Sere Visions

Monday, January 26, 2009 - 12:43 PM

Gem of Life: Episodes 21 to 57

I love Sylvia and Calvin together. I love how Bowie always looked at Maggie with great intensity and love. Calvin's fun personality complements Sylvia's sometimes too serious attitude. Calvin is the best boyfriend to have in Gem. He did a lot for Sylvia. His actions demonstrates how caring and loving he is to her. He doesn't ever brag about the thing he has done to her. It's all very thoughtful. I don't understand why Sylvia broke up with him. Her reasoning did not make much sense and felt forced. Her sacrifice for Calvin is touching. I agree with her when she said, “What’s worst than losing everything and killing yourself still wouldn’t solve all your problems.” I still felt that Sylvia was forgetting who she was after her sacrifice. I can’t wait to see how Calvin responds after he finds out the truth about Sylvia’s miscarriage and Catherine’s requests to help him save his company.

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I think by now it is clear that Jessica truly loves Martin. She loves his wealth and power but she also loves him. His wedding speech was so touching.

Constance continues to annoy me to no end. I really wonder how men fall for her. In reality, most men will not stay with someone like her. Terrence has so many qualities and his past girlfriends all have had more interesting personalities than Constance. His ex, Carmen (Bailie Chan) had more personality to lock a man’s heart than Constance.

Jessica said she always felt that Terrance will not be a good husband to Constance. And I agree. He used her and didn't take into consideration her family when he did business. It's obvious that his business is more important to him than love. Not only that, Terrence is so easy to seduce. Under no drugs, he slept willingly with Elise. And still, he blamed it all on Elise. He didn’t realize that he was to be blamed for their divorce. It’s not Elise’s fault nor is it Jessica’s fault (Constance likes to blame her for it). Yes Jessica didn’t stop Constance from looking for Terrence. But Jessica and Elise didn’t force him to take off his clothes and jump in bed with Elise. Jessica warned him not to go meddling with Elise but he ignored Jessica’s intentions because of his preconceived bias/judgement of her. He should open his eyes and try to understand and accept Jessica because she is part of his family after all.

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Constance thin outlook on everything makes her jump to conclusions quickly. It makes her look dumb. She preaches day and night about how awful and selfish Jessica is, when she is no better. She is selfish as well, but she doesn’t realize it. All she seems to care about are her own feelings and always ask god, “Why do my closest people always betray my feelings?” Perhaps she should re-evaluate herself and put herself into others shoes before she opens her mouth and jumps to conclusions. Jessica has more burdens to carry on her shoulders than Constance will ever have to deal with. She has Martin’s business to worry about, she has her team and business to run, she has to watch over her family and moreover, she has a baby she needs to take care of (and maybe her only chance of having a kid since her possibility of getting pregnant is slim). Does Constance not realize that if she ran to the police and revealed everything that it will just make matters worse? Even Sylvia who always talks sense knew that telling the police will not make the situation any better. However, Constance still tries to run to the police despite Sylvia and her mother’s pleas. If her mother did not fall, can you imagine all the trouble she would put everyone around her through?

I’m not saying that what Jessica did was right. It was selfish and cruel. But Jessica never asked her mother to take the blame. She was in too great of a shock and panic that she didn’t realize her mother was shoving her into the taxi, away from the crime scene. Jessica was drowning in remorse and guilt and that’s a good enough punishment for her. It is an accident after all, she didn’t mean it. Constance never tried to understand Jessica’s situation and see how disturbed she is about the whole accident. She just packed up her bags and left to god knows where. She did not stay behind and help her family go through the ordeal together. She didn’t have to deal with the repercussions. She whines about how Jessica is so selfish, yet I do not see her doing anything worth mentioning for the family’s sake.

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No doubt Jessica is self-centered and selfish. However, even if what she does is selfish, she takes into consideration of the whole picture. It is evident that she will do anything to obtain what she wants. Though she does bad things, deep inside, we know that she has good intentions and she loves her family and cares a lot for Martin. Jessica is a really multi-faceted character.

I find Constance has very little character development. I still view Constance the same way I viewed her at the beginning: a big runaway, irresponsible lover/daughter, narrow minded, whiner and dumb. I find her a hypocrite. At the beginning she ran off with Frankie for two years despite her family’s disapproval. She didn’t play her role as a daughter or sister during those times. She then lies about dating Ah Fat. She continues to date him even though she knows her mother disapproves (so much for caring about her mother’s feelings). Notice that she didn’t dump Ah Fat because what he did was disgustingly wrong. She dumped him only because he hurt her feelings. She gets mad at Jessica for cheating away her father’s money. She then gets angry at Jessica for not taking the responsibility of the car accident. Talk about responsibility, she has none. She didn’t take into consideration of her family. She didn’t try to mend her relationships but runs off to Tibet leaving back her family to deal with the crazy lady/accident and her husband to deal with all her costly spending during her two years of touring. It must be nice running away from all your problems and letting others who have enough sense and responsibility to deal with it.

Initially I hated Lee Sei Kei as the controlling, and pretend to be a know-it-all mother. I hated her for sticking her nose in her daughter’s business and love life. Her daughters are 25+ and she is still nosing about their life. It was as if she was living her younger days through her daughters. But after the car incident, It can be said that she is a good mother after all.

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Martin surprised me in episode 50 where his true colours were revealed. His intentions were hinted all throughout Gem with his, “You have to look at business in the long run!” It’s a pity that he sacrificed Mellissa’s friendship for his defeat. I loved their friendship but Mellissa deserves a better friend.

I think Gem has taken at turn after the great climax in episode 50. Things are moving a lot faster and the story has become more exciting. However, despite how good the last 30 episodes may be, it is too late to deem Gem a classic. I feel really bad for Chik Kei Yi. He is under tremendous pressure to produce a classic after the success of War and Beauty that the ratings have not turned out to be less than ideal. Dance of passion did fairly well in ratings (average 33 pts a week and peaking at 38 max) but Gem of Life is averaging 28 pts a week. I hope that he can just relax and take everything easy and maybe that way, he can produce a well crafted series.

Labels: Gem of Life