever, I don't think he realizes he's not Pug Henry from "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."  He hears gunfire, he stands up straight.  That's all Robert Mitchum could do by this point in his career. 

Six months later, Patrick is still hospitalized, but with two legs.  James goes to visit him, but Patrick is out of it and doesn't realize his best friend is there.  As if James isn't stressed enough, his presence at a party that night to celebrate the Armistice is required.  It's a good thing he goes because it's here he spots Wendy Kilbourne, a very pretty blond girl and goes all stupid for love at first sight (not as stupid as Patrick or Lesley-Anne because he's smarter).  Before he can get a dance with Wendy, he thanks Robert Mitchum for helping Patrick.  "It just takes a long time, a wound like that," Robert tells James about Patrick's health, doing so with an Irish brogue.  Guess what?  Wendy is Robert's daughter!  So, because he lives James, he sneakily conspires to get James a dance by spilling all over Wendy's companion.  Wendy's attempt to be fiery and castigate him for slipping into the dance is thwarted by the big smile on her face. 

James goes a-courtin', a dinner arranged by Robert, who purposely didn't tell his daughter.  Apparently, he's trying to give her a reason to stay in the US when he goes back to Ireland and marrying a wonderful man like James is just the ticket.  It's okay since James loves her and she'll get there soon enough.  Brazen James compliments her laugh, and she takes some offense to it, but it's smoothed over.  He goes to Patrick to confess his love.  "She's warm, she's funny, she's beautiful.  She's a first class cook too...when I get up the courage, I'm going to ask her to marry me," James rhapsodizes.  "That's wonderful, I'm very happy for you," Patrick says with all the excitement of a broken stove.  James asks Wendy to marry him, but Wendy is worried that his family will be upset at him marrying a Catholic.  Let's tuck that conflict in here too, why not?  But, she accepts his proposal and they kiss movie-star perfect, not those goony kisses Patrick and Lesley-Anne have given us.  This is mouth open, tongue and all! 

Permanently injured, Patrick has taken to being awfully morose (even a primitive game of baseball doesn't cheer him up.  "You think this will catch on?" James asks).  James reports that his mother is traumatized by his father's death and won't get over it.  "There's some things you never get over," Patrick recounts with funereal charm.  "Anyway," James says, trying to ignore his friend's mood, he's going to retire from the Army and go back to help the family.  "We'll be heroes to the folks back home," James cheerily says before they talk about how awful Philip is, earning the name "Bent the Butcher" from the soldiers.  I think James is only being helpful when he tries to cheer up his lame friend, but Patrick will have no positive talk in his company!

Having resigned from the Army, James goes to find Philip so he can beat the crap out of him.  Philip plays dirty, using a knife, but James is too strong for him.  "If you ever cross me  or my friend again, I'll find you and I'll kill you just as sure as you crippled him," James spits.  Now he's the one with the threats, but that's only going to make Philip angrier. 

James discusses with Wendy the fact that Patrick "has changed" and though he wants him as his best man, he's afraid to ask him, knowing that Patrick is such a sourpuss now.  Wendy suggests James ride off to Patrick's plantation and ask him, and he agrees.  Then the soft music starts, Wendy takes the drink from James' hand and walks him into the bedroom where they kiss.  "Pa won't be home for hours," Wendy flirts and James takes the bait. 

Pouty Patrick arrives home to his clucking family members, but he only wants to be left alone.  How long will the moping go on?  Olivia reports of Patrick's state to Lesley-Anne.  "Wounds heal, but he doesn't, child," sagacious Olivia offers.  She further warns Lesley-Anne never to go help Patrick.  Why?  She doesn't explain, but her tone is strong enough to make Lesley-Anne sit back down.  Then James arrives to have his visit with Patrick, who has taken to drinking, as all psychologically defeated miniseries characters do.  "I don't think you have the judgment of a mule," James chastises his friend for throwing away his life over a wound and a broken heart.  "You have a lot left, a family and friends who care about you...if you keep pouring whiskey on the hurt, there's nobody who's going to help you," James-as-Dr.-Peale says.  When he asks Patrick to be his best man, this finally stirs Patrick from his stupor and he eagerly accepts. 

Mitchell kills the conversation dead when he tells James and Patrick that slave David has run away, because apparently whenever James is around, David feels strong enough to buck the rules.  Lesley-Anne goes to reason with David, having a reputation of being kind to slaves.  She gives him money and tells him to take a train away.  "When it speeds up, you be on it!" she advises, as if that big brand on his face won't make him stand out. 

Mitchell wants David back and Patrick agrees to help.  Over at David's plantation, he's whipping a slave mercilessly while Lesley-Anne watches twitching from the window.  She blames herself because the slave being whipped had helped David.  "It ain't your fault, it's the way things are," Olivia reminds her.  She even blocks the door when Lesley-Anne tries to rush it in order to help a female slave who is next to be whipped.  Luckily, after just one lash, Patrick and company ride up to the plantation.  Lesley-Anne sees her beloved from the window and sends Olivia with a note to give to him, asking him to meet her at their abandoned church again. 

She is once again dressed in somber black and he's sporting a cape.  It's time for their violins to be cued as they fall into each other's arms.  "I don't want you to feel sorry for me," Patrick says, but Lesley-Anne just wants to remind him she still loves him.  That's the magic tonic.  "Right now, I am very much alive," Patrick reports before they go into their bad kissing routine.  The scene is dragged out to interminable length as first a few men ride by and scare them and then by the fact that they take forever with their dialogue.  "This is all we have," Lesley-Anne says as they clinch and the second episode comes to a close.

Part Three starts in 1848, just where we left off.  In fact, Patrick is returning from his tryst with Lesley-Anne and James and Patrick are still terse with each other over the slavery question.  David Harris, the runaway slave, is still on the lam, about to jump on the train that as Lesley-Anne had instructed him, but Patrick and James happen to be at the stop.  Patrick stops David from getting on the train and wants to shoot him to avoid worse at the hands over the overseer (that's hardly believable).  James shouts, "if not for him, do it for me!"  Patrick, though not happy that James has laid a major friend-based guilt trip on him, tells David to free.  Patrick, telling James "I'll always stand up for you," now considers them equal on the "life for a life" issue and tells him never to interfere with his "kind." 

A few weeks later, back up in Pennsylvania, James and Wendy are married, with Patrick there as promised, though precious few other people because the ceremony is in a Catholic church.  At the reception after, James' mother Inga Swenson is "so fond" of Wendy, but she needs to speak to James, Wendy, brother Jonathan Frakes and his wife.  Meanwhile, Patrick bumps into Kirstie Alley, who immediately starts attacking him about the attitudes of Southern men toward female minds.  He volunteers to hear her ideas very gallantly. 

What's Inga's big secret?  James and Jonathan are inheriting the ironworks equally.  This comes as a surprise to petulant Jonathan, the eldest brother.  "And now I think we should all return to our guests," Inga chirps, as though she hasn't just majorly changed every one's lives. 

Kirstie's news is that she is making her first public abolition speech in Philadelphia and invites Patrick to listen.  "Since your brother and I have become friends, I have become interested in the Northern point of view," Patrick says.  Wait a minute!  Is this the same man who tore into James a few scenes earlier about not understanding why the South needs slaves?  Inconsistencies are okay when they are in the minds of intelligent conflicted characters.  Patrick's character is way too dim to be smart to understand two sides of this gigantic issue.  Inga interrupts once again interrupts, this time to invite Patrick and his whole family to spend the summer at their lake house.  Kirstie pips in with, "Mother, we need to call the architects so we can put up slave quarters in the back!"  As usual, James smooths a rough situation by telling Patrick it's time for the best man's toast. 

A week later, it's time for Kirstie's abolition speech.  It starts with a rousing singing and clapping anthem.  Then, Robert Guillaume, playing Frederick Douglass, without his signature pompadour, gets to speak.  He does good work, acing the hypnotism that Douglass was known to possess.  Finally, it's Kirstie's Turn.  "The true crop of a Southern plantation is a human crop...nothing more than black breeding farms, giant bordellos owned and operated by a degeneration aristocracy," she starts, rising with furious aplomb as Patrick gets noticeably uncomfortable.  Even James thinks Kristie went to far.  When Patrick is stopped trying to leave, he snaps, "I have to catch a train for South Carolina, I have some blacks to breed!"  It looks like his equivocation has finally ended and he's taken a side.

Congressman David Ogden Stiers is infatuated with Kristie's speech and "physical presentation" and invites her to dinner, but she declines as he is married. 

We need more proof that slavery is bad, so we return to David Carradine's plantation, where he browbeats Lesley-Anne for helping David Harris escape and for playing midwife to the slave children instead of giving him his own son that he wants so desperately.  "You say away from those blacks sluts, you understand me?" he warns.  "I'm watching you, remember that!"  So, she hightails it to her safe place, the ruined church where she and Patrick share their private moments.  In his cape, he shows up moments later.  "I've ridden by a hundred times hoping you would be here," he starts off before they descend into typical schmaltzy dialogue and more of that strangely awful kissing.  This time, though, we get to see them disrobing (more shirtless Patrick) and getting into a very brazen sex scene for the mid-80s.  The soft focus lens is used, but it doesn't hide the fact that Lesley-Anne is shirtless too.  Their orgasmic faces and the crashing music don't leave anything to the imagination either.  These two are in serious need of a mattress.  Doing it on the gravel in the burnt-out church is not cool.

After sex usually comes violence.  There's a giant explosion at the ironworks.  James goes into the burning building to rescue anyone he can.  He bravely pulls out one man and then wants to know how it blew up.  James had ordered the factory reinforced so pressure would never blow up the building, but brother Jonathan had canceled the order to save money.  Not only does James insist that they reinforcements be put up, but $5000 is to be given to every family who lost a man.  Jonathan refuses, since he has the access to the checkbook, but Inga lists all of Jonathan's mistakes that led up to the explosion and moves control of the money to James.  Jonathan and his wife Wendy Fulton vow to "get back everything your brother has stolen from us," another of those anything-but-gingerly delivered revenge promises that the the villains here love so much. 

Five years pass and Patrick's father is being buried.  His sisters have grown up into Terri Garber and Genie Francis, while his cousin is now Lewis Smith.  Patrick is now head of the house, master of the plantation.  He first tries to comfort Mama Jean Simmons, who assures Patrick that his father really did love him before dissolving into an old-style crying fit. 

Lewis feels like an outsider taken in for the sake of charity by his family, as he confides into slave Erica Gimpel, whom he obviously loves. 

As Erica listens behind a tree, Patrick's first big decision as owner of the plantation is to fire the dreaded overseer.  "You hear me.  The day may come when you regret throwing me out like this.  I promise you that," he threatens.  Add another fuming villain to the pack of people who hate Patrick.  Fired Tony Frank goes to get drunk, but finds Lewis already blotto at the bar.  They argue and a fight starts.  Lewis literally tosses Tony out of the bar, but then has the rest of its denizens piling upon him.  It's only Patrick, swooping in with a cape on his sword (again, is this Dumas?) and breaks up the fight.  "A gentleman does not lower himself to a fistfight with a lout like [Tony]," Patrick rants, making Lewis even angrier at his kinsman.  Is there ANYONE Patrick can please other than Lesley-Anne? 

Since they were girls, Patrick's sisters have born the mark of miniseries obviousness.  Terri Garber plays the bad sister, the troublemaker, who is a brunet, while Genie Francis, overflowing with blond hair, is so sweet butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, to use a corny expression of the day.  In a direct rip-off from "Gone With the Wind," Genie has to use real force to truss Terri into her corset.  Terri has a crush on cousin Lewis, but it's Jim Meltzer who has come to ask Patrick for Terri's hand in marriage.  Terri finds him "an old man...he's over twenty!"  She doesn't want to marry him, especially because of his "slobbery kisses," which fascinate uber-virginal Genie, who can't understand why Terri would kiss a man she didn't love.  Plus, Jim isn't such a bad catch since he has aspirations for high political office. 

As Patrick is giving his approval, Jean storms into report Lewis has gotten into trouble again.  He has been caught fooling around with an engaged woman and the woman's fiance wants to duel with Lewis.  Patrick reminds him not only are duels against the law, but Lewis is too young.  The duel will take place at Six Oaks (see, it's a cheap "GWTW" which called a plantation Twelve Oaks).  Patrick agrees to be Lewis' second to save the family "from further disgrace."  "I can't have you dying on me and sullying the family man," Patrick says, rushing Lewis into quick training since they have only 72 hours before the duel.  Luckily, we're spared a "Rocky"-style montage of training sessions, but Patrick does have to drill the boy with toughness. 

The day of the duel arrives, though it's supposed to be 6:00 AM and it sure as hell looks about high noon.  "I know you are scared and that's to your advantage.  That peacock over there is too stupid to be scared," Patrick says, giving his last bits of advice to Lewis.  Wayward cousins have bonded very nicely.  When the shots are fired, Lewis' opponent proves cowardly and everyone applauds Lewis for his bravery and gallantry in not killing his opponent.  Patrick even gets Lewis to wear a matching cape to cement their new found friendship.  It's lucky Lewis came along because Patrick is in dire need of a friend, James being so far away in space and ideology.  Lewis wants to "be a man of honor, like you," to learn the gentlemanly code.  Hell, he even wants to go to West Point.  Patrick thinks he lacks the education, but is willing to get Lewis some tutoring to prepare him for the exam.

The family summit between James and Patrick's families does actually happen, with Kirstie getting in an early dig by saying Inga "has worked like a slave" planting her beloved roses.  Patrick and James discuss possible secession.  "If South Carolina secedes, a lot of other states will follow, and we'll all have to choose sides," James says with dire warning. 

Genie has a crush on John Stockwell, James' other brother who will be attending West Point with Lewis.  Terri can't let her sister be happy, so she flirts obviously with John, much to Genie's dismay.  Kirstie corners poor Jean and lays out her plan for abolition, though Jean tries to slink out of the discussion by saying she knows nothing of politics.  But, Terri sticks up for the South's side and then the whole gang gets into an argument.  "Slave owners are nothing more than whore masters," Kirstie declaims and Patrick wants to pack up the family to leave, but Kirstie volunteers to stay in her room for the duration of the visit to avoid them.  Mediator James gets everyone to agree to stay.

Patrick brings up his long-lost dream of building a cotton mill in South Carolina and James agrees to it, with one condition: "no slave labor."  Jonathan and his wife Wendy think it's a "silly little adventure" and that they will lose all of their money, causing Inga to turn back control to Jonathan.

Terri's overtures to John show her to be a true woman of the world.  She holds a bunch of berries at her cleavage and offers them to him, putting one in her mouth and making him take it from her.  But, John resists.  He cares about her, but not in that way.  "If you care about me, you wouldn't be such a damn gentleman, she hisses to him.

The summer visit is over and Jean invites Inga and family to come down to South Carolina.  The two widows have become close, and of course James and Patrick have their factory to build.  Kirstie, watching from her balcony, having kept her promise to stay out of sight, fumes as everyone parts. 

When Lesley-Anne shows up at her special church, she hears the sounds of sex going on.  It's her husband David Carradine and a young slave girl.  She tries to run, but he catches and beats her.  "She was giving me what you won't," he uses as vindication and then leaves huge welts on her exposed back.  Patrick, with cape, happens to be just feel away and is able to come to the aid of his beloved.  Patrick vows to kill David, though Lesley-Anne tries to dissuade him.

Wendy has some news for James.  No, she's not pregnant.  She merely wants their home to "be a stop on the Underground Railroad."  James worries about the risks, but she takes him to a cabin where a slave is being treated for horrible wounds.  "You're safe here with us," James assures the man and of course agrees to Wendy's proposition, with one condition, that they tell no one other than Inga, though Jonathan's wife Wendy overhears the conversation.  Later on, James worries about how Patrick will react to this, but Wendy thinks he'll come around.  Plus, with the family traveling to South Carolina soon, they are going to have to confront slavery head on.  Kirstie wants to go, but James says no.  However, when Wendy reminds James that if she goes, perhaps Jonathan and his Wendy probably will not go, he's more convinced.  "Taking you into South Carolina is like taking a torch into a power magazine," he chides Kirstie, but she promises to be "good as gold," not to even discuss abolition, volunteering to swear it on a Bible.  James takes her up on that offer. 

We're halfway there now.

Part Four picks up with James' family visiting Patrick's in South Carolina in 1854.  The Southerners give their Northern friends a gigantic ball.  All Inga provided was a tour of the garden!  All of our leads are in one room, most notably.  For some reason, Jim picks James' brother John of all people to pick a fight with over slavery.  James tells Lesley-Anne that she's missing her spirit, and notes that Patrick seems the same.  "That's the tragedy of feeling sorry for one's self.  It obliterates sympathies for others," Lesley-Anne snorts.  Terri Garber sees William Ostrander talking to Genie Francis, so she immediately swoops in to take him for herself, insisting he show her his prize horse.  "Maybe I'll ride him myself," Terri oozes.  As a flirt she's shameless, but she goes way far beyond that.  Her double entendres are not exactly period-ideal.  John has been fixated on Terri, but Lewis tells him to try for Genie instead, because she's actually good.  So, he does. 

Kirstie slips out of the party, lights a cigarette and then heads over to the slaves quarters.  In a ball gown and all but choking with diamonds, she definitely sticks out.  She meets Georg Stanford Brown, Jim's coachman and extends her hand to shake his.  Terri and William have sex on a pile of cotton.  She tells him that even if she has to marry Jim, "I will still want you."  He doesn't object and they get back to lust when John catches them.  She's upset, but William, who has a body to die for, picks her up with a kiss and deposits her back on the cotton for more. 

John is now definitely smitten with Genie, but like a gentleman, the kiss he gives her is very pure.  Terri sees it and goes rabid, tells John "he's not man enough" to do what William did to her and then slaps him.  As for Kirstie, she goes out riding with Patrick's slave Forest Whitaker, and tries to quiz him about whether he's "happy being a slave...working for people no better than you," but a rainstorm is of more concern to Forest.  On their ride, they come across Georg, whose body, obvious through a rain-soaked white shirt, is pleasing to Kirstie.  Kristie gets in his coach and invites him in, telling him about her work.  She wants to help free him.  "I'll do anything to prove you can trust me, that I accept you as an equal," she says.  "You wants to lay with me because I'm something different," he responds, seeming to refuse, but then he kicks the door of the coach off as an excuse to get them to an abandoned farm building.  "Are you sure you wants this?" he asks as he's touching her face, and off they go, through a vicious storm to do it.  Before they start, Georg is clear with Kirstie that he's not having sex with her just because she wants it, but because he wants it too.

The next morning, Patrick and James go in search of Kirstie.  At dinner that night, Kirstie goes out of her way to thank Jim for Georg's protection the previous night.  Jim says that's the what he expects of Georg, "more loyal than a highland."  That night, Kirstie gives Georg money and an address of a friend in Philadelphia.  "Go quickly.  I'll be with you soon," she tells him, not knowing that Terri has overheard the entire conversation.  At breakfast, after Terri gets in some jabs at the Northern family, Jim storms in and demands to know if Kirstie has helped Georg escape.  Terri tells all that she saw Kirstie and Georg together and Jim is furious, calling Kirstie an "abolitionist whore" and John goes to punch him.  Patrick orders Jim to leave, but Kirstie wants to make sure he has an answer to his question as to whether she helped Georg.  She proudly admits it.  "One day,  you're all going to see what's about to happen here, and when you do, God help you," she shouts at everyone assembled and flounces off.  The argument doesn't end when Kirstie leaves, and Patrick decides that James and his family should leave.  John kisses Genie goodbye, causing Terri to sniff, "you've already taken advantage of my brother's hospitality, don't think you can take advantage of my sister's," just to be pissy.  Worst of all, Patrick and James leave having decided not to see each other until everyone cools down and forgets what happened. 

Lesley-Anne rushes to her father's bedside when she is told he's dying.  This is our first true deathbed scene in "North and South," and Lee takes full advantage of doing that whispering over-acting thing.  Scenes like these always reveals a secret and Lee has a doozy for his daughter.  "You great grandmother was a Negress," he informs her (as if the make-up they've been using on Lesley-Anne hasn't been a clue since the first time we met her) and then dies.  Olivia has known the truth, but never told Lesley-Anne for fear that she would be hurt, and insists only the two of then should ever know the truth, especially since hubby David Carradine would kill Lesley-Anne if he found out. 

Kirstie and Georg are now married.  When did that happen and how did it happen?  Even up North, a bi-racial marriage would have been nearly impossible.  A black abolitionist leader wants Georg to speak at rallies, but he's not interesting.  Simply talking about slavery does nothing.  Kirstie and Georg believe that violence is the answer.  Georg and Kirstie are not living in splendor, but rather a hovel in the middle of winter, and Georg wonders "why in God's name did you ever marry me," since he feels his life is even harder now.  Kirstie's answer is that they are locked in war together, though their extreme views are pulling them from the mainstream abolitionist movement.  One of their weapons is "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which they feel will ignite the spark of violence they desire.

A copy of the dreaded book is sent to Patrick and his family.  Patrick once again tries to have it both ways in discussing it with Genie.  He feels the book is lies, but she reminds him how poorly he reacted to the whole business with Kirstie and Georg. 

With Lewis and John graduating from West Point, the two families are once again brought together.  Lewis and John are "best friends, just like we were," Patrick notes to James.  The use of the past tense is notable.  Terri slobbers over the whole cadet corps.  She fully admits to Genie that she'll marry Jim for his power, but have others.  "I can't love just one man.  Think how disappointed the rest would be," Terri cautions in the entire miniseries best line.  We have had villains, but sluts are a whole different matter and Terri injects some much-needed sex to the rather chaste proceedings.  Lewis is being sent to Texas under the command of Robert E. Lee and John is off to engineering duty in Washington.  John and Genie get a private moment together, though it's interrupted by obnoxious Terri, who plants a giant kiss on John, evoking Genie's ire.  She knows she can't have him, but she can have a random cadet who has been eyeing her. 

Genie and John duck out of a ball where John confesses his love to Genie.  "I can't imagine what it would be like not to love you," he tells her and then proposes.  She tearfully accepts.  Terri sneaks off with her cadet.  As she unbuttons his uniform, she talks about having seen many a man naked because when new slaves are bought, they are stripped.  The cadet offers to give her a button from his coat as a token of their time together.  "This little girl wants more," she drawls as she pushes the cadet onto a table. 

In the two years since they have seen each other, James has missed Patrick a great deal and Patrick says he shouldn't have blames James for Kirstie's behavior.  James wants John and Genie to get married, but Patrick will not give his consent.  Northern and Southern attitudes are too tense.  "A Southern girl being married to a Northern officer, what would their life be like?" Patrick asks, but James is a romantic, hoping still that the two halves of the country will come to an agreement. 

Terri wants to go another round with her cadet, but he's tired, offering up his friends instead.  Terri will happily sleep with any man who is a friend of John's in the most warped revenge plan we've yet encountered.  Terri starts collecting her buttons (six for now), but when Lewis finds out, he's furious.  Terri gives him a fake sob story about her "lost honor," but he doesn't buy it and slaps her.  "You want me, I know you do," Terri snaps back, and she knows Lewis would never tell anyone because the family would be horrified.  "I'm only sorry he [John] doesn't have any more friends," she coos to an irate Lewis and storms out.

We haven't seen Patrick and Lesley-Anne do the deed in their abandoned church in a while.  Let's go catch up with them.  Lesley-Anne is depressed because of dreams she's been having, which leaders her to tell him the truth about her mixed blood heritage.  "To some people, my skin might as well be coal black," she notes, but Patrick vows stick with her.  And once again, this character seems to play Mr. North and Mr. South at the same time.  He actually volunteers to take her away so her husband will never find out, but she reminds him about his family and he says, "you mean more to me than anything else in the world" and puts her first.  They agree to meet in three days at the abandoned church, with only Olivia in on the plans.  Anyone want to bet this somehow goes awry? 

Terri shows up at Lesley-Anne's with a big problem: she's pregnant by one of the West Point cadets, although in her retelling of the story, it was only one cadet.  She can't have the baby, obviously, and she seems to think Lesley-Anne has contacts who can give her an abortion.  "I don't believe it's right to ruin so many lives because of one night of passion," Lesley-Anne admits, though she doesn't condone the behavior, but is willing to help Terri.  "No one must ever know, for both of our sakes," Lesley-Anne cautions her.  The next day, they drift through the swamps with Olivia to a woman who performs abortions.  "There's an evil streak running through her blood," the abortionist tells Lesley-Anne and further warns her to be careful of Terri, because she won't hesitate to sell Lesley-Anne's secrets for her advantage. 

When Lesley-Anne gets home, David is waiting for her, quizzing her on her activities that day.  Why did she go to shop and not bring home anything.  Which hotel did she eat at?  She can't answer, but David knows the truth because he went to Charleston and tried to track her down.  He first slaps Lesley-Anne, then does the same to Olivia.  He drags Lesley-Anne upstairs, throws furniture around the room and then locks her in the room until she tells him the truth.  "Rot in here for all I care," she says with fierce malice in his voice. 

With Lesley-Anne locked in her room, she can't meet cape-wielding Patrick at their appointed time.  He waits for her as long as he can.  Patrick goes to her plantation to inquire about her, but David feeds him some lies.  The servants are allowed to give her only a few pieces a bread a day and no water for washing.  Just as Olivia is about to unlock the door for Lesley-Anne, David comes and throws her down the stairs to her death, which brings a smile to his face and Part Four is now over. 

Terri, about to be married in a few weeks, is over her abortion and still on the prowl with other men.  She of course spends some time bashing Genie's love for John.  Genie responds by saying "we will be married and I'll have a dozen children."  "That's 12 more than I'll be breeding," Terri retorts.  Once again, Terri gets all the fun stuff to say!  However, the comedic lines don't save these two from seeing like a really low rent Scarlett and Melanie. 

David brings a doctor to check in on Lesley-Anne, pretending that he's concerned about her.  He tells the doctor she refuses to eat, but the doctor mandates she must.  However, she has managed to keep her false eye lashes on this whole time.  The doctor also leaves medicine and orders the windows opened.  David, playing the loving husband, agrees to all of the doctor's conditions...at least while he's standing there.  "I can't believe it.  She's practically starved herself," the clueless doctor opines, with David having fed him lies about her having a mental breakdown.  The medication is laudanum, highly addictive. 

Doped up and sitting outside, Lesley-Anne seems not to even remember Patrick when he saunters by for a visit.  David catches them and sends her back into the house, leaving Patrick confused.

A few weeks later, Terri is finally marrying Jim.  David does bring Lesley-Anne, but she's still in her stupor.  Patrick thinks pushing him away on purpose.  If he were even a tad smarter, he might try to wonder why she's so glazed and blank, but unfortunately, he's not.

Politics is on the minds of many at this wedding.  There's talk of giving Jim a high office in the state of South Carolina or perhaps the Presidency of the states about to secede.  "The first thing I'd do is put an end to those damn abolitionists," he says, like a good Southern politicians.  Terri's old sex partner William is there too, asking Terri for a quick tumble with the guests still there.  She needs him to carry out a plan, but he'll have to wait.  "I refuse to talk business on my wedding day," she says coyly. 

The wedding night scene is particularly fun and trashy.  Terri fights off Jim, saying that she's afraid, and he understands that all brides are nervous for the first time.  Is he upset with her for her "lack of experience?"  "On the contrary, I wouldn't have had it any other way," he responds, not knowing the irony in that statement.  "You'll have to be gentle with me...a little patience and a little understanding is all I ask for," Terri chides and pushes him away.  He doesn't want to wait long, but the master manipulator gets her way. 

When Jim goes to New Orleans on business, Terri pouts to Patrick that she's left alone.  Jim is there for a secession meeting, which Patrick warns her will lead "to the South's downfall."  But, Terri is no fool.  She knows that Patrick can't make up his mind about slavery (for the 53rd time) and goads him, so he sends her back home, disgusted with her. 

At the meeting in New Orleans, Jim gives a rah-rah speech, everyone sings "Dixie," and we meet an old friend we haven't seen in ages!  Yes, folks, meanie Philip Casnoff is back, looking very pleased at Southern pride.  After the ado, Jim, Philip and a few others go over to a spunky whorehouse where a slave dressed in a harem costume greets them at the door.  The gang is worried about Jefferson Davis' particular politics, which are at odds with Jim and Philip's, the latter refusing to serve in an army headed by Davis.

STOP EVERYTHING!  It's time.  It's officially time.  Over six hours into "North and South," we finally get Elizabeth Taylor.  And we get her in glorious movie star fashion, as the Madame of the house, walking down the stairs in an enormous gown, trailed by her waif-like girls.  She looks terrific, pinched so tight in a corset that her breasts enter the room a few seconds ahead of her.  Jim pays for every one's good time and when he's putting his wallet back in his pocket, Jim's wedding picture falls out.  Philip sees Patrick and Lesley-Anne.  He hisses about his time with the former, but can't remember why he recognizes the latter.  In Madame Elizabeth's office, there is a painting of a woman who looks just like Lesley-Anne and now he remembers why he knew her face from the picture.  Madame Elizabeth explains to Philip that the girl in the picture is dead, having left the house years ago for a man.  He asks for more of the story.  The woman is Lesley-Anne's mother, and also a quadroon.  "It is indeed a tragic story," Philip says with faux sincerity, adding "your secret is safe with me, ma'am, I assure you of that." 

Patrick takes Genie along on a trip up North, and when he asks the train conductor if there is a "boy" to see to their luggage, the conductor snaps back, "maybe you should have brought your slaves."  Patrick can't understand this attitude...they are only in Maryland, which is technically still the South.  Genie is now suddenly the voice of reason and calms him down.  Patrick brings James a huge amount of loot from their joint business venture, and James has to admit Kirstie is home.  She only shows up when she needs money, apparently.  "I could accept her marriage, if I understood her reasons for doing it," James says, then brushing away all talk of politics, like he always does, to ask about Lewis, who is off in Mexico.  "Thank God there is one person in our two families that knows who he's fighting and why!" James kids.  Wendy swishes into the room in a gigantic green gown, "a Charles Worth original," that James has bought her for a charity benefit to raise money for a new school.  As everyone is discussing the beautiful gown, in comes prickly Kristie.  She announces she's going to Virginia to work with the legendary John Brown.  Patrick and Kirstie argue and she says that "any man that stands in our way will die in blood and fire and you'll be the first!" she roars, sounding like a brainwashed harpy.  Everyone is revolted by her, but Patrick is particularly vituperative and the two bat gigantic insults back and forth, with Patrick ending with, "it's time for you to back to your Nigger husband!"  James steps in to defend his sister and demands an apology.  "This time I will not apologize," Patrick brays and it looks like the friendship between the two men is over. 

As Wendy sees it, everyone should have apologized, especially Kirstie.  She feels James and Patrick should not let regional differences get in the way of the great friendship, but James is not willing to give up his morals and does not believe in slavery.  The situation also causes problems for John and Genie.  John asks, "do you expect us to wait until the issues of the country are solved?" and actually Patrick thinks it's a good idea, because Genie would never defy her family.  Little Miss Milquetoast loves John, but she does indeed get on the train with Patrick.  At the very last moment, Kirstie boards the train, telling her brother, "I'm going back where I belong." 

The train stops in Harper's Ferry so it can bring us back to the real world swirling around the soap opera plotting.  With a long beard, looking mean, Johnny Cash plays John Brown.  John Brown and his men make everyone get off the train.  Mad John Brown has come from Kansas as the head of a militia meant to free slaves.  Kirstie, fire in his eyes, and Georg are part of John Brown's posse.  Patrick tries to reason with them, to tell them they are in danger, but Georg fumes, "I don't take orders from trash like you.  Not anymore!"  As Georg is about to shoot Patrick, David Harris jumps in.  He tried being a freeman up North, but life wasn't at all pleasant, so he joined John Brown's men.  Because of approaching soldiers, John Brown lets the train go, but Kirstie stays behind with her husband, determined to fight along with her husband.  David is killed in the first round of gunfire and Kirstie runs through the bullets to get David's gun.  Georg rushes to protect her and is killed doing so, with Kirstie wailing over his body.  "You're all murderers!" she yells at the soldiers.  "You think he's dead, don't you?  He's not dead, he's free!" she roars and is taken away. 

Patrick explains to Genie that John Brown got his supplies and money from Northern abolitionists and to fight the increasing sentiment against the North meddling in the South, the country will come apart.  "You're taking about war between us and people that we love," Genie says, as if she hasn't been listening to anything happening the last few years. 

Congressman David Ogden Stiers, who had been so enamored of Kirstie years ago, goes to visit her in the nut house.  Agree with her political ideology or not, she has been pretty damn insane the whole time, but the Congressman is there to rescue her.  She insists on standing trial for her part in the raid on Harper's Ferry, but he tells her that "you can't help the cause by staying here" and she agrees.  Now she needs a bath, because she looks like hell.  The Congressman takes her to his home to clean and feed her, and she relishes the meal while he tells her how he tracked her down.  She is still unapologetic for anything she has done and she tells the Congressman that they were married, which shocks him a bit.  He turns the talk to more personal matters, but Kirstie holds firm: she will not be with a married man.  "I'm rapidly becoming one of the most powerful men in Congress and I generally get what I want," he says to Kirstie, with a tone of assistance and warning.  This whole scene is just bizarre.  What exactly is the Congressman after and why won't Kirstie, smart as she is, use his power? 

James and Wendy watch a political rally in favor of Abraham Lincoln's candidacy and talk of course turns to his relationship with Patrick.  We go in the same circles until Wendy finally informs her husband she's pregnant.  That's good news!  Hooray!  It gives James something to focus on rather than his lost BFF. 

Naturally, Kirstie is anti-Lincoln because he hasn't come out and said he will free the slaves, and of course there is her husband's memory making her so off-center politically that no candidate could really be good enough for her except someone of her own tight circle.

By now, Lesley-Anne (yeah, remember her?) is addicted to the laudanum, unable to remember Olivia is dead or pretty much of the walking dead.  David coos, "I'm a fortunate man" because he has a wife so obedient (via drugs) and pretty (via good luck). 

At the plantation, Patrick is raging drunk and not in the mood to talk to Genie about her issues, which of course mean her beloved John.  She's been waiting for Patrick to sober up so she can address the marriage question, but Patrick is unmoved.  "I don't think you're qualified to make my decisions anymore or even your own," she says, displaying a temper for the first time.  She gives him a dose of reality, telling him he's completely fallen apart since his friendship with James went awry.  He tries to reason with her, that if Lincoln is elected and war comes, her marriage to a Yankee will be very problematic.  "I pity you...you're afraid to let a woman mean something to you," Genie says, trying to get him to understand love, and having no idea that he does love, or did.  He slaps her, she runs out and he crumples in heap of tears. 

A slave rouses Patrick, passed out on the floor, to tell him Genie has left with four trunks and gone to Charleston to live with Terri.  As ever uncaring about events around her, Terri is only interested in her new bonnet and trying to figure out a story that will keep her husband and Patrick at bay.  In truth, Terri still wants Genie's beloved, and Genie suspects it, but Terri denies it. 

Terri hightails it over to sexy William's, reminding him he promised to help her get revenge on Genie and John.  "It's the only reason I come here," she says, in bed with him.  "The only reason?" he asks, since he would rather be having sex.  William isn't actually worried about John, because he assumes that once war is declared, the Yankee soldiers in Charleston will be killed anyway, so his hands won't have to be sullied. 

"If the Yankees want to free our slaves, let them come down here and try, by God!  We'll give them a Southern welcome they will never forget," chimes Jim at a political rally.  He grabs the American flag from wall and drops it to the ground, hoisting a Confederate flag instead.  John is in the crowd, but he has to go back to the fort because it's not safe for Yankees.  He asks for leave to see Genie, but it's denied because she's a Southerner.  War fever is raging in Charleston as the fifth installment of the movie ends.

"I declare, I wish I could go out just like this," Terri, at her most Scarlett-O'Hara-lite, says looking at her figure nude, right as Genie rushes in to tell her she and John have arranged to meet.  Terri warns Genie to be careful on the streets, since it's Election Day and people are in a state.  Is she really worried about their safety?  Of course not!  This is how inane our young lovers are.  They agree to meet at a tote board showing election results.  Yeah, that's a good place for a Northern soldier, and don't think the crowd doesn't razz him for it.  The two go to lunch.  John is worried that Lewis will turn against him and not be his best man at the wedding, and Genie is upset about Patrick's downward-spiraling life.  "Would you feel uneasy walking outside with a Yankee officer?" he asks as they hear church bells tolling the end of the vote count (it's broad daylight, how did that count happen so quickly?) and she chirps back, "not uneasy, proud."  Unease would have been better because a gang of toughs follows John and Genie and John shoots one of them.  They manage to outrun them, but Charleston is not safe for John. 

Jim and Terri celebrate the coming secession with champagne.  "Soon you'll be able to bathe in it if you like," Jim tells her, because he expects to be at the top of the political heap in the Confederacy.  The man with the patch who had scared John and Genie so much was actually a hired goon of Terri's and he shows up at the house to claim it, even though he didn't actually kill John as per their deal. 

Surprise of surprises, James shows up at Patrick's plantation, completely unexpected.  They delve into politics for just a bit, but James is there "to save our friendship."  He insists on apologizing face to face.  "Please don't let a fanatic like my sister or the ones down here kill our feelings for each other," James says sincerely, hoping to mend the miniseries strongest relationship, one far more important, and also far more fragile, than any of the male-female love stories.  "I have missed you," Patrick concedes and the two hug.  James inquires about Lesley-Anne, but he recounts her odd personality change and the fact that "no one has seen her for months." 

James also wants Patrick to give his blessing to Genie and John's marriage.  "Can't you see what they would be up against?" Patrick asks.  "Yes...but they are young and in love, they'll make it through," James wisely notes before reminding Patrick what it's like to be separated from the one person you love most.  Patrick finally caves in and grants his permission.  The young lovers are thrilled when they are told.  John is required to return to the fort as "all leaves have been canceled."  "When will I see you again?" Genie wonders, which is the kind of question that condemns him mto an early death, as we all know from the miniseries rule book.  I could be wrong, but he's a soldier in the wrong place at the wrong juncture in history.

Secession becomes a reality.  "Do you want to go outside and watch the South celebrate its own funeral?" Patrick asks James and Genie insists on going along.  Terri comes along, thrilled with the news that secession has taken place and "I was there to see it."  Patrick tells her to congratulate Genie on her engagement, but Terri, digging down deep into her vast reservoir of cheesy acting abilities, spits out, "damn the Union and damn your Union," once again stealing the scene away from everyone with a terrific line.  Patrick berates her, so she leaves the garden and rejoins the mob.  She finds a drunken William along the way and wants to know what he plans to do to stop the wedding.  "Let's go to bed and discuss it," he glowers, and she agrees.  Jim is the next to arrive, telling the family that the forts are to be taken away from the Yankees and James should stay out of sight, because his accent is bound to make him unpopular. 

Jean Simmons is actually the voice of reason (by accident, I'm sure).  She accepts secession and tells Genie that "President Davis doesn't want war.  He only wants the South to be left alone."  That was a popular thought at the time among those with less hawkish hearts, but of course it's the hawks who always end up making war inevitable.  Genie is just upset because John has been moved to Ft. Sumter and she is worried they will never get married. 

Lewis hasn't been seen in ages because he's been stationed in Texas, but once Texas joined the secession movement, his position has become precarious.  Which side would he take?  He's part of the Union Army, but his loyalties are with the South.  He decides to stay in Texas while those remaining part of the Union Army leave.  Lewis is called a "yellow traitor" for leaving the Union Army and he and the name caller fight.  Lewis wins, of course.  "I'll kill the next man who calls me a traitor," Lewis tells all assembled, his foot on the man he just defeated.  Charles then decides to resign and go back home. 

John is being sent to Washington permanently, leaving Ft. Sumter.  His commanding officer gives him the night off to get married.  Lesley-Anne overhears her husband and William plotting to kill John, and doing so with such laughter we know for sure they are despicable villains.  Their plan depends on what time the train taking John is leaving, and they can only learn that from Terri.

The long-awaited marriage takes place.  Luke and Laura...oh, sorry Genie and John get married.  Terri is there, full of apologies, and insisting on taking John and Genie to the station.  "What times does the train leave?"  She gets the info, passes it along to a slave who gets word to David.  David finds out that Lesley-Anne overheard the plot and sends her to her room, but she refuses.  He beats her, but she grabs for a sword and cuts him in the face.  Suddenly awakened from her stupor, she tears out of the house, jumps in a buggy and rides off, finally reaching Patrick's plantation to inform him of the plot.

William and a cohort intercept the carriage taking John and Genie to the station.  William introduces himself, noting that, "I've had the pleasure of your wife" (long pause as she fumes) "knowing her that is" (they were involved but never had sex).  Williams insults cause John to hop from the carriage, the two hurling insults at each other.  William does the familiar face slap with the glove and agrees to a duel.  Isn't this all seeming a bit familiar?  As the paces are being counted, Lewis rushes into the fray, so William decides to shoot early.  Genie's slave hurls a branch at him, causing him to shoot wide.  William goes after Genie in the carriage, but John stops him as Lewis fights with William's second.  Lewis wins his round, with the second running away, and John stabs and kills William during their tussle.  Since the gun was rigged against John, he would have lost the duel.  Lewis sends them all off to the train. 

When Terri arrives at Patrick's plantation, he tells her he has proof that she set up the whole assassination attempt.  She tries to deny it, but he knows the truth and sends her packing, out of the house and out of the family.  Terri leaves with the threat that her politically connected husband will deal with him!  Patrick has a happier job to do in promising to take care of Lesley-Anne forever.  "It was some sort of drug," our never-bright Patrick tells her, and that the cure might be painful, but he will be there with her to make sure she gets better.

David comes to claim Lesley-Anne, but Lewis and every slave on the plantation aim guns at him and his men.  David, checked for weapons by Lewis, goes in to have a chat with Patrick.  David is told, "if you ever try to take her, you will have to kill me first" and he means it!  David can only skulk off angry.  In Patrick's plan, Lesley-Anne will get a divorce from David, on the grounds of "physical cruelty" and then they will marry.

Who gets to play Lincoln?  It's an inevitable role in any Civil War miniseries, and no one could improve on Gregory Peck's Lincoln from "The Blue and The Gray," but with a lot of putty and bearding, Hal Holbrook is pretty darn good.  He's had about all he can take from the South.  "I intend to be President of ALL the United States," he tells Secretary Seward.  Genie and John are on hand to see him talk and so is our old friend Philip Casnoff, with his lover Morgan Fairchild, making her entrance into the miniseries with only minutes to go.  Philip has the intention of making money from blockades, the consummate opportunist.  Morgan hopes that Philip isn't just using her for her money, but Philip sets her straight: "my dear, if you didn't have the money for my ship, I'd be in bed with someone else who did."  Morgan is going down south with Philip.  "I have friends who will be excited to see me," she says, to which he replies, "and I have enemies who will be surprised."  Oh, come on!  Give up already on Patrick and James.  That was so long ago.  He hasn't made any more interesting enemies in the ensuing years?  A man like him should have a list a mile long! 

Jonathan Frakes and his wife believe that James will be recommissioned and they can take over the ironworks, making serious money, even though it's profiteering.  The Mrs. doesn't care as long as she's rid of James and "that Irish slut" wife of his, now so pregnant she's ready to pop.  As Wendy sends James off to work, she encounters Kirstie cold, crazy, full of gray hair and sunken eyes.  Bringing her in the house, Jonathan and his wife want her gone, but Wendy insists.  "She is your responsibility while she is in this house," Jonathan tells Wendy, who agrees.  Mama Inga pays her a visit while she sleeps, heartbroken at what she sees, but Kirstie was only faking sleep anyway, to spare her mother further agony. 

Unfortunately, Patrick has to pay James a visit up North to handle business affairs.  He owes him money since the Southern government has requisitioned their joint effort for war materials, but he doesn't have any money, so he has to mortgage the house.  "We are Southerners and will still have our honor and no one can take that from us," he tells Lesley-Anne.  He leaves Lewis in charge of the house  and the defense of Lesley-Anne.  Lewis volunteers to go instead, but Patrick insists he has to go personally, because he wants to see James again.  "It might be the last time," he is forced to admit.

April 12, 1861, before daybreak.  We know what that means!  The South fires on Ft. Sumter.  "Our nation has been attacked without provocation.  We are now at war," a Union general tells his men, including John.  Patrick is on the train heading north when the news of Ft. Sumter's surrender arrives.  "My deepest sympathy is toward the South, sir," Patrick snaps sarcastically when asked if he's a Northern sympathizer.  Arriving in Philadelphia, the crowd at the station gives Patrick a rough time as he tries to board a train, but he wields a sword and dashes across the tracks to get to his train.

Hold on a minute.  Did you read what I just wrote?  "Dashes across the tracks."  Indeed, I'm not lying.  In a rare misstep for "North and South," no one stopped this howler of a continuity error from happening?  This is a man who has been limping since the Mexican War!  Now suddenly he can "dash across the tracks?"  For shame, people, for shame.

On the other side of the tracks, he's given a ribbon by a fellow Southerner, who insists he need it in order to get around the North.  "Do you really think this sort of deception is necessary? he asks her.  "You wear it!" she insists and he hobbles up the steps to the train (yeah, our dasher is now hobbling again). 

James and Wendy are thrilled to see Patrick, though they are unsure how he managed to get so far north.  Kirstie is also there, but James assures Patrick she keeps to her room.  No time for sadness because Wendy shows him baby Hope.  Patrick gives James the money he owes him.  In a moment of glow between the two old friends, rocks are hurled through the windows and epithets yelled at both.  "There here because of you and I sent for them!" Kirstie yowls, bursting into the room.  In full-out lunatic mode, she keeps raging, "I hope they kill you" to Patrick over and over as she's forced back up the stairs.  James and Patrick are forced to take up arms in order to get Patrick back to the station.  James confronts the mob, telling the members that Patrick is a friend of his, a patriot, and "the first man who makes a move against his friend" will be shot.  The mob backs down, but all goodwill toward James on behalf of his neighbors is gone. 

Once again, Kirstie has to hit the trail.  She'll never learn, this nutsy broad.  "I'll never step foot in this house again," she melodramatically concludes, but Wendy isn't so convinced.  It's where she was born.  She thanks Wendy for all the help over the years, but she has no respect for the family.  "They don't know me at all.  They don't care about my cause or my trouble.  They pay it lip services, but they won't sacrifice anything for it."  Her speech goes on for a spell as Wendy tries to get in a word here and there, but this is Kirstie's scene, her one chance at the end to grab the reigns of the miniseries.  Other than Terri Garber, she has no real competition.  As Kirstie goes to make a grand exit, she slips on the stairs and all the family silver and jewels that she aimed to take go spilling out.  Wendy is sympathetic.  "I believe these are your things.  Now take them and go!" 

James asks Patrick what he'll do if the South offers him a commission, but that's been settled because they have already asked him, just as James has been offered a spot on the general staff in Washington.  It looks like they will indeed be fighting on opposite sides of the war, age and infirmities notwithstanding.  James then pulls out the two halves of their $10 bill from the bet years earlier.  "Let's each keep a half and put it back together when the war is over," James suggests.  "Can you see anything we could have done to stop all of this?" Patrick asks.  Does he mean the two of them?  No, there is nothing two fictional characters could have done to stop the Civil War.  Does he mean the country in general?  Well, history says no, because too many people had too much at stake.  The two friends embrace for what might be the last time as Patrick boards the train.