A Small Silver Lining

I've more than made it clear by now that I completely hate the current story they have Luke & Noah in on As the World Turns. Today, though, they at least demonstrated that they are using this convoluted mess to set up the upcoming story involving the return of Luke's biological father Damian. This set up could easily have been done without this whole stupid Reg story, but at this point I'm willing to be grateful for the little things.

Today's show started out with Luke, who'd clearly not learned any lessons after his recent arrest, calling Elwood's R.A. and posing as Elwood's parole officer, hoping to get access to a visitor's log of people coming and going from his dorm room (as if that's even something that would exist!). Not surprisingly, he got nowhere with that and then made it worse by lying when Noah came in and asked who he'd been talking to.

Noah & Luke once again began discussing the situation with Elwood and their dear friend Reg. I'm really getting sick of hearing how close they were to Reg! Clearly, they think that having Luke mention this fact every twenty seconds will make the audience believe something they never bothered to show onscreen. It's not working. Like with every other aspect of this story, no one has taken the time to make any of it credible or worth watching, though the poor actors are doing their considerable best.

Noah got upset with Luke when it became obvious that he still wasn't planning to let the police handle things. They went back and forth a bit before Noah finally seemed to be getting through to Luke and to be convincing him that the way to honor Reg was to set up something in his memory through Luke's foundation to help other people.

All of that progress went right out the window, though, when Casey showed up to announce that he thinks that the mysterious M in the note Luke found is Matt. Casey had even come up with another brilliant plan, this time to enlist Jade to try and buy drugs from Matt.

Meanwhile, Holden returned home from a business trip and Lily filled him in on Luke's latest drama. The two began to wonder just where they'd gone wrong with Luke and what had happened to their sweet, happy little boy. Lily wondered aloud if it was just losing that election that set off all these changes, but Holden worried that maybe this anger has always been there in Luke, like it was always there in his biological father Damian.

Either way, they headed home to confront Luke about his behavior. When Holden asked if things were finally under control, Luke assured him that they were. That's when Noah, who'd clearly not been pleased with Casey's latest plan, intervened and said that no, things weren't under control.

When Holden & Lily heard the full extent of what Luke & Noah had done, including finding the pills in Reg's coat and giving them to Casey to plant on Elwood, they took the guys straight to the police station to tell everything to Margo.

Needless to say, the Chief of Detectives wasn't pleased to hear about the whole tampering with evidence thing, especially since her own son was involved. Luke remained mostly defiant, saying that someone had to get the guy responsible for killing Reg. Margo informed him that that wasn't his job but decided to look the other way on this latest infraction if they promised to walk away from all of this completely, no matter what else happens. Noah readily agreed, but Luke was much less convincing in his own agreement.

Once Lily & Holden got the guys back to the house, Holden pointed out that Luke should be grateful that Margo had gone easy on him, twice. Luke said he was grateful, but he can't be happy when they're no closer to getting justice for Reg. That's when the only meaningful thing to come out of this mess so far took place:

Luke: Am I just supposed to let this go?

Holden: Yes, you are. You've wasted enough time messing up this investigation.

Luke: I didn't mess anything up!

Holden: You tampered with evidence!

Luke: I was trying to help!

Holden: Yeah, and you may have ruined any chance of solving the case.

Luke: Well, thanks for your support Dad.

Holden: Your mother and I have always supported you, and look at all the good that it did.

Lily: Holden-

Holden: Ever since you got expelled, you've done nothing but waste time. You need to figure out what you're going to do with your life, Luke.

Luke: You're still angry about the election?

Holden: Yeah, you stuffed ballot boxes, you trashed your life, just to win an election. Don't you want to make up for that? Don't you want to do that for yourself, don't you want everyone to know that your life isn't a big waste?

Luke: Is that what you think, you think my life is a waste?

Holden: You need to get focused, Luke! Forget the killer. Find a job, or find a school that will take you back. Forget this nonsense and move on with your life.

Luke: Yes, sir!

Holden: Promise me this. You will give it up, no more cops and robbers. You got it?

Luke: I got it.

Finally! It has really bugged me that the whole 'Luke messed up his life' story was dropped as soon as he got back together with Noah, as if that's all that mattered. No one has really said anything about what he's doing with his life (though it was indirectly mentioned that Noah has talked to him about it, at least) or about dealing with any of his problems that lead to the mess in the first place.

If nothing else, at least this horrible story has brought those issues to the surface again. I'd much rather see Luke struggling to understand why he's messed things up and to turn his life around than playing amateur detective badly. It was about time that Holden or Lily had this kind of a talk with Luke.

Of course, to be fair, just about everyone on this show has taken the law into their own hands a time or two, including Holden, who tampered with evidence himself just last year when Dusty was 'murdered' and he hid the potential murder weapon because he thought Lily had done it. Luke hasn't exactly had the best role models.

Anyway, after the confrontation with Luke, Holden confessed to Lily that he's been way too soft with Luke lately because after Damian tried to take him away, Holden has worried on some level that Luke would regret choosing him over Damian as a father. As I said, I hate this story, but I do like that they're at least using it to set up the issues that will be involved with Damian's return.

Luke, meanwhile, thanked Noah for ratting him out yet again.

Noah: Luke, I'm just trying to help you.

Luke: Help me. Help me. You know what, it's funny Noah. Every time you try and help me, it just makes things worse.

Noah: Yeah, well, maybe things need to get worse before they can get better.

Luke: That sounds like a page out of Holden Snyder's handbook for delinquent children.

Noah: You know what? Your dad cares about you. A lot.

Luke: I know he does. But even if he thinks that I'm wasting my life, I can't pretend that this murder never happened and start filling out applications for schools.

Luke went on to say that it could very easily have been him instead of Reg, that if when he'd been drinking someone had offered him a way to just forget everything, he probably would have taken it. He can't and won't forget this and let it go, no matter what he promised his Dad.

The worst part of this is that these bumbling amateurs are going to end up saving the day and catching the bad guys, because that's what always happens on soaps. It's rarely if ever the cops who solve the crimes. I'd be a lot happier if they dropped it here and let Luke actually learn his lesson and deal with his own issues and have Margo solve the case.

I hope this story is over soon, one way or another. It's awful stories like this that make me wonder why I love soaps so much. The truth is, when they're bad they're very bad, but when they're good (which is increasingly rare, but still possible, as One Life to Live is currently demonstrating) they're so enjoyable and so addictive, everything that I've loved since I was a little kid watching Days of Our Lives with my Mom, my Grandmother and my Aunts.