It’s Only My Opinion For The Soap Week Ending April 11

History Channel: The pasts of DAYS’s Sami (Alison Sweeney, l.), GH’s Jason (Steve Burton) and Y&R’s Summer (Allison Lanier) are being used to strong narrative effect.

Many A-list characters have gaps in their past and it’s smart to mine that fertile ground.

B&B’s Bill Spencer, Jr. wasn’t close to Bill Spencer, Sr. but he still came to town to honor his father’s dying wish that he carry out his grudge against the Forresters. Fast forward 15 years and Dollar Bill saw something in psychopathic killer Luna’s troubled background that caused him to call in favors to get her released from prison. His excuse was that Luna suffered “significant trauma” growing up so she deserved a second chance — and he could relate to that. How? No one knows, not even his son.

Liam: “Who are you? How come I don’t know more about your childhood? Was it so traumatic that you feel more kinship to Luna than me?”

Apparently. That’s an interesting angle to explore with Bill, who ping-pongs between being a total jerk and being a gushing romantic partner (to Katie, Brooke and Poppy in particular). His behavior with Luna won’t make sense until it is weighed against his unexplored past. Did Bill’s mother also take illicit drugs at music festivals and sleep with a lot of men, including her own nephew? That could explain Bill’s unnatural attachment to snarky murderer Luna.

What explains Alan/Martin’s weird attachment to Phyllis and Sharon on Y&R? Why would he lock them in a psychiatric hospital and have notifications sent to his own phone that alerted Traci something was wrong with her fiancé? Ashley returned to Genoa City to share what she knew about Alan and it was not good news for poor Traci. She believed she had found the perfect man.

Ashley: “Martin is a genius at impersonating people. That’s not Alan, it’s Martin.”

We thought Alan killed his twin brother Martin last year, but whoever it was has been off screen since then, so who knows? Give us some history…

Creating new characters often involves rewriting said history. Y&R did that with the tale of Nate’s late father, Nathan, having a baby we didn’t know about with Amy in order to give Nate a long-lost half brother. The dying Amy appeared last October to ask Nate to locate his unknown bro, Damian. Damian had his employee, Holden, impersonate him until he could supposedly check out his new family, which was a nasty trick to play on them. Now Nate is all “my brother, my brother” and Devon and Lily are all “your brother” and here’s me: He lied to all of you! Call him by his name until you can trust him.

Nate: “I trust my brother over Victor Newman.”

Really? You’d think Nate would want to learn Damian’s backstory before he gets all defensive and territorial about him. His cousins Lily and Devon certainly do. Fill in the blanks!

No need to do that with Summer and Chance. We watched them have a series of ho-hum dates while Summer beelined for her ex Kyle every chance she got, so their break-up was predictable.

Summer: “My feelings for Chance aren’t strong enough.”

Phyllis: “Oh, no, no. You’re not going to make a play for Kyle, are you?”

Oh, yes, yes. And my hunch is Claire — whose violent past is a mystery — won’t like that at all.

Beyond The Gates is new, but there are still gaps to fill in for the main players. Why are Dani and Bill so toxic? Turns out they were head-over-heels in love during most of their marriage, which we found out when they looked at a photo album together.

Bill: “These were all taken before my babies hated me.”

Dani: “They don’t hate you. They are gravely disappointed in you.”

Bill: “Naomi is suing my firm. She didn’t tell you?

Dani: “Oh Bill… [laughs]. I’m very proud of my daughter for taking you on.”

Bill: “She’s Team Dani like everyone else.”

Including him? Bill pointed to a photo of Dani in a bathing suit and bragged that men couldn’t take their eyes off her but Bill always knew Dani was coming home with him. He recalled a night where they shared their favorite wine, the candles were blowing, the lights were low, and what was that song they danced to?

Dani: “Incomplete.”

I think that describes Bill and Dani. Show us!

Filling in the gaps takes patience and clever storytelling. GH has spent almost a year laying the groundwork for the reveal that Gio is the son Brook Lynn gave up for adoption, raised secretly by Lois’s family in Brooklyn. That story has been greatly aided by the fact that Lois was off-screen for 25 years — it was easy for her to keep the secret since she was not in Port Charles. The coming tsunami of Ned, Sonny and Olivia finding out they had a grandson they never knew about is going to be epic, and the show is laying the groundwork now.

Lois: “You are such a good friend. What we have is special.”

Olivia: “What we have is ancient. Can you believe we’ve known each other since you were trying to put my hair in pigtails? What we’ve got is not just friends, it’s family.”

She doesn’t know how right she is.

Jason is allowing himself to be family to Sasha by posing as the father of her baby (to protect the real dad Michael, whose marriage to Willow has crumbled and is facing a nasty custody battle). Felicia asked Sasha about Jason’s medical history, her birth plan, putting his name on the birth certificate, etc. so Sasha asked the mobster if he’s okay with all that.

Sasha: “You do know you’d be committing fraud if we list you as the father.”

Jason: “I’ve done worse.”

Sasha: “Right. I guess I have, too.”

Jason’s habit of disappearing works for this story because no one ever knows what he’s up to — he could have been in bed with Sasha, for all his Port Charles associates know.

Characters that come and go are a great excuse to drum up past drama, and DAYS did just that when they revisited EJ’s rape of Sami. I didn’t get the timing of Kate telling Johnny the truth about his conception until it escalated into a “Who shot EJ?” story with Johnny a main suspect. Other suspects include Kristen, Kate, Paulina, Chanel, Rafe, Jada, Gabi and Ava. (My money’s on Ava since she left town.) The juxtaposition of Johnny confronting EJ about assaulting Sami in the same episode that Sami’s sister Belle giggled she can’t quit having sex with EJ was a giant miss a few weeks ago, but they’re addressing it now with Sami’s return.

Sami (to comatose EJ): “Johnny is just upset right now. I don’t know what to say to him. I have no idea how to explain to our son how I fell in love with you after what you did to me.”

Johnny (entering): “Now’s your chance.”

Yikes. Talk about fertile ground…

Hey. It’s only my opinion.