I Just Tripped and Fell Against Your Lips!

Luke was on As The World Turns again today, making that three days in a row this week and last week. We're in danger of starting to believe that Luke & Noah (who wasn't on today) are actually regular characters on this show! You could be forgiven for being left in doubt about that most of time, since they typically pop up once a week at most.

Still, Luke didn't have all that much to do today. After waking up and remembering the kiss with Brian (see below) he headed off to the hospital and arrived just in time to hear Brian toasting Lucinda as his new bride.



Luke pulled Gramps aside and accused him of trying to rip off his Grandmother and of lying to her. When Brian professed his innocence, Luke asked "What about what you did to me last night?"

It was actually kind of amusing to watch Brian smoothly run through all the 'morning after' excuses. He pulled out everything except "Dude, we were so wasted!" and I'm sure he would have tried that one if he could have.

First, Brian feigned ignorance. What he did to Luke? He got him home, tried to sober him up and take care of him. This forced Luke to actually say it: "You kissed me."

At which point Brian switched tactics without missing a beat: "Is that how it happened?", he asked, implying that perhaps it had been Luke who'd kissed him.

When that didn't seem to have much effect on Luke's outrage, Brian apologized and said that he just comes from a really affectionate family and he's sorry if his affection offended Luke.

Finally, and most amusingly, Brian countered with "Don't you have friends who joke around with you like that?" as if it was just a big prank between buddies.

All of this makes Brian sound desperate to cover up what happened, and underneath his calm exterior I'm sure he was. But the very fact that he remained so collected and seemingly unfazed by all of this speaks volumes. This is clearly a character well versed in lying to himself.

Luke didn't buy any of this, of course, and was determined to tell Lucinda everything then and there. His mother Lily, thinking that his opposition was coming from his pre-kiss feelings of distrust towards Brian, told him that Brian had singed a pre-nup and clearly cared for Lucinda and, what's more, was making her happy and giving her something to live for. Lily ordered poor Luke to go in and congratulate his Grandmother whether he meant it or not.

Luke was left looking in at Lucinda's obvious happiness with Brian while clearly feeling pretty miserable himself.

This, of course, is an old story in daytime: keeping a secret, usually about an affair or something a loved one has done, from someone because their health depends on it. This is the first time, however, that the secret has involved a kiss between two men.

If this was real life, you could say Brian might turn out to just be curious. It happens, and could even the straightest of men resist feeling something for a vulnerable, shirtless Luke Snyder? Okay, a majority of them could. But my point is that this is a soap and 'just curious' doesn't really further the drama any. So Brian is obviously going to end up being a closeted gay man or, even rarer for daytime, bisexual. Either way, we can now put the number of LGBT characters on daytime at four going on five.

What's more, Brian will be the only LGBT character currently on daytime who is over the age of 30. He's not exactly a senior citizen, of course (Laurence Lau, the actor playing Brian, is 54) but the generational difference between him & Luke could definitely come into play, even if just as contrast in their ability to be open about their sexualities. After all, Brian would have been a teenager during the Stonewall riots. He didn't exactly grow up in the same world Luke has, and look how hard it still was for Luke to come out.

I don't know if the show will explore any of this, of course, these are just my musings on the subject. It would be interesting if daytime explored older gay characters, though. Granted, they've still got a long way to go on perfecting the younger gay characters they're writing for (or not writing for, as the case may be), but no one has really done an older gay character and what they would have to go through. Imagine coming out to your children, rather than your parents, for instance! Plenty of drama and story to be mined there.

The British soap Coronation Street had something similar happen earlier this year, when the character Gail Platt, a fifty-something mother of three herself, finally met the long lost father who'd never known she existed. He turned out to be rather lonely gay man who'd recently lost his partner of many years.

American soaps probably would never introduce a new straight character who was over 70, let alone a gay one, which is a shame. There are so many stories to be told, about so many different types of people and situations, and yet daytime TV keeps telling the same old stories over and over again, always with younger and younger characters and actors.

It's no wonder the soap medium is in the state that it's in. Then again, just a few years ago characters like Luke & Noah, whatever they're lacking compared to the straight characters on the show, wouldn't have existed at all. The addition of Brian also means that As the World Turns now has three regular LGBT characters on at the same time, another milestone in and of itself. Clearly, it would be unfair to say things haven't improved at all.