ABC; Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
Drama is roiling around deadbeat dad Lucky (Jonathan Jackson) on GH and humbled son Billy (Jason Thompson) on Y&R.
There’s a fine line between believable and unbelievable on soaps.
Y&R’s stories of family-owned conglomerates battling each other in a small Wisconsin town seem plausible. Y&R puts soapy elements into those stories to great effect, like Kyle stealing Jabot secrets, the nasty battle for Glissade, and Victor promising Lily the CEO job if she would divulge Chancellor scoop and then backstabbing her in favor of Nikki. Oops! Victor’s daughter, Abby, is about to marry Lily’s brother Devon.
Devon: “That’s going to be a very big problem for me and my future father-in-law.”
As it should be. After Nikki admitted to Lily that she and Victor lied, Nikki actually asked Lily to come work for her at Chancellor (when Victor takes it over).
Lily (incredulous) : “I’m done with both of you.”
Victor hurting Lily will add a messy layer to Devon marrying into the Newman family — unless Victor doesn’t succeed? His takeover plan depends on Billy Abbott screwing up, but Lily called Billy’s mommy in Europe to squeal on his mistakes. That forced Billy to defend himself via video.
Jill: “How is firing Lily a sound business decision? She knows way more about this company than you will ever know. Are you on a one-man mission to bring down the whole Chancellor empire?”
Billy: “Your darling Lily was screwing me over, planning to get me out of the company so she could run it on her own.”
Jill: “Get Lily back or I will get rid of you and take control of the company myself.”
It’s fun to watch Billy get yelled at — and the thought of him groveling to Lily is delicious — but even better would be a battle between OG enemies Jill and Victor.
Conversely, the entire story of formerly smart therapist Sharon going off her meds, seeing dead people, supposedly killing Heather, hiding evidence in Daniel’s house to frame him, lying to her kids, disappearing for hours, going on a jaunty picnic with Nick, etc. makes no sense. Sharon’s family not getting her the professional help she clearly needs makes it look like they don’t love her — and that’s not believable.
Neither is the story of DAYS’s Abigail returning with a new head after being stabbed to death on screen . Julie discounts “Abigail” because she has the eyes of a stranger (which she is) and Jennifer ran screaming from the room after meeting her “daughter” because she felt nothing. So how did Chad fall for this clear impostor? He kissed her, and her response was so gooey it could only be fake.
Abigail: “My heart starts racing and my cheeks get all flushed and I feel like I can remember everything we had before! Mostly I feel what a lucky lady I was… I am.”
The smartest person in that story is Patch. He suspected Mark Greene faked the DNA test that proved “Abigail” and her dad, Jack, were related, so he took samples of his own DNA (and Kayla’s) and gave them to Mark with the lie that they belonged to Abigail and her son, Thomas. Clever! The results came back as expected.
Patch (to Kayla) : “According to Dr. Greene, you’re my mommy.”
That prompted Kayla to rerun the initial test, which proved his theory.
Patch: “That’s not our girl.”
DNA tests are believable. Characters returning from the dead are not. I will never understand why soaps kill A-listers onscreen. Push them off a bridge, send them to prison, rehab, a psych ward, wherever — unless they die in real life. And then? Celebrate that character and actor for the great value they brought to the show (Victor Kiriakis, Doug Williams, John Black… sniff!).
Most characters get married numerous times, but B&B mistreats weddings as a plot point and that makes every union less credible. Brooke Logan has wed 15 times (eight times to Ridge), which is not convincing. And how many impromptu nuptials have we watched in the Forrester living room with four folding chairs? That’s not a wedding, it’s a bridge game.
Thankfully, they’re going a different route with the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle after three decades, using history and humor to tell story.
Brooke: “Why was Taylor in your lap straddling you?”
Because of her “broken heart syndrome.” I’m going to sidestep the ridiculousness of Ridge suddenly becoming an expert on chakras (!) and applaud Brooke’s sarcasm in those scenes after she caught Ridge “helping” his ex-wife. Jealousy is extremely credible.
And I get that there are deadbeat dads in the world, but GH showcasing two of them as leading men is tough to swallow. Jason is coming around to his mistakes but Lucky’s go-to move after learning he couldn’t help Lulu was to cut and run.
Lucky: “I’ve never been good with good-byes.”
Jason: “I understand that. But there are people in your life that need them.”
The slack that Elizabeth cut Lucky re: their son Aiden was next level.
Liz: “Time is the one thing Lucky will never get back.”
How about child support? GH made a big thing out of Liz being cash-strapped a while back. Follow it through by taking Lucky to court!
I think we’re more likely to buy far-fetched stories if they’re told with humor. Martin left town in February and returned eight months later having dropped that corn-pone Southern accent and white beard. As he comforted Laura re: Lulu, she asked about the change.
Martin: “I got tired of being asked about fried chicken.”
He added that he had the same accent coach as Lois, which was a funny wink to the audience. Tad Martin as Colonel Sanders never made sense.
The machinations at ELQ are similar to Y&R’s Newman/Abbott action in that most of us don’t actually know what goes down in a family business run by millionaires. But Ned hiring a PI to investigate Drew after learning he’s messing around with the wife of their third partner, Michael, jibes with many family business stories I’ve read about in the New York tabloids.
And kudos to Mac for smelling something was up with Holly.
Mac: “Holly is still on the take.”
Robert (sarcastic) : “Is this your keen spidey sense?”
Mac: “Call it what you want. Holly’s not telling us the truth.”
You got that right: She’s Sasha’s mother! Sudden children are a soap staple, but it has been overused on GH with Cody/Mac, Austin/Jimmy Lee, Willow/Nina, Franco/Scotty, Drew/Alan, Dante/Sonny, Sam/Alexis, and Carly/Bobbie, to name just a few, in that tiny New York town.
And what are we to make of all the Port Charles kids suddenly being housed at the Quartermaine mansion? Finn parked Violet there when he went to rehab and Laura was like “Here, take my grandson!” when she and Kevin took off for Africa.
Tracy: “Ace has the table manners of a goat.”
Olivia: “He’s one year old.”
A toddler throwing food? Okay that’s believable.
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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