Opinion: Soap Battles are Brewing on GH, Y&R and BTG, but DAYS and B&B Need More Heat
General Hospital‘s Willow, The Young and the Restless‘ Billy, and Beyond the Gates‘ Hayley can’t resist poking the bear, which spells big trouble ahead. But The Bold and the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives are missing the mark with less believable confrontations.
Turning The Tables
The best way to facilitate confrontation is to put exes and enemies in close proximity. GH achieved that beautifully by having Michael blackmail Willow into moving to the Q gatehouse. Willow can now spar with Tracy and Brook Lynn, annoy Olivia, bat her eyes at her puppy dog ex Chase, and battle Michael.
Willow (to Nina): “You warned me not to escalate. I was so stupid. If I hadn’t pushed so hard, maybe Kai and Trina wouldn’t have gotten involved.”
Ding, dong! In came Kai with a resignation letter and a sudden spine.
Kai: “I get that Drew is a jerk, but shooting him? I sat on this for months, but then you tried to take Michael’s kids away. I’m done.”
Willow: “Walking away unscathed won’t be as simple as you think.”
Kai: “Watch me.”
We waited for that convo for over six months, and it delivered. Ditto the clash between Josslyn and Britt, brought together because of their relationships to Jason.
Joss: “You knew Cassius was pretending to be Nathan and you said nothing. And then you told him I’m WSB.”
Britt: “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
Joss: “No, it’s what you did to me.”
Bingo. The premise that Britt did all those horrible things because she was being blackmailed by Cullum doesn’t fly because every move Britt made was to save herself. She didn’t care who she hurt along the way (Liesl, Lucas, Rocco, Joss), which makes it hard to see why Jason would still want to be with her — as Joss pointed out.
Joss (to Jason): “Give her time. She’s going to sell you out the same way she did me.”
Britt defended herself by saying she didn’t think Cassius would take it that far, she thought she was dying, blah blah, and vowed this was the end of her lies.
Jason: “Good. I want this. I want us.”
Not badly enough to kiss her, though. Britt got a chaste hug, but at least Josslyn got closure.
My personal favorite smackdown was Carly and Valentin schooling Lulu about her obnoxious behavior and bad mothering. Lulu tracked Charlotte on a boat with Danny and stormed over to Carly’s to confront her ex about not properly supervising their daughter.
Lulu: “It’s dark outside!”
Valentin: “That happens at nighttime.”
The duo didn’t take any of Lulu’s nonsense about the “danger” Charlotte was in, and turned the tables by telling her to take up pickleball or, better yet, start dating.
Carly: “You have nothing going on in your life except chasing after your children. It’s pushing them away.”
Charlotte being out after dark is actually the least of Lulu’s worries since we know the teen is currently helping Danny blackmail Drew.
Danny (listing Drew’s crimes): “He slept with Willow when she was married to Michael. He slept with Willow’s mom. And then he got caught getting high with a hooker.”
Charlotte: “Gross.”
With Dark Charlotte on the case, there’s definitely trouble on the horizon.
Bill Of Goods
BTG’s Bill Hamilton is slowly catching on to his new wife’s machinations, thanks to the friends and family of his ex-wife. Checking Bill into the hospital made him a captive audience to a revolving door of Duprees, starting with his former father-in-law.
Vernon: “We all want you well, especially Hayley, I’m sure.”
Bill: “Why you bringing up Hayley? Whatever you heard about Hayley running around with some other guy is wrong.”
Au contraire, needled Vernon. Hayley can sense that Bill’s attention has shifted back to Dani, which is why Hayley is hanging out with Randy. (Little do they know that Randy is Hayley’s cousin helping her poison Bill.) Bill insisted he and Hayley were fine.
Vernon: “Cut the crap. You already told me you regret leaving my daughter. You trying to rekindle something?”
Bill said no, but the answer is yes. His black widow bride later crawled into bed with him, which set off the alarms on his heart monitor. That prompted another skirmish when nurse Ashley had to bust in and order them to keep things G-rated. Hayley got in her face, Bill insisted he was a healthy “grown-ass man” (despite being literally dead a week ago), and Ashley called security to have Hayley removed.
Score one for the good guys.
Regrets, They Have A Few
B&B upended two marriages so Steffy and Carter could have a drunken sex romp on the office couch. But a plot out of the blue isn’t effective when the characters have never shown any interest in each other and share no chemistry — never mind the unlikelihood of Steffy sleeping with another of her hated rival Hope’s exes.
Steffy (in the non-afterglow): “Oh my God, we shouldn’t have done this. Where’s my phone? Finn texted me a million times!”
Carter: “We need to talk about this.”
Steffy: “No talking. I need to get out of here.”
Daphne returned to Carter, claiming she made a mistake leaving him. Finn came home begging Steffy for another chance. Steffy and Carter recapped, and she decided she wanted to tell all.
Carter: “You can’t say a word to Finn. It was one stupid, drunken night.”
Ridge (entering): “What’s going on?”
Ridge finding out and keeping it from Brooke could save this. But this story would have been so much more soapy if Steffy and Carter had shown one drop of interest in each other during the decades they worked together.
Cue Steffy being pregnant with the baby Carter couldn’t conceive with Daphne in 5-4-3…
Not Bloody Likely
Rafe vs. Gwen’s jailhouse scenes on DAYS could have been gangbusters, but her repetitive use of the word bloody just made them annoying. Gwen referred to the “bloody plane,” being a “right bloody mess,” not going “bloody sightseeing,” having been kidnapped by her “ex bloody husband,” and wary of “all the bloody horrific things EJ has done” in one single episode. We get it. She’s British. Stop it.
Rafe opened an interesting door by saying they’d give Gwen immunity if she would rat out EJ, teasing us with the prospect of those exes going at each other.
Jada: “Belle would jump at the chance to put EJ behind bars.”
Make it happen! Better is the battle between the DiMera cousins since Theo learned Lexie had been slowly dying in the basement and no one told him.
Johnny: “How’s your mom?”
Theo: “If you actually cared, she’d have been in the hospital long before now.”
Johnny: “I only found out a few hours ago.”
Another DiMera rivalry works, too.
A Chance For Billy
You can always count on Y&R’s Billy Abbott to stir the pot until it boils. His dramatic effort to find the mysterious benefactor who saved Chancellor Industries from bankruptcy led him to his own father, which means the Abbotts are the rightful owners of Chancellor.
Billy: “I am going to run this company and enjoy every minute of it.”
Jack: “You are deluding yourself.”
Billy (snarky): “Thanks for the support, as always.”
Jack shared the surprising news with his siblings, saying he doesn’t think it’s worth suing Lily for the company. They agreed, but know Billy can’t be stopped.
Ashley: “The bloodbath begins.”
Indeed. A smug Billy went right to Cane and Lily, bragging he has the documents to prove ownership and they should clear out their offices. Fat chance, they responded. Things got so nasty that Lily went to Jack with a side proposal: Chancellor will pay back John Abbott’s loan with interest, and she will keep the company. Hmm, responded Jack.
But Billy wasn’t done. He topped off the week by getting in Victor’s face, which The Mustache did not appreciate.
Victor: “You will not put your grubby little hands on Katherine’s legacy. I will destroy you first.”
Can you spell B-A-T-T-L-E?!
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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