JPI
Talking Heads: After Adam (Mark Grossman) finally confessed he'd slept with Chelsea on Y&R, Sally (Courtney Hope) was left thinking she wished she'd never heard him utter those words.
There’s too much talk and not enough action on soaps right now.
I’m looking at you, Y&R!
There are Adam and Chelsea talking about Connor… Billy and Sally talking about Adam and Chelsea… Jack and Diane talking about Kyle… Daniel and Heather talking about Lucy… Mariah and Faith talking about Sharon… Nick and Phyllis talking about Summer… Kyle and Summer talking about Harrison… Kyle and Claire talking about Harrison… Jack and Diane talking about Harrison… I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
How many two-person scenes have we seen recently of characters discussing someone off-screen? Adults who should be living messy, soapy lives are instead droning on about kids like Harrison and Connor who are rarely seen and aren’t as interesting. This isn’t radio anymore, kids. Soaps need stories to move.
It’s so much better when Nikki and Victor go out to dinner to discuss Lily and Lily just… walks in and sits down! Ditto when Billy and Sally stopped talking about their partners cheating and went to confront them.
Sally (to Adam) : “ Stop gaslighting me . I know deception when I see it.”
Adam lied over and over until he got a text from Chelsea saying, “I told Billy the truth. I had to.” Sally asked what the text was about, and Adam said “Work.” He planned on lying to the bitter end, but Billy had other plans.
Billy (busting into Adam’s apartment) : “Chelsea told me everything and I can tell by Sally’s face you told her nothing.”
Adam: “Get out.”
Billy (to Sally) : “I am really sorry you found out this way.”
Adam: “Billy is lying because he despises me.”
Sally: “Oh my God, stop it!”
Yes, stop it. Adam finally admitted he and Chelsea had a one-night stand in Baltimore and the resulting scream-fest almost made up for all the yammering we had to listen to about how their partners “can never find out!” since their sex romp on July 4. Y&R dragged it out too long, which made Billy and Sally look dumb, and even after the secret came out, they were still blah-blah-ing.
Billy (to Chelsea) : “You want to talk about seeing pain and guilt in someone’s eyes? I think we need to talk about this.”
Adam (to Sally) : “I’m talking about me being a jerk to you. What I’m trying to communicate is how much you mean to me. We can talk it out.”
They even talk about talking!
Characters on DAYS do a lot of blabbing too, mostly to themselves. Nothing is sillier than Fiona recapping how she ran Sarah down with Brady’s car to an unseen baby and then Xander walking in like, “Huh?”
It’s a Salem staple.
Kristen (to Stefano’s portrait) : “Well, Father, mission accomplished! Brady’s car is flat as a pancake. I know you were not a big fan of Brady’s, but he is the father of my child, and I did what I had to do to protect my family.”
EJ (entering) : “Pray tell, sister, what did you do to protect your family?”
Kristen lied that she was referring to Gabi ordering her to fire Ava, but EJ didn’t buy it.
EJ: “That was a shockingly unconvincing story. Want some advice? Perhaps you should not be so forthcoming with ‘Father’ sharing your secrets aloud.”
Kristen got angry that her brother overheard her recounting her crime to a painting, but he was not having it.
EJ: “I happened to walk past and overhear you talking to a portrait above the fireplace — plotting, scheming, your usual.”
The Salem PD should move Stefano’s portrait to the interrogation room since everyone confesses to it.
It’s good that GH is creating interest in Lulu since she’s obviously going to recover from that coma, but Laura, Maxie, Dante and Tracy talking to the lower half of Lulu’s prone body is getting old. The search is on for a liver for Lulu, so she’ll be waking up soon. In the meantime, Laura and Kevin are off on an organ hunt.
Tracy: “The mayor and her psychiatrist husband. What could possibly go wrong?”
Ha!
Elsewhere, I did not appreciate all the chatter about Kristina carrying Molly’s baby when it started. The recasts were too new for us to care about that story and Alexis’s constant warnings felt like overkill. Then GH took that strange detour where Kristina decided to keep the baby and raise it with her girlfriend of 10 minutes, and it was like huh ? That kid belonged to Molly and TJ, and everybody knew it.
But then Kristina lost the baby and went mental, laying a rose on baby Irene’s grave and calling her the name she wanted for the child, Adela.
Molly: “What did you call my daughter?”
The cemetery scene that followed was classic soap and they even brought back Molly’s dastardly dad , Ric, for the screaming and yelling. This is where yakking works: The parents of those feuding sisters are A-listers Alexis and Sonny with Sonny’s half brother, Ric, thrown in to stir the pot. When Kristina goes on and on about “My baby!” we can see Alexis biting her tongue — hopefully not so hard that she won’t be setting Kristina straight soon.
Talking about a story on the front end is not as effective. How many B&B scenes did we watch of Bill and Poppy waxing eloquent about their magical one-night stand 20 years ago that no one had ever mentioned? And then here came Luna, the daughter that might be Bill’s, and they just sat around the Spencer living room droning on about what a happy family they were. It was all kind of boring until… wham !
Luna turned out to be a bona fide psycho , doctoring the paternity test to make Bill her dad and then killing her real father Tom — along with the guy that found Tom’s incriminating backpack, Hollis. And Luna framed her mother for all of it so she could have Bill for herself.
Poppy (to Li, in jail) : “Thank God Luna has Bill. You should see how close they’ve become.”
I take it back! That is top-notch soap opera nuttery.
Poppy: “Stay close to Bill.”
Luna: “I’ll never leave his side.”
Steffy spied Luna kissing Bill and called her on it, which resulted in Luna locking Steffy in a cage at the same time Steffy told Finn she needed “space” so Steffy’s disappearance isn’t raising the red flags that it should.
Li: “If you’re worried about Steffy, text her.”
Finn: “I need to honor her wishes.”
The one time they should be talking and they're not! Maybe instead of texting on all those smartphones, the Forresters should start tracking each other…
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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