Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
Career Path: The corporate shenanigans of Y&R’s (from l.) Devon (Bryton James), Nate (Sean Dominic) and Lily (Christel Khalil) could use a boost of drama.
Family fights on soaps are usually believable. What they fight over, however, doesn’t always ring true.
It doesn’t make sense that Y&R’s Kyle and Diane would have these ho-hum battles over their jobs at Jabot when what Kyle should be mad about is his mother abandoning him as a child. He’s been needling her more lately, so maybe a showdown is coming.
Diane (re: Jack’s OD): “Jack overreacted because he had to be Nikki’s hero.”
Kyle: “I wonder how much of this anger is coming from jealousy?”
Ooh, good one. Diane is a loathsome character who never paid for faking her death or any of her crimes, so a comeuppance is long overdue. She wants sympathy from Kyle because “Boohoo Jack helped Nikki!” but Kyle is all good for hiim.
Diane: “For months you have been disagreeing with everything I say. It’s bad enough you do it at Jabot, but now you’re bringing it home.”
Kyle: “You’re sounding paranoid.”
She’s right, though. I have no problem with Kyle undermining Diane at work but I wish they’d address the real issue and give us a big blow-up re: Kyle growing up without his mom.
Siblings Lily and Devon are always entertaining but the endless Chancellor-Winters bored, er, board meetings are not.
Abby (re: a secret meeting): “Do you really think it’s fair to pull this off behind Billy’s back?”
Devon: “Billy was given power behind our backs, so this is on them.”
Jill (dialing in): “Oh for God’s sake, what now?”
Exactly. Billy throwing his weight around C-W is nothing new after watching him do it at Jabot for years. The executive round-robin at C-W and Jabot and every other Y&R company is only interesting when it impacts good story. Daniel and Phyllis joining/leaving Omega Sphere, Nate fighting his way up the ladder at C-W, Tucker and Audra battling over Glissade — jobs change so often it doesn’t mean anything.
What does mean something is when Devon turns to Jack for advice about Billy wanting to add “Abbott” to Chancellor-Winters. That combines the Abbott brothers’ fraught history with Lily and Devon’s struggle to work with Jack’s brother.
Devon: “It’s not fun. Billy thrives on conflict.”
Jack: “Think of what Neil would do. That is your best step forward.”
Counseling Devon to listen to his late father was the most believable (and touching) part of that story.
Elsewhere, there’s an explosion coming at the Newmans, and it’s going to be a doozy. What would you do if your dad/grandad/husband locked your enemy in a cage in the basement? Luckily for Victor there are no cops left in Genoa City.
The threat of incarceration hangs over a lot of DAYS characters. Sloan’s goose is cooked now that EJ knows she kidnapped Nicole’s baby and passed him off as her own.
EJ: “How did you pull this off? I assume you had help.”
Sloan: “No, it was all me.”
Drunk Leo would like a word… Who are we supposed to root for when everyone involved in a secret is horrible?
EJ: “My wife is mourning a child she thinks is dead who is being mothered by an amoral kidnapper.”
Sloan: “Your wife will dump you and never look back. Keep quiet and everybody wins.”
Except Nicole and Eric (and viewers). Nicole is the heart of that story, but rather than have her believably pine for her lost child, she’s battling her recently aged teenage daughter. Talk about setting a bad example: Holly almost died from a drug overdose so Nicole dealt with Holly’s harsh words by getting drunk. Eric found Nicole and drove her home, so she kissed him — which EJ saw.
EJ (sarcastic): “Chivalry is not dead. Thank you for coming to my wife’s rescue.”
Nicole: “I’m so embarrassed. I was just so hurt by what Holly said to me.”
Eric and Nicole suddenly working together at the paper and her kissing him while drunk better lead straight to that baby reveal. Enough with the red herrings.
But count me in for Maggie’s revenge! John, Marlena and Patch teaming up with Maggie to vanquish Konstantin (by getting him to commit a crime) is the logical end of the convoluted tale DAYS started with Victor’s death.
Maggie: “I hate to impose, but I have a favor. I intend to create a charitable trust in Victor’s honor. I would like to put you in charge of distributing the funds to the causes that meant the most to Victor.”
Konstantin: “It would be my honor.”
The Kiriakis family will be upended by the reveal of the Kon man’s lies but the jockeying among Victor’s rightful heirs will be fun — and you can’t say families fighting over money isn’t believable.
Ditto the wedding drama in the lead-up to Brook Lynn’s wedding on GH. After all the battles over the dress, venue, wedding party, rehearsal dinner, etc., Tracy and Brook Lynn shared a poignant moment when Tracy gave Lila’s bracelet to her granddaughter.
Tracy: “While you are a colossal pain in the ass…”
BL: “… right back at ya!”
Tracy: “I adore you.”
True to form! Less believable was the attendance of recently returned hitman Jason Morgan — who barely knows the bride and groom — under the guise of family.
Jason: “Hi. I am randomly representing my mother Monica at the wedding of her great niece Brook Lynn so I am going to have a meaningful hug with Spinelli and a snarky chat with Anna instead of a dramatic moment with the mothers of both of my children who are both here and which fans have been waiting for since 2021.”
Okay I made that up, but you get my drift. How were there not 900 interactions between Jason, Liz and Sam?
That said, Olivia’s fear that someone in her family would make trouble was very real.
Anna: “Olivia!”
Olivia: “Who’s under arrest?”
Anna: “No one. I just wanted to say it was a great party.”
Olivia: “Thank God. It’s always good when a wedding is over and no one is in custody.”
Ned: “I’m just glad when the wedding happens at all.”
Wink! As cute as that moment was, they spoke too soon: Olivia’s ex Sonny beat Dex to a pulp. Jason grabbed him, Kristina saw it, and was horrified.
Sonny: “Dex and Jason turned on me…”
Kristina: “Don’t!”
Writing Kristina shocked that her dad is violent makes no sense because we watched her beg Sonny not to kill Ethan after Ethan beat her up. Rewriting history so Kristina could have a pregnancy scare rang false. This did not:
Kristina (to Dex): “I will testify on your behalf against my father.”
Now that’s family drama. So was good cop Dante confronting Sonny about pummeling Dex and getting lied to that Sonny was defending himself.
Dante: “I’m done carrying water for you. I’m not going to defend you from the life you’ve made for yourself.”
Which one of Sonny’s “loving” family members is going to check his meds?!
On to the family drama on B&B which, while sometimes fun to watch, is based on absolute nonsense. There is no universe where Sheila Carter shoots her son and his wife, leaves them for dead in a dark alley, and gets redeemed. No “saving” Kelly in the ocean, no getting tied up by lookalike Sugar to make Sheila a victim, no love of a good man (Deacon? Ha!), nothing undoes that. The show seems to know it and yet they keep propping up poor, misunderstood Sheila.
Sheila: “I don’t think Steffy is ever going to think I am worthy of my son’s love.”
You left him to die, so no.
Steffy speaks for all of us.
Steffy: “Stop with the biological mom card! It’s ridiculous. I gave Finn an ultimatum: You or me. Guess who he chose? Me and his son.”
Sheila: “Why can’t he have us both?”
Because you’re a murderer. In real life, killers (hopefully) go to jail. On B&B, this one is planning a wedding and asking the son she shot to stand up for her.
Deacon: “You could be Sheila’s maid of honor. Finn could be my best man.”
Hope: “You cannot be serious.”
Deacon: “I want my extremely persuasive daughter to convince Finn to stand up for me. We want our kids at the altar.”
Sheila has four other kids! Invite Mary, Daisy, Ryder and Diana to this shindig and reveal that Diana has the same bio dad as Steffy’s father Ridge (Massimo Marone) — which means Sheila’s daughter Diana is also Steffy’s biological aunt.
That’s what I mean by boffo family drama.
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
