Aaron Echolls

SCRIPT: Aaron, à la Jack Bauer, uses desperate means to retrieve tapes from the enemy agent whom he encloses in a junked fridge over which he pours gasoline to get her to talk. Her associate interrupts and the two men fight fiercely. Aaron, bloody but unswerving, sets the gasoline alight..."

The action figure settled it. Aaron Echolls had it made. The movie star looks and career, the adulation of fans, the love of a good woman, two fine children. Behind the glitter, it was not so golden: the looks faded, the career grounded in trash despite eight figure pay checks, the paparazzi prowled. His life was a show. Even his philanthropy was an exercise in public relations. So he gave it all up to look after the family he loved and who loved him.

Except not. The good woman is good and gone, straight off a bridge in response to his philandering. The fine son is a screw-up whom Aaron has been known to beat with a belt. Old-time punishment or abuse? His daughter is a needy personal and professional failure who brought out the protective father in him. The violent, beat-sleazy-abusive-boyfriend-to-a-pulp kind.

That addiction to sex and violence proved fatal to his young lover, Lilly Kane, daughter of Jake Kane and his own son's girlfriend. Aaron murdered her to stop her from using his homemade tapes of fornication with her to ruin his life. But Aaron, you ruined your life, and the lives of your nearest and dearest, long ago. Bastard.

Oh. That script? No script. Real. And Aaron's performance nearly knocked Veronica and Keith out. For good.

Postscript: Never forget that Aaron is a product of Hollywood, and Hollywood just loves its twists and turns and surprise endings. Should we be as quick as Logan to dismiss Aaron's protestations of innocence of Lilly's murder? Even if Aaron is calling Duncan the killer on national TV when Duncan can't defend himself and using Kendall to make sure reasonable doubt sticks? After all, stranger things have happened in the diaries of Tinseltown.