I'm Loving GCB

When PamAm finished their first season, was wondering what ABC would do with the 9 PM Central Sunday time slot it was vacating as we wondered if we were going to see out favorite flight crew take to the skies for a second season that will be set in 1964.

Well, while we PanAm fans are waiting for ABC to make up their minds about the show's fate,  they decided to slide in a midseason show written by the creators of Sex In The City and based on the Kim Gatlin semi-autobiographical novel Good Christian B*****s.

GCB is a Lone Star flavored show set in the Dallas urban enclave of Highland Park Hillside Park and focuses on former mean girl Amanda Stopper Vaughn.   She's moving back to Dallas from California after her late husband Bill not only was on his way to Mexico with the proceeds from a billion dollar Ponzi scheme he was running without her knowledge, he was having an affair with Amanda's best friend.   

Bill and her best friend both die in a car accident on the way down the PCH to Mexico.  As a result of the federal investigation into Bill's crimes and the seizing and freezing of their marital assets Amanda and her kids have to move back to Texas and with her mother Gigi Stopper.

Once back in Dallas for the first time in 18 years Amanda has to deal with the ramifications of her mean girl past in terms of her across the street neighbor, judgmental, Scripture-quoting Carlene Lourd Cockburn.

She was a 'javelina' tormented by Amanda in high school and with the help of much plastic surgery is now married and the new queen rhymes with witch of Dallas. 

Carlene is also not happy that her baby brother Luke is dating her and her husband Ripp was one of the investors scammed by Bill.   He is one of the few men in Hillside Park who is indifferent to Amanda.

Cricket Caruth-Reilly is a powerful businesswomen who hates Amanda because she stole Bill from her in high school.   She is Carlene's just as devious best friend and has a gay husband she stays married to because Blake is the father of he daughter Alexandra and the only man who loved her for herself and not her money. 

Sharon Peacham was the beautiful babe of Hillside Park High School and a beauty pageant rival of Amanda's but over the years has become insecure as her weight increased and she became the reluctant flunky of Carlene.  She's afraid her marriage is on the line because her husband Zach had a crush on Amanda in high school and mistakenly believes that Amanda wants him.


Heather Cruz is the single woman in the group who has overcome her humble roots to become the most powerful real estate agent in Dallas.  

Heather is also the only one of the group that believes Amanda has changed, accepts her apology and hangs out with her and Gigi.  That puts her at odds at times with the other GCB women and especially Carlene who still resents Amanda and wants to drive her out of Dallas.

Of course, Elizabeth 'Gigi' Stopper is glad to have her daughter and grandkids back in Dallas so they can get past the rift that developed between them over her marriage of Bill she disapproved of and Amanda's belief that Gigi is embarrassed by her.   She is still trying to push Amanda into getting back into Dallas high society despite her oft repeated claims that she just wants a normal life.

So yep, there's a lot going on in GCB.  I crack up at how dead on target it is in replicating Lone Star attitudes, dialect, and the Texas references dropped in the show. 

And yes, the characters are also staying true to Dallas' conservatism and Bible thumping nature because I chuckle at how some of the backstabbing action between the GCB's takes place in Hillside Park's church.

So yep, you know what I'll be doing at 9 PM on Sundays, watching another ABC show that has quickly become a guilty pleasure for me in GCB.