Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb, Iron Man) has it all – a handsome and successful husband, two lovely children and a beautiful home in Santa Barbara, CA – that is, until her husband embezzles millions in a Ponzi scheme, runs away with her best friend and dies in a car wreck, under less than savory circumstances. This forces Amanda to move back home to Dallas to pick up the pieces of her shattered life with her mother’s help. Gigi Stopper (Annie Potts, Designing Women) is a handful, though and Amanda escaped her and the extravagant lifestyle of Dallas some 18 years before, so it’s tough to return. Plus, Amanda was a “mean girl” in high school and all those girls she tormented back then are just filled with glee at her awful turn of events.
The leader of the pack is Carlene Cockburn (Kristin Chenoweth, Glee), once an ugly duckling and now a surgically-enhanced powerhouse married to successful oil man Ripp Cockburn (David James Elliott). Cricket Caruth-Reilly (Miriam Shor) is now a business mogul with her husband/ business partner, Blake (Mark Deklin), but things aren’t everything they appear and Blake spends a bit too much time “hanging out” with the foreman on his ranch. Sharon Peacham (Jennifer Aspen) was a knockout in high school, but has packed on the pounds since then and follows behind the others like a puppy dog, whereas Heather Cruz (Marisol Nichols) was the poor girl back then, but has since become the real estate agent in Dallas. Needless to say, the GCB’s are going to try to make hell for Amanda; that is, until they start to see that she has changed.
Payback is a bitch and so are these women, and naturally, it’s funny to watch them plot against Amanda, only to have it blow up in their faces more often than not. It’s hard not to root for Amanda, who really does seem to have been humbled by her experiences. At times, their antics are so over the top that it’s a bit much, but the show is amusing. There’s a lot of scripture quoting going on, although these gals tend to twist the Bible for their own uses, so like I said earlier, sometimes they offend and sometimes they amuse. They will get into a myriad of situations including putting on a church musical, going up against the men in a BBQ contest, and even getting kidnapped in “unincorporated Juarez” as Carlene brings the gang to her ground-breaking ceremony for her Condos for Christ, which she can’t legally open in America. It’s all nonsense, but it’s fun, larger-than-life nonsense. After all, you know what they say - everything’s bigger in Texas.
Special features are fun and included a gag reel and deleted/ extended scenes, commentary, plus featurettes on getting the Dallas look and feel just right, the musical talent in the cast and finally a high school yearbook “most likely to…” featurette. They are short, but enjoyable.
I look at GCB: The Complete First Season as a “Desperate Housewives in Dallas” sort of show. While I don’t think the writing is as clever and witty as Housewives, it’s still funny and Potts and Chenoweth can be absolutely hysterical. While I can’t speak as to the authenticity of the Dallas look and behavior, they did get the big hair and bling right on the nose. Check it out if you are looking for some catty fun, and since it has been cancelled, this is all you'll get from the GCB's.
