Luke spent most of today's episode of As the World Turns in a bar, but in spite of that he's now been completely sober for two episodes in a row. Noah, meanwhile, is continuing to build on his own streak as Oakdale's crappiest boyfriend.
Today found the guys hanging out at Yo's, the local watering hole, for the bachelor party of Luke's cousin Jack. Brian was there as well, having been invited along by Luke's dad Holden. As soon as the evening's entertainment arrived, in the form a stripper, Brian began overcompensating in a major way, tossing back scotch and hooting and hollering at the exotic dancer like a horny teenager. It was painful to watch.
Luke, meanwhile, tried to patch things up with Noah yet again. Noah first tired to bolt after Luke admitted that he'd like to drink because being sober is forcing him to examine what a mess his life is and drinking would at least be a temporary escape. What a nice guy Noah is. His boyfriend with a drinking problem is finally sober but trying to open up to him about how hard it is for him, and Noah responds with "I can't listen to this."
To be fair, Luke once again threw Noah's own time in the closet back in his face, asking him if he defends Brian all the time because it reminds him of the 'good old days' when he was pretending to be straight.
In spite of all this, Luke asked Noah yet again to think about giving him another chance, but Noah said that he couldn't and then practically ran out the door.
If you can't tell, I really am unhappy with the way Noah is being written. Luke stood by him through his sham marriage to Ameera and in the aftermath of his father's death, when he was pushing Luke away and tried to join the military. Noah, however, has showed Luke zero support since this crisis started.
Originally, Noah said that before they could be together, Luke needed to deal with his unresolved issues with Kevin that lead to him stealing the election. But Kevin hasn't been mentioned in weeks. Is he still Noah's reason for not being with Luke? If not, what is? The drinking? The issue with Brian? Most of all, how does Noah justify basically looking the other way while Luke risked his life with his destructive drinking? He didn't tell anyone and didn't try to get Luke any help at all.
It's all really ridiculous. I don't believe for a second that Noah, as he was written before this, would have acted this way. It just doesn't make sense. They're obviously grasping at any reason to keep them apart, which is par for the course with a soap, but they could at least come up with something that made sense story wise and was in character.
Anyway, while Luke managed to stay sober Brian was another story. He pounded back a few too many scotches and then asked Luke to take him home. Luke reluctantly agreed and once they were back at the house he got Brian some water instead of the drink Grandpa really wanted. When Brian spilled the water all over his shirt, Luke started to clean it up for him and Brian grabbed his hand and looked rather intensely into Luke's eyes.
Luke tried to put on the breaks, saying "Brian, you don't want to do this." Brian's response was "Yes. Yes I do," as he moved in for a kiss, only to stopped short by Holden & Lily returning home at just the right moment.
Later that night, Brian came downstairs for another drink and Luke was waiting for him, leaving him speechless with the following warning:
"I don't know what your story is. Whatever you're hiding is your issue, not mine. But you married my Grandmother and I will not watch her be taken for a fool. Consider this a warning, Brian. If you ever come on to me again, I will tell her everything."
I enjoy seeing Luke being strong and in control of himself, especially after the last month or so. I'd love to see it carry over to his relationship with Noah, too, instead of having Luke constantly beg for a guy who, as he's written at the moment, totally isn't worthy of him.
As for Brian, I'm hoping they'll surprise me and not go the route I increasingly think they're going to go, which is Brian shutting Luke up by trying to kill him or locking him up somewhere. Daytime has already had one married character who killed people to cover up the fact that he was gay (this was on One Life to Live a couple of years ago) and I'm hoping that As the World Turns isn't going to do anything similar. It would be so much more interesting to see Brian having to come to terms with his sexuality and his attraction to Luke. As I've noted before, we haven't really had a character his age come out before in daytime, it could make for a good story.
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