Friday night at 10—9 Central Time—will be a moment of truth. That's when the nation will discover whether yours truly wound up on the cutting-room floor. Otherwise, expect to see my mug on the Momsters: When Moms Go Bad episode titled “After School Showdown” on Investigation Discovery (ID).
The titular showdown was between Irvine elementary school mom volunteer Kelli Peters and, for the purposes of this reality show, attorney-turned-author Jill Easter, who is now Ava Everheart but has also been Ava Easter and Jillianne Bjorkholm.
Actually it was Jill/Ava and her—take your pick—former/estranged/cuckold husband and fellow attorney Kent Easter who conspired to terrorize Peters by planting a bag filled with pills, weed and a pipe in her car in hopes she'd get busted.
Why? Because the power-tripped couple believed Peters had shamed their first-grader son.
So, yeah, Dads and Momsters: When Helicopter Parents Fly Waaaay Off Course would have been the more fitting title if taking a macro view of this weird case. But to fit the parameters of the Momsters universe, the producers focused overwhelmingly on the better baddie half, at least based on the questions fired at me.
Here's how ID describes tonight's episode: “To lawyer mom, Jill Easter, image is everything. When her son’s reputation is questioned, she’ll stop at nothing to defend him.”
Peters and, if memory serves, an Irvine cop were also interviewed for “After School Showdown.” My memory is foggy because it was like 350 degrees in the Santa Ana motel room where my interview was taped and, due to the inferno, we had to keep stopping so the gear could cool down and I could be toweled off.
What we journos go through for you, the viewing public …
Oh, here's a better reason to watch: Momsters is hosted by Roseanne. I'm dying to see the bits between the clips by America's favorite TV momster. If the bag had been planted in her car, Roseanne Barr (or Conners for that matter) would have fought to keep it.
This is Momsters' second season (who knew?), having apparently ranked as ID’s No. 1 series in the fourth quarter of 2014 and among the network's top three in the 18-49 demographic that whole year. Hope they like sweaty chubby dudes.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.