In Tuesday's episode of Passions, Chad's secret lover was finally revealed. Just as I'd predicted at the beginning of the month, it was Vincent, the African American tabloid reporter. Like I said at the time, though, Reilly's writing is so awful that it was blatantly obvious who the mystery lover would be.
Anyway, Chad received a DVD from his scorned lover today that showed the two of them in bed together (no kiss, but two shirtless men rolling around in bed together is a first of its own on daytime, I suppose, and it did look like Vincent moved in for a kiss and Chad pulled away, which could be in character for him). Vincent feels that Chad is in love with him and lying to himself about it, so he's planning on showing Chad's wife the proof of their affair so she'll set him free and Chad will come back to him.
Which makes the kind of sense that doesn't, but that's Reilly for you. And of course, they waited to make the big reveal AFTER Chad had dumped Vincent, so that there was no risk of us seeing them having any kind of intimate scene together, beyond today's brief DVD view.
We'll have to see where this story goes, but my expectations remain very low.
Meanwhile, over on As The World Turns, there still hasn't been any development with the Luke storyline. He was on last Friday's episode, but just to lend an ear to his cousin Jade. They did briefly talk about how he's never had anyone in his life, romantically speaking. Hopefully that's foreshadowing something to come soon, but when Jade told him that he'd meet someone he said "Not in high school." Since he's still in high school on the show through next June, I really hope he's wrong about that!
Luke hasn't had a story of his own since the beginning of September, which means it's already been six long months. To make him- and us- wait at least another three is ridiculous. The powers that be told AfterElton.Com that Luke would be getting a boyfriend this spring, but it's almost March and there has been no announcement on the casting of this potential boyfriend. Unless they plan to get Luke involved with someone already on the show, it looks like the wait will continue.
It's incredibly irritating when you think about the fact that all of the straight characters in Luke's age group were quickly given love interests. The head writer, Jean Passanante, explains away Luke's lack of story by saying that these things are cyclical and that characters move back and forth from the front burner to the back burner. Yeah, they should, but guess what? They don't. Once upon a time, soaps knew how to balance their characters so they could tell several stories involving multiple characters all at once. They'd have A stories and B stories happening simultaneously and characters really did spend time on both burners. But that's just not true any longer.
Passanante is full of it if she really thinks we'll buy that cyclical excuse. I've been watching ATWT regularly since July of 2005 and not once have the characters of Paul, Emily, Dusty, Meg, Katie, Will, Gwen, Jack, Carly (until recently when the actress left for maternity leave), Casey or Maddie been on the back burner during that time. Not once. They move from one story (or relationship) straight into the next. The end result is that we quickly get sick of seeing these sames characters day after day after day while other characters, like Luke and anyone who's been with the show for more than a decade, languish on the sidelines with no story of their own.
It's ridiculous and it's a big part of what is killing soaps today. So, Passanante can try and sell her 'cyclical' line as soon as she backburners Paul or Emily for six months to give Luke a storyline.
As the World Turns is in dire need of a new blood in the writing department, folks. I fear a change could eliminate any possibility for a positive Luke storyline, but then again, what has Passanante done for the character since he came out? Nothing. And while she's been doing nothing, the quality of the show has gone vastly downhill. It's a very boring show at the moment, which is a pity because they have an incredibly strong cast.
Now for All My Children. Remember my last post, when I was sickened by J.R.'s reaction to finding a badly beaten Zoe in the cemetery? I figured the show would try and play it off as J.R. not realizing that Zoe was beaten but just thinking she was drunk.
Well, I was wrong. They didn't try and play it off, instead they wrote J.R. as fully aware of what he'd done and completely unapologetic about it. Which, in my opinion, makes the character of J.R. completely irredeemable.
Bianca found Zoe in the cemetery the morning after, luckily still alive, and got her to a hospital, where Derek, the Chief of Police, dismissed the attack as 'just' a hate crime, since Zoe was wearing a dress at the time of the attack, and refused to take seriously the idea that Zoe had been attacked by the serial killer.
This lead to a pretty good scene between Derek, who is African American, and Bianca:
Bianca: "Some random beating"? Derek, how can you possibly be so blasé about this? I -- I mean, you must know what it feels like to be targeted because of who you are? Your nephew, Terrence, was viciously attacked because of the color of his skin. Why are you not jumping at the chance to fight this kind of discrimination?
Derek: I will always fight against discrimination, but I was born black. My ancestors were born black. Zoe chose to put on a dress and flaunt her sexual issues to the world.
Bianca: I did not choose to be gay any more than you chose to be black any more than Zoe chose to be transgendered.
Derek: Well, in both cases, you can choose not to show everybody.
Bianca: Oh, I see. So you're saying that Zoe should pass as a big, butch guy, and I should pass as straight, and the law shouldn't be expected to protect people from going out into the world as themselves?
Derek: No, of course not.
Bianca: Zoe has been hiding who she is for her whole life. She's finally starting to embrace it. Yes, yes, she was wearing a dress last night, because that's what feels right to her.
Derek: Well, your rock star friend should've known that putting on a dress and strolling through a cemetery late at night was going to make --
Bianca: Was going to what -- provoke a beating?
Derek: No -- make her a target.
Bianca: Are you saying she asked for it? Did I ask to be raped?
It also touched upon the belief that somehow victims of hate crimes are 'asking for it' simply by being who they are, which is different from 'the norm'. There seem to be far too many people who are of the opinion that it's fine to be 'different' in private, but that if you 'flaunt' your lifestyle in public, you're fair game. Sadly, many of them are in positions of power when it comes to investigating or prosecuting hate crimes, and I thought this scene touched on all of that very nicely.
Once Bianca found out that J.R. had found Zoe the night before and done nothing to help her, she rushed off to confront him. Oddly enough, no one mentioned anything about J.R. being in trouble with the authorities for his failure to act. Isn't failing to call for help or report a crime in and of itself a crime? I'm not sure of the legalities here, but it seems to me that the police wouldn't just look the other way in that situation. Yet, of course, they did because this is a soap opera and no one but Bianca seems to think J.R. did anything that bad!
Both J.R. and his father Adam were true to form when Bianca showed up to confront J.R. over his actions. Both, assuming the attack was a hate crime, blame Zoe.
J.R.: Zoe was drunk, and if she hit on some straight guy looking like that, got herself pounded, it's not my fault.
Adam: A man has to learn to take care of himself, especially if he's wearing lipstick.
Bianca: She was lying on the ground bleeding, and you ditched her.
Adam: Why do you care so much about Zoe?
Bianca: This isn't about me, ok?
Adam: Zoe got herself into this mess.
Bianca: Are you saying that she was asking for it? Are you actually going to say that to me? You know, whatever you think of Zoe, Babe really cared about her.
J.R.: That doesn't mean that I have to save the guy if he does something stupid.
I can't help but think of Andrew Athos, the 72 year old man who was beaten to death last week because he was gay, and of countless others who have been attacked and killed for being different. By letting J.R. get away with what he said and did with no further repercussions than an angry visit from Bianca, it feels like they're validating his point of view, which is that Zoe was asking for it.
This is coming from a leading character on the show that viewers are supposed to care about and root for, even though he's written as a troubled bad boy.
I really am disturbed by this. I think it's an insult to the victims of actual hate crimes. Perhaps AMC thinks it's okay since Zoe wasn't really a hate crime victim, but if they do they're sorely mistaken. J.R.'s actions and statements after the fact came from his belief that the crime had been a result of Zoe's transgendered status.
I'm interested in following Zoe's story, but I honestly don't know that I can after this. I'm hoping against hope that more will come of J.R.'s actions, but I feel physically disgusted by what I saw on this show last week and it's hard to get beyond that and keep tuning in.
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