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Schemes are bringing AMC’s Annie to life
Wait. Hold on a second. Has All My Children’s Annie actually gotten interesting?
I saw initial glimpses a few weeks ago when she started scheming to hold on to her amnesiac husband Ryan by getting pregnant. For the first time since, well, probably since Annie’s been on the show, I not only wondered what she was going to do next, but I actually cared.
It’s kind of a shame that her evil brother Richie had to die to bring this devious side out of Annie. (Well, really it’s only a shame because I thought Billy Miller did such a bang-up job playing psycho Richie and I always appreciate a good soap villain. But, that aside, I guess he had to go sometime.)
What an intriguing move by AMC to have Annie be the one to off her brother, basically cementing her descent. I mean, psychosis runs in her family. It makes sense that she could be pushed so hard that a suppressed mean streak would turn into full-blown mean. (Check out the scenes below as she makes Colby and Cass squirm because they think they killed Richie. Little do they know that Annie is trying to catch them “admitting” to a crime they didn’t commit.)
The beauty of all this? Down the line, when everyone realizes what Annie’s been up to and she’s about to pay for her crimes and misdeeds, she can always claim temporary insanity based on all the stress in her life. (Not that a soap character would ever do that, right?!)
I’m not saying that a character has to be evil or cruel to be interesting. “Good” girls have their time-honored place in soaps, and I count those kinds of characters as some of my favorites through the years (Robin and Elizabeth on General Hospital, Jennifer on Days of Our Lives, Jenny, Angie and Nina on All My Children).
But sometimes these goody two-shoes need a jump start, and I think Annie is a prime example.
Melissa Claire Egan has had a few chances here and there to show the snark and fire she’s capable of as an actress. But the role of Annie didn’t give her much chance to showcase that.
Thankfully, for both the actress and the viewers, I think that’s about to change.
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