This Is What Season Three Should Have Kicked Off With!!!!!!!!!!!!! But How Much Did We Actually Learn???????????????

                                    Though the Roseann Quinn case, better known than that Gaffney Strangler thing, should have been the lead-in to this series' third season, I really did not learn more about the case, and already knew.

                                     Judith Rossner's 1975 novel, "Looking For Mr. Goodbar," which, while fictionalized, is the reason some of us know this case so well, was mentioned so many times I thought it was, pardon the pun, overkill.  But, maybe the program aimed at an audience who did not know much about this now 42 year old case.

                                   As one who does, I learned nothing new.  What I hoped it would explore were Quinn's psychological underpinnings that caused her to seek out this dangerous, then revolutionary, and addictive life style.  Some would have called Roseann, or her fictional alter ego, Theresa Dunn, a sex addict.

                                   What led to that was a repressive childhood in Jersey, coupled with a difficult illness from which she never quite recovered, physically, or mentally.  The program did touch on this, but  never enough to explain how this specifically crushed her self esteem, driving her towards bad boys who would use and abuse her, rather than potential life partners.  Which she was uninterested in, as she seemed, at the time, incapable of emotional intimacy.

                                    There are enough straight nuts out there who could have been the killer.  But, to the ill luck of the gay community, she was done in by John Wayne Wilson, a closeted, self-hating homosexual.  Just what the gays need--a hypocritical member of our own is responsible for one of Manhattan's most famous murders.  That was not too closely explored, either.

                                     The episode could have been entitled "Goodbar 101," for all the in-depth investigating that was done on the case.  More was learned from the Kitty Genovese and Alice Crimmins case than this one.

                                        I wonder if any of Quinn's relations are still living?  Maybe they were not interested in re-living this--and I can understand why--but having some personal observations might have added some new insights into the case, which this segment badly needed.

                                        And, girls, especially those out there  still young enough, remember--one's chances for survival are better if you go to their place, not yours..  But don't let youthful wildness or searching lead you down Roseann's path.  There were others, not so famous--I knew a gay version of the case, from 1983; a coworker who had been murdered in his bed--who ended up the same way.

                                        Heed the lesson Roseann still teaches, dolls!   Stick to tea, and Jane Austen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!