Luke & Noah graced our television screens again this afternoon on As the World Turns. Unlike the episode they appeared in last week, today the boys actually got a few scenes that were about the two of them and their own upcoming story.
Their scenes started off with Noah coming home (I guess they're still living with Holden and Lily; when exactly are they moving into this summer apartment of theirs?) and finding a letter from the Dean of the Film School. Luke worried that it was bad news, probably because there is so rarely any other kind in the poor guy's life, but Noah quickly revealed that he'd been accepted into the Honors program for film.
Luke was ecstatic for his boyfriend and asked what exactly that meant for Noah. Mayer explained that it meant he'd get the time to make his own film, though he confessed that all the ideas he has for the movies are far too expensive to make for a student film.
Luke advised Noah to just take a step back and relax, his tone of voice making it quite clear what kind of relaxing Mr. Snyder had in mind. Noah picked up on this, too, and asked if they were alone in the house, listing off a bunch of characters who might be lurking in another room, waiting to interrupt. Luke assured him that they were indeed alone and the two were just about to head upstairs and relax each other when, of course, there was a knock on the door.
It turned out to be their friend Allison, who was there to break the bad news that Casey's brother Adam had been killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
I've mentioned Adam before, in the context of Headwriter Jean Passanante ruing an established character for the sake of her beloved Psycho of the Month club. Before she got her hands on Adam, he'd been written as a good guy, the son of Margo Hughes and the late Hal Munson. He'd grown up on the show, thinking at first that Margo's husband Tom was his biological father.
A few years ago, Passanante brought him back to the show (played for the first month or so by the wonderful Matthew Morrison, now the star of my new favorite show Glee, and then by Matt Cavenaugh, who is currently the lead in the West Side Story revival on Broadway) as a music producer to work with his sister in law, Gwen Munson, on recording an album.
Before you knew it, Adam was suddenly an attempted rapist going after Gwen and then terrorizing her and her friends before skipping town. He's been a fugitive from the law ever since. It was a completely ridiculous story that destroyed an established character for no real reason. They could easily have introduced a brand new character to be Gwen's producer turned would be rapist, but chose to have it be Adam, as inexplicable as that was. In other words, classic Passanante writing.
Yesterday, Tom & Margo received word that Adam, who was apparently working with a charity organization rebuilding bombed homes in Afghanistan, had been killed. Typical for this show, which likes to do things quickly and with as little meaning as possible, Margo had thrown together a memorial service for the next day and not invited any other members of the family beyond herself, Tom, and Casey.
If indeed Adam is dead (there is, of course, no body to be recovered), a legacy character is getting no real send off at all and we're not seeing the impact of his death on his Grandparents, his Great Grandmother (all currently characters on the show, not that they're seen very often), or any of his other siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, or friends. Once upon a time, the death of a legacy character would have been an umbrella story bringing in multiple characters and having long term effects, but now it's the work of an episode or two and leaves no impact at all. Why should the audience care about anything?
Anyway, Luke & Noah felt awful for Casey & his family and Luke explained to Ali that Adam had seemed like a really good guy back when he dated Luke's sister Abigail, but that he'd been different when he came back from living in L.A. Yes, let's blame the big city instead of all the lazy, bad writing!
Ali, Luke and Noah decided to crash the memorial service to support Casey, even though Margo only wanted immediately family there. Margo turned out to be fine with the three of them showing up, but the whole scene, filmed in a real church somewhere, just highlighted how ridiculous this all is. Seeing the six of them huddled together in a big, empty, echo filled church with a minster speaking about a time for war and a time for peace was all just very pathetic.
Just as the minister asked if anyone would like to share memories of Adam, a stranger, tall dark and handsome in his military uniform, showed up out of nowhere and introduced himself as Riley Morgan, a man who'd met Adam in a bar in Afghanistan. One thing had lead to another and, surprise!, he's Adam's war bride widower, come home to meet the family.
Okay, not really. That's just where my own mind went. Instead, he was there to share how Adam was doing all this good work in Afghanistan to make amends for the bad things he'd done in Oakdale and felt so terrible about.
After Riley spoke, the pathetic service ended and Margo invited everyone back to her house for some food. While they were there, Noah and Riley started talking about the military and it turned out that Riley had gone through basic training at Fort Ord, the same place Noah's parents had lived when he was born.
Luke jumped in to ask if Riley had known Colonel Mayer, but then quickly realized that it wasn't the time or place to bring up Noah's Dad. Riley never answered the question, either, which of course probably means he'll turn out to be involved with the Colonel somehow.
After Noah & Luke went back home, Luke mentioned that hearing Noah talk about the military had reminded him how unique Noah's experiences had been and suggested that Noah make a film about the military and his life with his father, the good and the bad. Noah wasn't sure that he wanted to go there, but seemed intrigued by the idea.
The guys then realized that they were still all alone in the house and headed upstairs for some of that relaxation they'd talked about at the beginning of the episode.
Things seem to be falling in to place for the return of the Colonel and for the arrival of new gay character Mason, who will be Noah's film advisor. I'm only looking forward, however foolishly, to one of those stories, and there's no prize for guessing which one.
Anyway, it was nice to see the guys again today. As awful as the writing always is for them, I tend to really miss them when they're not on very often.
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