Opinion: From General Hospital to Y&R, Soaps Need to Play the Beats For Stories to Pay Off
For soap storylines to grab our attention and pay off our investment, it’s so important to actually play the beats. General Hospital scored with Charlotte’s exit but not with Sonny’s frame-up, Beyond the Gates hurried the big Hayley reveal, and The Bold and the Beautiful missed big moments with Steffy’s pregnancy. But The Young and the Restless is taking their time with Billy and Sally’s wedding; ditto Days of Our Lives with Johnny’s revenge.
Charlotte’s Web
GH carefully plotted Charlotte’s increasingly reckless behavior until she got banished to boarding school. Breaking into Wyndemere and going on joy rides with Danny in stolen cars and boats led to her hiding in Drew’s car intending to frame the former congressman for sexual misconduct. That escapade achieved the impossible: Uniting her parents in the decision to send her away.
Charlotte: “It wasn’t dangerous! I was going to make it look compromising and then get out.”
Lulu: “What if Drew liked it? What if he kissed you, or wanted to have sex? Drew could have easily sexually assaulted you or killed you. The fact that none of this crossed your mind proves you need way more supervision than either your dad or I are capable of.”
Facts. The months-long arc was a clever and believable way to temporarily boot Charlotte (because her portrayer, Bluesy Burke, is attending college) while also propelling Lulu and Valentin forward and creating drama for Danny with Rocco, Scout and Jason — with Carly in the mix, of course.
Less effective is the “Sonny is bad!” story, which went from zero to 100 in a week. Drew and Ava convinced Sonny’s loyal staff (off screen) to turn on him and harm Sidwell? And the whole town believes Sonny would want credit for the crime? No.
Also curious are the stop-and-start stories with newbies. Trina’s stalker first appeared on July 22 and… nothing. We met Tristan on July 13, Simon on July 15, Hudson on July 30, and… nothing. Monet showed up out of the blue as Chase’s lawyer from Miller & Davis without having shared any scenes with (Diane) Miller or (Alexis) Davis, even as I write this. Monet was such a bitch to Jordan about her facial scars that she prompted her sister to get surgery which just makes her mean.
Can we call a moratorium on newcomers until we know who the current ones are and why we should care about them? Tristan is on the right track, doing a slow build with (his mom?) Anna. Let’s have more of that.
Record Scratch
BTG came roaring out of the gate when Hayley finally got busted, but it would have been much more soapy if they had dragged out her exposure. After 18 months of watching Hayley poison the clueless Bill, this all happened in one week: Dani got suspicious, convinced Naomi to give her the code to Bill’s house, broke in, got interrupted by Hayley who pulled a gun, got saved by Naomi and Jacob, watched Hayley get arrested, convinced Bill she was right, and came to the police station with Bill to watch Hayley get carted away. Then Hayley turned the tables in one episode.
Dani: “Why would you give Hayley a pass? Make it make sense.”
Bill: “I will. But you’re not going to like what you hear.”
Hayley secretly recorded Bill, Vernon, et al admitting to crimes that implicate Joey Armstrong and the Duprees so, no, Dani didn’t like it. But she did understand it. As word spreads through Fairmont Crest that the “rancid gold digger” isn’t going to pay, knives will be out. Just do it s-l-o-w-l-y!
Wedding Zinger
Soaps usually miss the boat on weddings because they don’t play the drama in the lead-up. So kudos to Y&R for giving us solid hijinks as Billy and Sally planned their nuptials, starting with Sally impulsively asking Chelsea to be a bridesmaid after they shared one nice moment (friends much?). That led to snark from Audra about the bachelorette party because how dare Chelsea think she could have a say? Inviting Jill was another bone of contention.
Sally: “She’s your mother!”
Billy: “Maybe I’ll cut the cord once and for all.”
Sally: “I want her there. Spectra/Charles wouldn’t exist without her, and she’s going to be grandmother to our child.”
Sally won that round. Billy later quipped that he wanted Sally to have the baby at the wedding so they could wrap everything up in one day. That led to a hilarious discussion of baby names — another topic soaps often skip over — with Sally suggesting “Electra Spectra” and the duo trading “B” names.
Billy: “Benjamin Spectra sounds like a pharmaceutical company with a long list of warnings.”
Sally: “Well, Bettina Abbott sounds like someone headlining an English musical.”
Abby then brought over a tray of pink and blue cupcakes and it came to them. “Cupcake Abbott!” shouted Billy.
If the preamble is any indication, that wedding is going to be fun.
Johnny Come Lately
Give DAYS credit for playing solid scenes re: Joy’s fake paralysis but there’s little rooting value for a schemer hoodwinking Alex, Stephanie, and every doctor at University Hospital for months. The beats don’t matter if the story doesn’t.
Better is the trail of Johnny turning on EJ, which began when he overheard Roman call his father a rapist in early 2025. Johnny’s slow realization that EJ covered up the contaminated Coriseal (and is probably behind Destiny’s death and the lawsuit against Sarah) caused him to come clean to his former stepfather, aka the police commissioner.
Johnny: “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Harder than having his eyeball removed when he got diagnosed with eye cancer in 2010? I digress.
Johnny: “You know the allegations against DiMera Enterprises? They’re all true. You always made me think about what my actions say about me as a man. This decision is right because you taught me that it was.”
Rafe: “I’m proud of you.”
Rafe promised to support his former stepson through his legal troubles which could cost him his father. Johnny shrugged, reminding Rafe that EJ’s playbook will always be “Deny, deflect, blame someone else.”
Sounds familiar.
Baby Doom
B&B doesn’t play traditional beats that move a story forward. Instead, they drop a story point and then repeat it for weeks.
Steffy told Carter she was pregnant on Sept. 11 (after their drunk minute on the office couch) and it’s been a month of Carter badgering her to lie that the pregnancy is actually Steffy agreeing to be the surrogate for him and Daphne. Steffy repeated it’s crazy, insane, won’t work, over and over. Carter responded she had to agree or it would destroy both their marriages and, by the way, he really wants a child. This dialogue is from one episode:
Carter: “The baby inside you is growing. We have to do this now. The baby is coming. We have to do this now. It has to be now. The clock is ticking. We don’t have time. We have to do it for your marriage and mine, for the innocent child growing inside of you. Today’s the day. Let’s tell Daphne you’re carrying our baby.”
And he did. Why would bossy CEO Steffy Forrester allow her employee Carter to back her into a corner like that? And why is B&B skipping so many juicy moments of this insanity? Imagine Steffy sneaking off to confirm her pregnancy with a doctor, Sheila overhearing, Ridge and Brooke getting suspicious that she’s never in the office (and neither is Carter), Finn catching Steffy googling “surrogacy,” and the ultimate soapy twist: Hope learning her nemesis got knocked up by her ex-fiancé.
This story should have been so much more than Steffy and Carter arguing alone in a house. Blow it up and grab us!
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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