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Carolyn Hinsey Shares Her Opinions

From her take on May sweeps to the fallout from Finn and Steffy’s shooting on B&B and more, check out what Digest columnist Carolyn Hinsey has to say about what’s happening across the daytime dial.

Soaps always crank up powerful umbrella stories for May Sweeps, which begs the question: Why don’t they do that all the time?

The obvious answer is that the best stories involve A-listers, who cost more. A show has to save up to put all its stars in a room together for a month because … ch-ching! This is why we don’t see the whole town gathered for weddings anymore — an actor gets the same money per episode whether he/she sits quietly in a church or has a screaming monologue on the edge of a cliff. It makes sense that soaps would rather pay for the latter.

Ways to save money include more two-person scenes, fewer extras and fewer sets. We poke fun at the number of soap characters who live in hotels, but that’s one set vs. a different “home” for every character. Even those who have homes wind up fooling around on the couch because bedrooms cost $. (Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, right?)

All those savings led to some good payoffs, though, so let’s celebrate that.     

Harmony’s meltdown sparked a series of dramatic dominoes which gave the GH hospital set a good workout. She wound up roadkill, thanks to Sasha, who hit her and then punched a tabloid photographer. 

Dante: “What’s going on?”

Photographer: “I’m bleeding, she’s insane.”

Harmony’s attempts to kill Carly and Alexis brought them to the ER, followed by Sam, Jordan, Michael and Willow.

Willow: “Who could have done this to my mom?”

Sasha: “Um …”

Add TJ, Britt, Brando and Joss to the tense G.H. as the players compared notes. Naturally, Carly bulldozed her way to Harmony’s side where she got the money deathbed confession: Willow’s mother is Nina, not Harmony.   

Dun-dun-dun.

The Savoy is another great location where randos can run into each other. Nina enjoyed a girls’ night out with Britt and Obrecht, who offered some unusual dating advice.

Obrecht: “Find someone with a ferret.”

Enter Sonny so Nina could break the news that Willow and Carly were at the hospital.

Nina: “Maybe you should be there.”

Sonny: “Nah.”

That spoke volumes, didn’t it?

Wyndemere saw another umbrella story unfold, with Nikolas, Ava, Spencer and Laura trying to dial down the crazy while Esme did the opposite.

Laura (to Nikolas): “There’s a scorpion under your roof. Get rid of her.”

If anyone’s going to vanquish Esme, it better be Trina.

DAYS’s Abigail finally vanquished Gwen after that whopper of a double wedding undid two duos. Elsewhere, two pregnancies rocked the canvas as nutball Jan upped her plan to “make” Shawn love her, which never works but is entertaining.

Belle (to EJ): “He moved that crazy bitch into my house!”

You know how I feel about the devil, so let’s skip over that and focus on how his machinations impacted DAYS’s other pregnancy. 

Ben: “The devil is after our baby.”

Marlena: “Of course. He never gave up.” 

If she knows that, how come the devil was able to manipulate half the town? Marlena’s shrink-ometer must be on the fritz. I’m here for the devil’s denouement and what looks like dramatic fallout. 

Johnny (to Chanel): “I never stopped loving you.”

Oops.

Diane’s return to Y&R galvanized G.C. against her and probably made her wish she’d stayed dead. Kyle allowed his mother to plead her case for why she abandoned him at a Swiss boarding school and then Diane headed back to her hotel pleased that she made headway.

Victor (waiting): “We meet again.”

They dueled, and Diane called out the hypocrisy of the Newmans being the only ones allowed to change, citing Nikki who’s now “the poster child for clean living”.

Diane: “I only want what’s best for Kyle.”

Victor: “Get on a bus.”

That was solid use of a two-person scene in a hotel room.

B&B also used the hospital to bring the Logans and the Forresters together in the wake of Steffy’s shooting.

Taylor: “The doctors are keeping you calm, but no opioids.”

Good for them for acknowledging Steffy’s past pill addiction, but Sheila’s constant lurking became a joke after a while. She’s not family and, oh yeah, she had previously shot Stephanie, Taylor and Brooke, and kidnapped Ridge. How did no one question her unnatural interest in Steffy’s vital signs? 

B&B has a tendency to recycle the same stories, which is why their return to the Steffy/Liam/Hope triangle is a letdown. Liam has kids with both women so it made no sense that his young daughter with Steffy was controlling the action.

Kelly (using Steffy’s phone): “Please daddy, can you come?”

Liam (to Hope): “I can’t say no to my daughter.”

But you can say no to your wife and other daughter? That’s going to be one spoiled kid.

Here’s me: Where’s Wyatt? Steffy was married to him, too. Wyatt and Liam tag-teaming the grieving Steffy while Flo and Hope fumed in the waiting room would have lifted them out of that triangle and been really fun to watch.

The other rerun is Brooke/Ridge/Taylor which gained momentum during Steffy’s recovery.

Brooke (alone): “Please Ridge, come home!”

Sorry, he was getting busy with Taylor right before the truth came out about Sheila spiking Brooke’s champagne.

But kudos for best use of a two-person scene when Quinn casually mentioned to Carter that Eric had taken up a new sport and a new story was born.

Quinn: “Eric loves pickleball. It energizes him.” 

Cut to Eric in bed with his ex-wife Donna playing “pickleball”. That’s the best euphemism I’ve ever seen on a soap and all they needed was a bed, a negligée and a jar of honey. 

Ch-ching!

Hey. It’s only my opinion.

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