Nuke Day: Who Are These People?

Today was the first Nuke day of the New Year and it was a bit less joyous than the first Kish day of 2010, to put it mildly.

I know that I shouldn't compare the two stories, given that they're on different shows, airing on separate networks and that one is being written by a head writer with talent and the other by the exact opposite, but such comparisons are inevitable. I just want to be clear that if I'm complaining about what's happening with Nuke it's because of the failures in the writing and not because Nuke isn't Kish.

I am still a Nuke fan and always will be, long after new episodes have ceased to air. For as much wasted potential as there has been in this story, Luke and Noah are still the duo that blazed the trail for Kyle and Fish and any other gay male couple that the soaps have in their future. They have meant and still mean a lot to me. It's just that I'm a fan of Luke and Noah, and not of these two strangers who seem to have taken their place in Oakdale at the moment.

With that said, on to today's show. Noah was back from the clinic for good, apparently, but I felt like I've missed a scene somewhere, which is all too common with this show. Noah seems to have been checked out by a doctor and given bad news about his chances of regaining his vision, though none of this is shown or even discussed in much detail.

Noah, Luke, Lucinda and Lily were hanging out in the Snyder living room (or the Grimaldi living room, I guess I should say these days) and Noah was talking about not wanting to feel like a charity case. Everyone was assuring him that they didn't think of him that way in the least, but Noah informed them all that he wanted to fight.

No, he didn't mean fight with Luke, as his overall attitude toward his boyfriend would suggest, but rather than he wanted to fight to regain his sight. There's this doctor in Dallas, Reid Oliver, who has been doing miraculous work in restoring eyesight to people who've been given similar odds as Noah. Apparently, he's assured Noah that he can help him.

Our Mr. Mayer was all for charging ahead with this doctor, but Lucinda suggested that she at least have Dr. Oliver checked out first. Noah snapped that she should check with the people who have their sight back because of Dr. Oliver and Lucinda gently assured him that she'd make those calls, too.

Wait, a hopeless diagnosis and a maverick doctor who the parents (adoptive/ in-laws, in this case) may disapprove of? If Noah ends up being shanghaied to a boarding school in Europe after winning a lawsuit against his new adoptive parents for the right to have the surgery, I think I may have seen this story recently on One Life to Live, only with paralysis instead of blindness.

Lily and Lucinda made a hasty and not very subtle exit so that Luke and Noah could be alone. As soon as they were, Noah warned Luke not to try and talk him out of being treated by Dr. Oliver and Luke assured him that he wasn't going to. He was just happy to have his boyfriend back, and he tried to demonstrate it by moving in for a kiss, only to have Noah pull away from him abruptly for the fiftieth time.

Noah told Luke that he wasn't ready to act like nothing had happened and Luke assured his boyfriend that they were still 'us'. Noah snarled that he was trying to deal with what has happened to him, so did they have to drag 'us' into every conversation they have?

Luke apologized for 'pressuring' Noah, who said that he was just trying to do something proactive and not just wallow. Luke said he thought that was why rehab at the clinic had been so good for Noah, but his boyfriend yelled that rehab was not good for him, that finding a doctor with skills would be good for him.

Noah accused Luke of just wanting him to accept his blindness and move on, and Luke told him that wasn't fair or true, that all he wanted was for the most important person in his life to get better... and to do so in Oakdale, with him.

Noah said that being dependent on Luke and his family wasn't the life he wanted and that everything else was secondary to his need to see again.

Luke asked if that included him and Noah didn't answer, letting silence speak louder than words, I guess. The next time we saw the guys they were standing outside the house, where Noah was asking if the evergreen trees were covered with snow. When Luke said that they were, Noah said that he hadn't realize how much he'd always loved seeing that until he couldn't, just like he'd never realized how much his film had meant to him until he couldn't finish it.

Luke sweetly said that what the film meant to Noah was present in every single frame and Noah said that even so, it was just a series of random shots, not a complete film.

I felt like I was helplessly watching a puppy start to run across a busy freeway as Luke smiled and told Noah that the student film committee hadn't thought the film was incomplete at all and then presented him with the award for first place that Noah's film had won.

Okay, I've been harsh to Noah for being so angry with Luke, so it's only fair to note that Luke's brilliant idea to have the cast and crew on Noah's film finish it up without him and then edit it for him was about the worst idea ever. To have done it all, including entering it for an award, without even mentioning it to his boyfriend made it even more moronic.

Luke has a tendency to act from the heart without thinking things through, but this is just a bit too much, especially since he knows that Noah feels like a charity case already. Even if he'd felt it was the right thing in the beginning, Noah's subsequent feelings should have clued him in to the reality of what his reaction would be. But, no. Like that puppy on the freeway, Luke remained utterly clueless as to the consequences of his actions.

Luke told Noah about how easy it was to follow Noah's blueprint to finish the scenes he hadn't shot yet, about the crowd's reaction at the screening and how great the moment had been, just being completely insensitive and totally not the Luke Snyder I've been watching for the past few years.

Luke is an artist, too, a writer, so he above anyone else should get how deeply personal someones work is and how you can't just finish it for them and expect them to be happy about it! But then, they threw out the sensitive writer side of Luke to thrust him into business with Damian and things have just gone downhill from there.

I found myself detesting Luke's clueless naivete as much as I've been detesting Noah for showing no emotion but anger. The writing is so terribly out of character for both of them, but then plot is all that matters to the hack writers on this show. Characterization is the first thing they toss out the window.

Anyway, as anyone with even a hint of intelligence and sensitivity (which for the moment no longer includes Luke) could see coming a mile away, Noah not so gently informed Luke that since he'd finished shooting the film, edited it, and accepted the award, it was Luke's film, not his, and that Luke was once again trying to control him.

When Luke asked why Noah couldn't see that it was still his film, Noah aptly pointed out that he couldn't see, period, and stumbled into the house, slamming the door behind him.

Inside, Noah struggled to put a disc into his laptop (the film?) while out on the porch, Luke was calling Dr. Reed Oliver on Noah's behalf.

The other day, I mentioned that I wanted to see more from Jake Silbermann's performance, that all I was getting was anger, with no hint of all the emotions underneath. Now I understand that the powers that be on this show don't care to see anything but the surface, since that's as deep as their story telling goes.

This isn't the Luke or the Noah that I've come to know over the last few years. I can only hope that they will once again begin to resemble themselves before the series comes to an end.