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Planning Ahead

Soap Opera Weekly: What’s in store for Todd and Blair?
Higley: Big Todd and Blair stuff coming up. It’s just going to be a really fun story. …I love playing into the history of a character. …Blair’s love has transformed him into being the kind of guy that only cares about his family and just when he’s ready to commit to all that, Margaret comes in and shoots him. …Todd is such a unique character that his problem-solving methods are different. Like if this happened to Bo or to Michael or to one of our other guys they would handle it totally differently. … Now here’s the rapist that’s going to be ‘raped,’ and what are the ethics of that and is there some sort of cosmic justification. But really what it’s about is Todd desperately trying to get to Blair. Blair desperately trying to get to Todd. So even though physically they’re apart, emotionally you will see them more together than ever.


Weekly: How about Bo and Nora?
Higley: We are going to be telling a front burner Bo and Nora story and it’s basically going to be all wrapped up in their assistant DA/police work. I like to see them together in that arena. I think they have really good chemistry together. But basically the underlying story is that they’re trying to move on with other people. Nora’s trying to move on with Daniel. Bo’s trying to move on with Paige, but there’s so many unresolved issues with them and not all of it’s good, but some of it is. To me it’s a very realistic storyline.


Weekly: Can you give me a clue about Daniel’s secret?
Higley: The big secret is he really has a 100 cats that live in his apartment. No, forget the cats. He’s a lawyer, he’s a district attorney. He has political aspirations. And we live in such a cynical society that they’re almost never what they want to be perceived as. He’s going to start to be doing things that are a little more not on the up-and-up. I love people guessing what his secrets are. And I will tell you that his secrets really, really, really effect Bo and Nora as a couple. Because to me, as fun as it may be for Daniel to have secrets, it’s a Bo/Nora story.


Weekly: Any chance that Michael will have some of Al’s memories or feelings return? Because when the transformation happened, viewers were led to believe that he was going to stay Al inside but that’s pretty much been wiped out. People miss that.
Higley: Yeah. The thing about that is that they did the whole Al spirit in his body thing and I think that was supposed to be a transition. But the reality is that he’s not Al. And the reality is is that no matter how poignant or supernatural or wonderful that moment was, he’s Michael. And I want Marcie to love Michael. I want her to be able to mourn Al in a very healthy, functional, grief way, deal with that, put closure to that as much as anybody who’s lost a loved one can. And the statistics are if you’ve found great love in your life and that love dies, the odds are you’re going to find it again because you’re that kind of person. So I want Marcie to be able to put closure to Al and to love Michael for who he is. And there is a time when Michael gets tired of being compared to Al. And I find that much more realistic than him just starting to spout Al-isms out of his mouth. So he’s going to be Michael. I love that he’s John’s brother. You’re going to see Michael and John together a lot more. They can speak truth into each other’s lives as only brothers and sisters can. We know each other’s buttons and we can push them. And I’m really going to build him more as his own person and Marcie’s going to fall in love with that person and not leftover Al in that person.


Weekly: Do you see Kelly and Kevin as a couple?
Higley: I do. It’s up for debate by some people. I want to spend some time just sort of giving them a little bit more dimension before I really ring in on that. We’re doing some work on making Kelly a little more spunky and feisty and fun. She’s going to be in the driver’s seat of her life a little bit more instead of life happening to her, and she’s trying to react to it. And Kevin’s been kind of a bad boy. But he’s a Buchanan and I really want to strengthen the Buchanan family and the bond between the Buchanan family members. Kevin reaching in and realizing, I’m my mom’s son and I’m the son of both my biological father and my adoptive father and I’ve going to start acting like it. So we’re going to tap into that, too. I’m going into facets of their personalities that are already there but maybe we haven’t seen lately.

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