Deep Soap: Carly’s Back With An Apparent Vengeance

Welcome Back, Carly

The last thirty seconds of Friday’s Days of Our Lives, did something that soaps rarely do these days: had a major character return without foreshadowing.  Typically, when a long absent character is about to reappear, the other characters on the show will suddenly start talking about them.  I understand the impluse to make sure that people’s memories are refreshed.  But it’s always jarring.  While in real life people talk about their relatives and friends who live out of state all the time, soap opera characters seem to forget that anyone they do not see on a regular basis ever existed.  There was not a single reference to Carly in Friday’s episode.  Bo, her main love interest during her first stint on the show, was not even in the episode.  There was no lines of dialogue that hinted she was returning.

Instead, I reveled in watching EJ finally bust Nicole for faking a pregnancy.  After months of him swallowing all of her lies, it was a pleasure to see her get taken down.  EJ finally seemed smart when he presented her with a fake pregnancy belly identical to the one she used.  Whatever sympathy I might have had for her evaporated when she claimed she bought the belly to help her pick out her maternity wardrobe.  If you’re going to be a lying liar who lies, at least tell good lies.  At the rate these things are going it may take another few months for him to figure out the rest of the baby switch.  But at least Nicole has been exposed.

Then suddenly in the last thirty seconds the show cut to a couple arguing.  The man called the woman a bitch.  She stabbed him.  Close ups revealed that it was Carly and Lawrence.  Viewers who do not read spoilers must have been stunned.  Those that were not watching the show in the early 1990s may have been baffled.  I was intrigued and surprised that DOOL chose to write a scene that left viewers with so may questions.  It made me want to tune in Monday.

I am sure the coming week will offer plenty of explanations.  Carly will end up in Salem and find Bo who is on the verge of divorce, thanks to Bo and Hope’s most nonsensical break up. Yet I cannot believe that after everything that duo has endured, a disagreement over how to handle the ransom request when their child was kidnapped would create lasting problems, especially since their difference of opinions was rooted in Bo’s psychic visions.  It is the sort of storyline that gives soaps a bad name.  But I can accept it as a clumsily engineered plot device that will give jumpstart the Carly storyline.  I want to know how Carly and Lawrence went from happily ever after to murderous rage, why she is returning to Salem, and how Vivian Alamain is going to get involved.  I am enjoying anticipating and imagining what will happen next without knowing many of the details.  On a show that tends to do Greek-tragedy style plots where the conclusion of the story is obvious from the very beginning, not being sure what is going to happen next is a refreshing change.

The Secret Life of the Cassadine Teen

The Keifer and Kristina scenes on General Hospital are tough to watch in a good way.  When it started, I was concerned that it was going to turn into an after school special about teen abusive relationships.  It has turned out to be both an effective cautionary tale and a fascinating character study.  Keifer is such a master manipulator that it is easy to understand how Kristina does not notice his violent tendencies and controlling nature.  His gift of a cell phone that is exclusively for calling him would seem romantic to a young girl.  His claims that she provokes him by sending him mixed signals about sex expertly play on her guilt.  Even scarier, he truly seems to believe every single thing that he says.  He really is sorry after he explodes.  He does think that Kristina is responsible for his behavior.

At first, I wondered why Kristina was so drawn to Keifer.  She’s smart.  She has a strong female role model in Alexis.  But Alexis chooses consistently terrible men,  Compared to Jerry and Ric, Keifer is a saint.   Her scenes last week with her ostensible male role model, Sonny, went a long way towards explaining her fascination with an obsessive jerk.  The great lengths that Alexis has gone to to protect Kristina from the dangers of Sonny’s profession has left Kristina convinced he does not care about her.  She concluded that the reason she spends so little time with him it that he does not love her as much as his other children.  Keifer’s obsessive behavior is appealing to Kristina because she has never had a man pay attention to her before.

I have built up a powerful hatred for Keifer.  When he attempted to convince Kristina to sleep with him by using the terrible pick up line, “We’ll be good the first time, then great after that,” I wanted to knock his teeth out.  I cannot wait until  Kristina’s parents finally realize what is going on — hopefully before Keifer does anything too awful — he is going to have both the mob and the Cassadines after him.  He has no idea what he is facing. It is going to make Thelma and Louise look tame.

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