It’s Only My Opinion: The Underdogs Rise On General Hospital, Young and Restless, BTG, DAYS and B&B
Rooting for the underdog is a soap opera staple. Carolyn Hinsey looks at how this is playing out in current story on General Hospital, Young and Restless, Days of Our Lives, Beyond the Gates and Bold and Beautiful, from Willow going after Drew on GH to Ted courting Shanice on BTG.
Fighting Spirits
It’s great when underdogs fight back on soaps because it’s so hard to do in real life. Sometimes they even win!
Does Willow count as an underdog on GH’? She had a rough start, raised in the sexually violent Dawn of Day cult by her loony (and illegally adoptive) mother Harmony. We met her as a meek teacher in 2018, grieving the child she had given up for adoption in a bereavement group with Michael, whose baby had “died.” (That baby turned out to be Wiley.) About a thousand things happened after that, leading up to Willow getting sucked into an affair with her husband’s uncle Drew, losing her kids, and finding out Drew had sex with her bio mom, Nina, just before Willow was slated to marry him. In my book, that makes her an underdog.
Did Willow take her revenge too far by shooting the vile Drew? Of course. But GH cleverly telegraphed that Willow was losing it when she broke into the Quartermaine mansion to mess with Michael and Sasha’s baby so that Sasha would leave town. No one knows for sure she did that (Michael suspects) but it was a good heads-up for viewers that all was not right with angelic Nurse Tait.
After being acquitted (thanks to Alexis even though she knew Willow did it), the newly freed woman jabbed a syringe into Drew’s neck to mimic the symptoms of a stroke. It worked.
Lucas: “Drew suffered a major ischemic stroke affecting his motor and language centers.”
Kai: “What does that mean?”
Willow (starting to cry): “Drew’s stroke was severe. A full recovery is unlikely.”
Elizabeth: “I’m so sorry.”
Willow collapsed in Elizabeth’s arms wailing so loud they could hear her sobbing in Beecher’s Corners. That girl is fully committed to the bit. Do Drew’s despicable actions justify Willow’s actions? Not in a court of law or in a church pew. But based on the reactions around Port Charles, she’s good.
Ava (to Trina): “Don’t worry about Drew. Heaven won’t take him, and hell is full.”
Tracy: “As my late husband Luke used to say, Karma’s a bitch — and it finally came for Drew.”
Even Nina felt she had to remind Willow that she doesn’t actually love Drew after her daughter’s Emmy-worthy sobs at the hospital.
Nina: “You only married him to prove your innocence and get your children back. Don’t turn your sympathy into forgiveness.”
Willow: “I just want to make sure my husband gets the treatment he deserves.”
Mission accomplished, Nurse Ratched!
B&B’s Sheila, on the other hand, does not count as an underdog. You can’t kidnap, shoot, set fire to, and/or murder all the people Sheila has and then be all “boo hoo, my husband’s kids don’t like me.”
Sheila: “Maybe we could have a moment to talk.”
Deke: “About?”
Sheila: “How much your dad and I love each other.”
What? People don’t talk like that — not even people desperate to hang on to their partners. Sheila’s insistence on how “committed” she and Deacon are to each other just makes her look needy and sad, which she should be. She out kicked her coverage on that marriage and is delusional if she ever thought Deacon’s kids were going to be okay with their dad marrying a murderer.
Steffy: “We both know what Sheila is capable of.”
Hope: “That’s exactly why I am trying to get my dad out of this marriage.”
Steffy: “He made his bed and now he has to sleep in it — with Sheila and her eight toes.”
Ha! Kudos to B&B for pivoting Deacon from Y&R slime ball who helped Diane fake her death (while blaming his own wife, Nikki Newman) to upstanding dude who might be worthy of Taylor. After decades of being dissed and cheated on by Ridge, Taylor definitely qualifies as an underdog.
Ditto Eric Forrester, who was also dissed by Ridge. He’s poised for a comeback at Katie’s new company LOGAN, health worries be damned.
Eric: “They pushed me out of my own company and put me out to pasture. This is of their own making. They’re in for the shock of their lives.”
Go get ’em, Eric!
Who is there to root for on DAYS based on current stories? Not Leo, who married the “love of his life” Javi and then kissed Dimitri, which prompted Javi to leave town. Not murderous Kristen, who thinks her equally dangerous child should be released from the loony bin and blames Brady for moving on with Sarah. Not Gwen, who has hurt people we love (Jack, Jennifer, the late Abigail) and only cares about money. Not Cat, who impersonated the late Abigail and also hurt Jack and Jenn besides having a creepy past with EJ. Cat also hurt Chad, who deserved it for believing her preposterous lie that she was his dead wife with plastic surgery and amnesia.
That leaves us with Johnny and Chanel, who are happily expanding their family, and Jack and Jenn, who are trying to protect theirs. To that end, the worried grandparents agreed to meet with a mediator to sort out their custody battle with Chad over Thomas and Charlotte.
Chad (defensive): “What Cat did was cruel but she didn’t do it with malicious intentions. She deserved forgiveness, just like the rest of us deserve forgiveness. Jennifer struggled with an addition to painkillers…”
Jack: “This meeting is over!”
Mediator: “Ms. Deveraux’s addiction is relevant to who is fit to have custody.”
The meeting went downhill from there, rolling through Chad’s lies about never seeing Cat again, Thomas getting hit by a car, Chad’s kidnapping, etc. Jack and Jenn finally agreed the kids could stay with their dad as long as 1) Cat is out of the picture and 2) they have heavy visitation. All good, right? Wrong.
Thomas: “Dad lied about Cat before. How do we know he won’t do it again?”
Advantage: Thomas.
On BTG, Shanice is a classic underdog, working her shifts at the hospital while sassing the people who need sassing but never letting herself think romance might come for her. In rode Ted to treat her to a fancy dinner at the club.
Shanice (looking at the menu): “Hooey, these prices! I feel like Cinderella.”
Ted: “And that’s a bad thing?”
Shanice: “Normally, no. But my Prince Charming just finalized a divorce. Once I’ve helped you get your groove again, I could go back to pumpkins and price tags.”
Ted: “You’re much more than a rebound. You’ve pulled joy back into my life. You’re right to be guarded; my life is messy. But I’m the Cinderella.”
Aw… The rich doctor shining his light on the less affluent nurse is a soap staple, complicated here by Shanice’s boss, Nicole, being Ted’s ex-wife. The wrinkle of Ted’s long-ago lover Leslie also looms large, but Shanice holds her own against that nutbag.
Leslie: “Keep your claws out of what’s mine.”
Shanice: “You may be Ted’s baby mama, but that was decades ago. Leave, before I have security escort you to the psych ward.”
Where she belongs!
Billy Abbott was fired from Chancellor by his own mother, but the Y&R scion is getting a second chance thanks to Cane’s takeover of Newman Enterprises and its subsidiaries. Billy’s loved ones think it’s a bad idea because he’s making a go of his new company, Abbott Communications, with Sally, and revenge never works out for Billy.
Jack: “This is about proving your mother wrong. You’re still stinging about Jill’s betrayal.”
Billy: “I don’t care about that right now. Cane is trying to make up for past mistakes.”
Jack: “You’re more focused on proving people wrong than doing what is right. Do the right thing.”
For Jack, that meant saying no to the Chancellor job, which he thinks rightfully belongs to Nikki (who has been running the company well since Victor took it over). Billy, of course, took the gig. In the end, this story comes down to real people with real feelings trying to indeed do the right thing.
Nick: “How you doing?”
Nikki: “Not great. Every day at Chancellor has been like spending the day with Katherine. I hate that I’ve let her down.”
Fight, Nikki, fight!
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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