Disney/Christine Bartolucci
Strange Bedfellows: When she showed up at the Qs' for a family dinner, Carly (Laura Wright) did not have Sonny (Maurice Benard) implying that they slept together in Tracy's bedroom on her bingo card.
Using history to tell story always works. Let the past inform the present!
B&B’s Bill has a checkered past with women (!) so it was completely believable when a free spirit with weird mints turned up to reminisce about their magical night together 20 years ago. Bill was like, Sure I remember you, Poppy. Want to move in?
Before you could say “scam artist,” her daughter Luna was moving in too, claiming to be Bill’s daughter. The whole thing looked super-forced until Bill’s ex-wife, Katie — long a voice of reason in his tumultuous life — demanded a second paternity test. Lo and behold, Luna was not Bill’s daughter.
Good thing, because Luna turned out to be a murderer who kidnapped Steffy and locked her in a cage. While Steffy was missing, her ex-husband Liam stuck his nose in to taunt her current husband Finn about “letting” Hope kiss him.
Liam: “Hope would not have kissed you if she didn’t know you’d be okay with it.”
Finn: “Well, I wasn’t. And unlike you, I will always be 100% committed to Steffy.”
Finn proved it by sniffing around the last places Steffy was seen and zeroing in on Luna knowing more than she let on. He followed Luna to her apartment and found his wife locked up and starving.
Steffy: “Get me out of here!”
The throughline of Finn being a one-woman man creates good rooting value for the couple known as "Sinn" because most of Steffy’s exes cheated on her — usually with her stepsister Hope. I’m looking at you, Liam.
Steffy’s parents worried about her too but, true to soap opera form, the cops were nowhere. During Ridge and Taylor’s conversations about their daughter, B&B missed a golden opportunity to solidify the recast Taylor as the same woman who has heroically battled Brooke for 35 years. In a conversation about Hope, Ridge said, “Who kisses somebody else’s husband?” The old Taylor would have responded, “Brooke!” but nuTaylor said, “It was the last thing Steffy needed.” Duh.
Always play the characters’ history!
A murder mystery with a host of shady suspects is a great way to do that. GH gathered its A-listers at the Q mansion on a rainy night where Sonny shot John Cates in cold blood and then a bunch of ancillary characters acted suspicious. Drew and Willow were late because they were kissing, Kristina stole Sonny’s gun then sobbed alone on her/Molly’s daughter’s grave, Michael saw the shooting and lied to the cops, and Carly, Nina and the Qs were milling about the mansion with dodgy alibis. Sonny capitalized on that, tucking his shirt in as he entered the living room, assuming Carly would cover for him based on their looooong history.
Carly: “Why did you make everyone think we had sex?”
Sonny: “I can’t tell you any details unless you’re willing to marry me.”
That was a hard “no” — so Sonny concocted a story for them to tell the cops, saying he seduced Carly in an empty Q bedroom.
Carly: “That’s terrible.”
Sonny: “What do you want, rose petals and soft music? It’s an alibi.”
First of all, that’s hilarious. Second, what a great callback to 2022 when Carly found Sonny on The Haunted Star in bed with Nina complete with… rose petals and soft music.
Annoyed Carly is funny. So is Annoyed Tracy, who tried to kick everyone out of the house the night of the murder and asked Chase to arrest Ace (“the devil baby”) for disturbing her peace. But nothing beats Annoyed Alexis, who found Kristina’s gun and went straight to the bridge where everybody in Port Charles throws their guns into the water, and she did the same.
Oops! Liz and Ric showed up and watched the newly reinstated lawyer commit a crime.
Alexis (nervous, to Ric) : “Look at you. You’ve got two out of your three ex-wives on the bridge.”
As if that wasn’t enough from the archives, Jason saved Ava from being shot by Cates’s accomplice that same night, then asked Diane to represent Ava, too. Diane declined, calling them her client and his “plus one.” Wait until she gets Alexis’s frantic calls from the bridge — which of her decades-long clients/friends will Diane agree to defend?
Brady’s background of drinking and screwing up has played well in DAYS’s story of Fiona framing him for hitting Sarah. Brady has tried to be a better man for his son, but his secret drinking put the kibosh on any life lessons he might impart.
Tate: “Haven’t you ever lied because you were scared about how someone would react?”
Cue Brady remembering how Kristen hid his car because she suspected he hit Sarah while drunk and doesn’t want their daughter Rachel to grow up without a dad.
Tate: “Where did you just go?”
Flashback-ville!
Elsewhere, Stefan’s furious wife taping off half the DiMera mansion to keep him on his side is vintage Gabi.
Gabi (holding up duct tape) : “My attorney says it’s important to keep this as my primary residence. Best five bucks I ever spent.”
Stefan cheating with Ava while Gabi was in prison seemed like a “him” problem until Gabi vowed to take half of everything Stefan owns — including the DiMera mansion. Suddenly his siblings, Kristen and EJ, were invested.
EJ: “This house is half mine. Your beloved will be in for a rude awakening if she tries to make a move on it.”
Stefan: “It’s good to know I have an ally. You’ve got something to lose, as well.”
EJ: “You made your bed, and you invited Ava into it. Why should I be inconvenienced because you don’t know how to take a cold shower?”
EJ’s hatred of Ava (who tried to kill his mother, Susan) put him squarely in Gabi’s camp, but that didn’t explain what happened next: Gabi got EJ all riled up about Nicole leaving him for Eric and suggested they have hate sex .
EJ: “You’re not my type.”
Gabi: “Who cares? Help me hurt him. Let’s use each other to stick it to them.”
They did the deed, Stefan busted in, and Gabi announced EJ was better in bed than he was. Mission accomplished.
Y&R’s Victor has wanted to take down his former son-in-law Billy for years, and now — thanks to Billy’s hubris firing Lily — he can.
Victor (running into him) : “Billy Boy Abbott! How are things at Chancellor?”
Billy: “Abbott Chancellor.”
Victor: “You slapped your name on the company and now you think you’re playing with the big boys.”
Billy: “I know what I’m doing.”
Victor: “Says the man who gambled away the family yacht.”
And they’re off! Nikki sharing Katherine Chancellor’s old letters with Lily was surprisingly moving and it added a layer of nostalgia to what could have been another stiff business story. She advised Lily not to let Billy bully her and right on cue he walked in.
Lily: “I’m not going down without a fight.”
Billy: “You have nothing to fight with.”
Lily: “Wanna bet?”
Brrrring! Lily called Victor to set up a meeting. She told him Billy fired her and that Jill put Billy in charge so there was not much she could do about it without his help.
Victor: “You want me to help you take down Billy Abbott?”
Lily: “Yes.”
Victor has a soft spot for Neil, Katherine was Nikki’s best friend, Lily needs guidance, they all hate Billy — it’s such a good pull to decades of their combined background.
Victor (to Lily) : “You’ve done a hell of a job. Katherine would be proud of you and so would your dad.”
Using history to tell story can also make us cry.
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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