Y&R opinion for November 21-25.
My advice to the show: Make the audience care about your characters by actually writing on-screen stories for them.
How to make Daniel’s return soapier
I love that Daniel’s back. It’s just in time for Billy and Lily’s relationship to finally implode and seeing as I’m here for the drama, I say if that’s where it’s going, at least let it be soapy!
Daniel says that Heather and Lucy moved to Portugal due to her new job. It’s more likely that they broke up.
If this was a soap opera Tucker would be blackmailing Daniel into helping him with his quest to take over Chancellor-Winters.
That is if he wants to ever see Heather and Lucy again. Dun dun dun!
But we can’t have nice things, so I assume they grew apart, which is why she elected to leave the country without him.
If that’s the case, shouldn’t he be unhappy with letting his wife take their kid to another country? I’m ahead of myself. We’ll wait to see how that plays out.
I loved Lily and Daniel’s walk down memory lane but why on earth were there no flashbacks?
Considering neither of these two has been recast, it was a prime opportunity to further connect these two and connect the audience to them, especially newer viewers who didn’t watch back then.
I found it weird that Daniel didn’t call Phyllis to tell her he was back in town but instead, met her by chance at Glam Club.
My guess is that it’s because Phyllis no longer has a home or a hotel for him to find her at. But the reunion was a highlight for me.
Phyllis is so alive and expressive. I felt everything.
Tucker promises drama
Speaking of Tucker, I like him. I like that he doesn’t give a shit. I like that he hangs out in socking feet when no other soap character has done so since I’ve watched.
I like that he is the promise of potential drama, but so far, I haven’t seen him do anything.
I hope this changes and that he’s not just another Ashland Locke where they tease that he’ll be so ruthless and winds up a pussy cat.
What I find silly is that a billionaire resides at Grand Phoenix when GCAC was so much more elegant.
And why? Because Devon owns it. Lame.
A man of his obvious discerning taste in scotch should look at this room the way I do. With disdain.
He should have had his decorator take everything out, put it into storage, and then redecorated it.
Dig that hole deeper, Adam
July was the last time I wrote a Y&R column. I haven’t had much to say about the show that wasn’t already said. Back in July, I was disgusted with Adam’s behaviour toward Sally.
That hasn’t changed. I can’t believe it’s been five months of this.
It turned out that in the October column, Minx shared my thoughts on Nick and Sally being cringey together but liked Adam with Sally.
Not everyone agrees and there’s room for all of our opinions.
Disclaimer, I still believe Sally and Adam are the better couple.
I still don’t see much chemistry between Nick and Sally. He’s the safe brother.
But I’m not sure how they’ll dig Adam out of the hole he’s created for himself.
He’s now insulting Sally, basically telling her that she can’t make her own decisions, that she’s only with his brother to get over him, and that Nick is only in it for the sex.
So what he’s saying is that there is no way Nick would want her for more than a romp.
He’s being a dick. There are no two ways about it.
It’s obvious that he’s hurt and lashing out. Spinning out. Though I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean what he said, he said it. Aloud.
It was hurtful and only succeeded at pushing her further away from him and likely further into his brother’s arms. Big dummy!
I’m trying hard not to judge Nick for going after the woman his brother loves, but it’s a losing battle.
If they weren’t in love I’d be over it by now. Nick’s taking a big risk being with a woman who is in love with another man, no matter who it is.
Most viewers thought they were going for a Nick and Sharon reunion.
Maybe that’s still coming if Chance doesn’t spend too much time at Crimson Lights.
I have no real interest in a Shick reunion. I’d prefer if Nick and Phyllis reunited, but I don’t see that being in the cards.
Adam asked Sally to marry him in the same non-romantic way he asked Sharon to marry him 3 years ago.
It was a turn-off. It’d be soapier if he finally took revenge. The way he used to.
He should be trying to get her back not by whining but by at least making himself more attractive to her.
He knows that she’s attracted to ambition. That’s how they fell in love.
Billy Boy Abbott
What to say about Billy? I like Billy. I like all of the characters to some degree, probably except for the ones without a personality.
Like Noah or Allie for example. Yeah, I went there. I watch for the ensemble, not one specific character.
I like Billy because he’s a messy character. Sometimes that translates as being annoying, but since the show is a shell of its former soapy glory, I gravitate toward the messiest.
Billy seems obsessed with Chelsea. Obsessed with her messiness, with wanting to save her.
He’s an addict. It’s like trading gambling for saving a damsel in distress.
He’s almost 50 but still hasn’t gotten it together. It’s one of the few things that translate to any drama so I’m here for it.
It makes it easier when recapping daily for me to enjoy when someone’s doing something boneheaded.
And Chelsea eats it up because maybe she needs a man in her life to validate her existence.
That it’s causing issues between Lily and Billy is good and soapy to me. I’m curious about where this is going. Will he wind up with Chelsea?
Will she and Daniel reunite? Will someone cheat?
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Eeyore has something else to whine about
The current regime is fond of stories that happen offscreen and then we never even get flashbacks to them.
It makes it impossible to connect to the story and sometimes to the characters, no matter how much we want to.
Noah’s reentrance into Genoa City had him depressed, Eeyoring around town with that low energy that had me begging the show to give him a Red Bull.
Now, the character is going on recurring. I’m fine with this, but it’s a shame that they brought this actor in and he wasn’t challenged.
It’s a shame that the story was about him being depressed for no reason that we knew about for almost the entire year and that he finally opened up about a month ago when he talked about being in a toxic relationship that ended.
The story of the miscarriage — again, that happened off-screen wasn’t necessary.
Why the hell would we care about a “possible” miscarriage from a supposed toxic pairing that happened offscreen?
Had their story actually aired, we might care. We might be crying along with him.
If this was a soap, Audra would have told him about the miscarriage as soon as it happened.
Why wait? If this is an attempt to get him back, the timing is really terrible. And since this show isn’t that dramatic, I truly don’t even think she is making an attempt.
This picture below holds the promise of a bad girl but this writing regime has only ever shown us the opposite.
I’m not sure why Noah even cared, to be frank. He cared enough to cry, which truly surprised me.
Sharon’s teary reaction also really surprised me.
I didn’t feel a damned thing.
Since I’m not a man, I asked eight of my male friends their thoughts on this story.
This is what they agreed upon:
Noah might have been angry with her that she didn’t tell him for an entire year about the miscarriage.
My friends wondered why he wasn’t angry and thought possibly it was because he felt like he dodged a bullet since Audra was so toxic and he wouldn’t want to raise a child with someone like her.
At the end of the day, they thought it came down to how much he cared about her.
We haven’t seen their relationship, and we haven’t had flashbacks, outside of that one weird audio flashback. So who knows?
We shouldn’t have to ask these questions. The story should be well thought out enough to anticipate audience questions.
Tessa and Mariah
It’s been a month since Mariah and Tessa were happy to learn from Christine that a young woman was looking to give her baby up for adoption. A month.
This week, Sharon asked if they’d heard news.
They did but it was off-screen. Just like this entire storyline.
Why bother giving Teriah a big storyline about adoption if you’re not going to air it?
Why couldn’t we have seen them meet the girl, and get excited about adopting her baby before their dreams were crushed?
This is what makes viewers care about the characters.
We didn’t even get to watch them at the Tack House on the call with Christine and see the aftermath of them crying on each other’s shoulders over the loss.
Sharon cried over Noah’s toxic ex-girlfriend’s so-called miscarriage from a fricken year ago but she didn’t cry when Mariah told her that the adoption didn’t go through?
What that tells me is that the show doesn’t view this lesbian couple to be as worthy of tears as the straight, handsome yet boring son, Eeyore.
Thanksgiving
It was nice seeing the Abbott dining room. I liked the family being together again. It was a sweet scene.
Harrison stole the show, but if he had left the Abbott table, Ashley could have smashed my Diane’s face into the mashed potatoes.
Jack would have had to hold her back. Traci would be wiping potatoes off of her sweater and Kyle would be shouting at his aunt to contain herself.
Then we’d have had the best of both worlds. Sweet and salty!
