The first of, like, a dozen times Liz is held hostage….

Biggest “Oh, come ON!” Moment
Elizabeth’s kidnapping. See, Carl, the crazy intern, is SO IN LOVE WITH LIZ because she’s SO VERY BEAUTIFUL AND KIND that he kidnaps her and ties her up in a chair in his run-down house and… caresses her hair. Yeah. He doesn’t rape her or beat her or make her parade around in Shirley Temple dresses or latex nurse’s outfits… he molests her hair. While gazing at her longingly. Because SHE’S SO BEAUTIFUL! AND SO KIND! SO HE LOVES HER SO MUCH! BECAUSE SHE’S SO BEAUTIFUL AND KIND!

Dumbest Deus Ex Machina Ending
First off, what’s a “Deus Ex Machina” ending…? In drama or fiction, it’s an artificial or forced means introduced to solved the plot/resolve the problem. It means, literally, “god from the machine,” and refers to ancient Greek plays in which a god would be lowered to the stage by a mechanical device to intervene in a situation to solve the problem. So when a poor person finds a wallet with $5000 cash in it, or when a person develops/recovers from amnesia, that’s deus ex machina.

Enough literary lessons. Getting back to Sweet Valley, how do I BEGIN narrow this one down? There’s Susan Stewart, who, after a whole week of Deep Parental Trauma, finds out her father is really a WORLD FAMOUS MOVIE PRODUCER. There’s Roger Barrett, who is magically revealed to be A WEALTHY PATMAN. There’s Jessica, staring in a soap opera, who has to perform the last scene of the week’s show LIVE (as if) so thus she has the opportunity to apologize to Sam for going out with her hunky co-star ON NATIONAL TV. There’s Liz, on trial for Sam’s death, suddenly being cleared by a LAST MINUTE SURPRISE WITNESS.

But the biggest example of deus ex machina is in Special Christmas with “Too Good To Be True” Suzanne Devlin’s brink-of-death case of MS. Oh no! See, Suzy’s all nice and apologetic now that her days are numbered, and she comes back to Sweet Valley to spend the holidays and make up for all her previous Evil because everyone knows that the one thing someone must do if they’re about to die is MAKE UP WITH THE WAKEFIELDS! “She’s very young to get [multiple sclerosis],” Pa Wakefield says, “but both her aunt and her grandmother died of the disease.” This, of course, repairs every nasty, scheming thing Suzanne ever did before… and the final benediction upon her noble, dying head is that Todd Wilkins is now madly in love with her. And Suzy gets into a car accident on Christmas Eve because she’s accidentally overdosed on new MS medicine and now everyone rushes to her side, all concerned. And Liz and Todd realize they only feel friendship for each other now and Todd is free to pursue poor, sick Suzy, who is miraculously unharmed after her accident. But danged if Christmas isn’t a time for miracles upon miracles, guys! It turns out that Suzy was “misdiagnosed” and really just had mononucleosis “and several months later began to experience a very rare complication from it… an infection of the central nervous system… resulting in dizziness, blurring and occasional loss of muscle control.” Suzanne never had MS at ALL! Not only does she have Todd’s love and the Wakefields’ forgiveness and all of Sweet Valley behind her, but as a special reward once that’s all in place, her fatal disease was just a boo-boo! Praise Jeebus!

Dorkiest Deus Ex Machina Couple Ending
A twist on the old favorite… everything resolves magically as if from an outside force… and two crazy kids end up together and madly in love to boot. Prolly the most obvious answer is Liz Wakefield and Jeffrey French. I mean, it starts off as a “Power Play”-esque battle between Liz and Jess trying to hook up their respective best friends with the Cute New Boy… but “suddenly” Liz “realizes” that she “is falling in love with him herself” out of left field. But then there’s the Special Christmas ending where Todd ends up with Suzanne Devlin because he and Liz have just LJBF’d each other, conveniently getting him out of Liz’s hair and absconding her from any possible breaking-up cruelty and heartache. But then, I guess those two endings just compound and combine into the whole Liz-and-Todd reunion ending…. I mean, after spending NUMEROUS Special Editions telling us that Liz and Todd are Just Friends and there is NOTHING romantic between then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Todd’s moving back to Sweet Valley and everyone’s erasing that past stuff and now Liz hasn’t seen Todd since he moved and she’s always been in love with him and-

And to make matters worse, Lizzie is rewarded for her Essential Goodness and Un-Jessica-Like Immaterialism because now Todd is FILTHY RICH!

Best Couple Ending
Bill and DeeDee. DeeDee’s all insecure and dependent, and Bill breaks up with her because she’s turned into some sort of hysterical Bill-cheerleader instead of her usual, competent, talented self. And in the end, after DeeDee’s regained her sense of self, the plot doesn’t conclude with them getting back together all 100% perfect.

Go DeeDee! Yeah, THAT’S more along the lines of what Dumb Teen Readers like me needed to hear! Of course, no matter that when I tried to apply this book to my own life at the time, DumbAss had fits and temper tantrums because I WASN’T being all dependent on him and his personal devoted 1-person fan club…. Hm. Todd Wilkins is suddenly looking less lame by comparison….

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