It's been a crazy week in Santa Royale, California. Over at Dr. Jeff Corey's Suburban Man Cabin, Jeff had one of those father daughter discussions that required forty-seven cups of coffee to get through, and when it was over, he was still left on the losing end of his daughter's Oldsmobile.
Apparently, Jeff has been doing a little research into Ted's background and has come up with some interesting tidbits. For one thing, Ted is a musical theatre guy, and NOT a photo journalist for Nations Geography Magazine. That explains Ted's mustache and the spell it cast on Adrian. Musical theatre guys are soooo hard to resist, and soooo hard not to give money to. They just start singing, they just start dancing, and suddenly you just start wiring money all over town. They're just soooo talented.
Of course, you know and I know that there's a big difference between lying about your medical credentials so you can get a job at the local hospital, and lying to your fiance about your last ten years of employment, but such moral relativism goes a long way to explain how Adrian got her job.
Adrian digs deep inside her psyche to uncover an explanation for Ted's pathological behavior, and what does she come up with? "He is so in love with me that he can't think clearly. He's so ga-ga, words just come out of his mouth without context. Dad, you just don't understand what it's like to be so in love with someone that you just make stuff up all the time."
Perhaps one of the most brilliant lines in Mary Worth history. I rank it right up there with "I'll make seafood scampi," and, "I think I'll retile the kitchen floor tomorrow." For me, this was one of those moments that remind me why I read Mary Worth. "He even calls me Queenie." It's like saying, "As dumb as you thought I was, let me surprise you with even more dumberness."
So Adrian drives over to see Ted, picturing all those tender moments and cherished memories in her thought balloons and her thought balloon's thought balloons. What she doesn't picture however is this:
It's hard to know what Ted is thinking here, since he doesn't have any thought balloons. His mind control is so powerful, he prevents even us from reading his mind. However, I suspect he's thinking something like, "$50,000 is a lot of money. But it barely covers my hotel expenses for the past month."
Everyone is a loser. Adrian lost $50,000. Ted lost out on an even bigger prize, thwarted by Adrian's refusal to elope. And the rest of us have lost a month of our life we'll never get back.
YES! YES! YES! Those cops DO have a steering wheel in the back seat of their car. It is the latest gadget in criminal justice technology. This way, the criminals think you're driving away when you're actually chasing them. Which is ultimately what did Ted in. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
It's been a crazy week in Santa Royale, California. Adrian arrived in the seedy, dark side of town just in time to find her fiance running off with his car tucked under his arm. His excuse? His sister needed him right away.
When luring the big con, you want to pick a sucker who is clueless enough to take the bait, but not so clueless that she pulls you out of the boat and into the lake. Even now, Adrian can't fathom why Ted could possibly be getting out of town as fast as possible.
Ultimately, it is her final pleading face touch that delays Ted's departure just long enough for two of Santa Royale's Finest to show up with their really cool lapel badges and read Ted's rap sheet in public. "Hey, listen everybody! Dr. Corey is dating a bigamist!"
Not only is he a liar, a thief and a bigamist, but he's also a DEAD BEAT DAD!
