Out of Our Misery

Thank God its finally over! I'm referring, of course, to this putrid storyline on As the World Turns, which seems to have reached its conclusion at last. Even though the story moved just a tad quicker than the speed of light, it still feels as if it lasted an eternity somehow. I guess this is because I usually fast forward the scenes that are this terrible, but this time I was stuck actually watching every minute of them, thanks to Luke & Noah's presence.

It ended just in time, too, because today's episode irritated me so much that I actually felt angry. I've often used the expression "I wanted to throw something at the TV" but I don't think I've ever literally wanted to throw something at the TV before today!

All right, let's take a look at this mess for the last time. Today started out with Luke & Noah at Java, talking everything over yet again. Kevin showed up and Luke expressed his sympathy over Elwood's death, given that he & Kevin were friends. Wait, what? Last we heard, Elwood lived across the hall from Kevin in the dorm and Kevin agreed to keep an eye on him for Luke. Since when were they ever friends?! They can't even keep things straight from day to day in this story.

Kevin seemed a bit nervous, especially when Luke revealed that Matt's car was the one the forced Elwood off the bridge. He left without even buying any coffee after saying something odd about hoping the police won't catch Matt.

Noah suddenly makes the leap that Kevin's odd behavior means that he might have figured out who the real killer is. Okay, yeah, because that's logical! I know that when any of my friends are acting a bit off, I assume they've just solved a crime.

What really made me want to toss a brick through the TV, though, was the next scene, where Noah declared that his suspicions of Kevin aren't just about how he was acting that day, but about how he ran his sleazy campaign. Luke defends Kevin, saying that was more Mark's doing than Kevin's, but Noah thinks Kevin should have reigned in his friends. Noah tells Luke that he knows Luke really wants to trust Kevin, but that he needs to let that go before someone else gets killed.

Again, what?! Last week, Noah was chiding Luke for being so suspicious of Kevin and saying that he thought Kevin was being sincere. Now we've got this whole inexplicable role reversal from out of nowhere. It's almost like Van and Jake accidentally switched parts for this scene and are reading each other's lines. That's the only thing that would make this actually work in the context of the story. But then again, this story has already failed in every other respect, so why am I surprised by this latest development?

Meanwhile, Margo & the cops find Matt's car and because the lock was forced and the SUV was hot wired, Margo uses those finely honed detective skills to determine that Matt couldn't be the killer. Why would he need to hot wire his own car? Um, to back up his story that it was stolen, maybe? I know Matt is innocent, but that's about the worst police work ever there, Margo.

Mark showed up at the hospital and overheard Margo telling Alison that she thinks Matt is innocent. Mark forced Alison to come with him by saying that he's got Casey (who has been released from jail) and will hurt him if Alison doesn't cooperate. Mark's plan, it seems, is to inject Alison (a former drug addict) with enough drugs to cause her to OD and then frame Matt for her death.

Casey, who thinks Alison is in danger from Matt, calls Luke & Noah when he can't find her. He tells them that his mom thinks Matt is innocent and is using Alison to lure him out of hiding. Once Luke & Noah hear that Margo doesn't think Matt killed Elwood, they realize that the only other person who knew about the meeting was Kevin. Noah thinks he's the killer, but Luke doesn't think his old friend is capable of murder. They decide to go and ask him, since it's a well known fact that if you ask a killer if they did it, they're obligated to answer honestly.

Luke & Noah have no trouble finding Kevin at Al's, where he's just finishing up a voice mail to Mark, telling him that the cops are still looking for Matt. Kevin denies that he was talking to 'M', but Noah grabs his phone and sees that his last call was to Mark. Kevin confesses that Mark is the killer and that he himself just found out, but didn't tell anyone because Mark is his friend and he was afraid he'd try and hurt himself.

Luke & Noah convince Kevin that he's got to turn Mark in before he hurts someone else. Mark, after having his plot to kill Alison foiled by Matt, calls Kevin needing money, presumably to get out of town. Kevin agrees to meet him on the bridge where Elwood died (since all the cool kids are going there), and Noah does the first smart anyone has done since this story started and calls Margo to tell her where Mark will be.

Then, of course, our amateur detectives decide that Mark may not show himself if he doesn't see Kevin, so the three of them set out for the bridge together. Luke & Noah try, quite pathetically, to squat down out of sight at one end of the bridge, but Mark, not being blind, sees them and demands to know why Kevin brought them along. Kevin says that he wants to help Mark before someone else gets hurt, and Mark takes that as his cue to hit Kevin with a giant lead pipe that he was oh so craftily hiding behind his back.

Noah manages to get the pipe away from Mark, who leaps up onto the railing of the bridge. Noah yells that the cops are coming and that Mark is sick and needs help. Mark then drops the F bomb, saying "You faggots think I'm sick?" Oh, good, that's just what this story was missing! For the record, that's the third time since Luke came out that they've used that particular expression. I doubt that any soap these days, even in depicting a storyline about racism, would use the N word, but there we are. Yes, I know a homophobe like Mark would use this word, but it's still like a punch to the gut even hearing it on TV, especially in a piece of shit story like this.

Long story short, Mark slips and falls off the bridge, but Luke & Noah pull him up to safety just as Margo and the cops finally show up (must have been heavy traffic on the way from the station, or maybe they couldn't find their car keys?) and arrest Mark.

To make this whole farce even more like an episode of a really bad sitcom about bumbling detectives, they even end the story with a punchline:

Margo: Next time you want to play cops, why don't you apply to the academy.

Luke: Only if I get to be Starsky.

Noah: You are so totally Hutch.

Margo: I withdraw the statement.

Yes, it made me laugh, mostly because Jake & Van pulled it off in a really cute way, but at the same time, it reminded me of the way this story was sold just before it started. The preview was that the guys were going to be involved in a 'light hearted murder mystery'. Light hearted? I guess they were referring to that joke at the end, because the rest was far from it.

It's finally over, though, and if it didn't manage to drive away all fans of Luke & Noah for good its due to the talent of Van & Jake alone.