WAG’s February “Voluptuaries” issue features a piece on blond bombshells of the silver screen. But why stop there? The small screen has had some great blondes, including Barbara Eden, Barbara Bain, Anne Francis, Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Sommers. Two of my new favorites appear on CBS’ “Vegas” (10 p.m. Tuesdays) and ABC’s “Nashville” (10 p.m. Wednesdays).
Sarah Jones’ tough-tender Mia Rizzo (“Vegas”) is as much of an anomaly on the tube as she would’ve been in JFK’s America. How many mobsters’ daughters back then attended Wharton, hoped to be bank execs and fell in love with gorgeous lawmen (Jason O’Mara’s Jack Lamb)? Show of hands? Thought so. And yet, Mia is a totally winning character, engaged in one of the most absorbing, adult relationships on TV, one that you sense will end tragically now that daddy knows of it and thinks (wrongly) that she sang to the Feds because of Jack. Alas, next week’s episode is a rerun so we’ll have two weeks to contemplate the scenarios.
If Mia is a victim of her circumstances, Hayden Panettierre’s Juliette Barnes (on “Nashville’) is a victim of her own making. She wed the Tim Tebow-ish Sean Butler (Tilky Jones) on the fly just to bed him (and maybe one-up his snobbish mama), then demanded a divorce. He countered with an annulment suit that sought to obliterate her from his memory – which knocked her for a loop. In the end, she did the right thing and acquiesced. The romantic in me can’t help but think she still has feelings for him. The realist (and TV fan), however, knows that a footloose but heartbroken Juliette is a better story line.
They used to say blondes have more fun. You wouldn’t know it by these ladies. –
Thanks for that Georgette! Its nice to see smart ambitious women respresented in shows that were previously only guilty pleasures…