A lot of this past week’s OLTL was about getting everyone in place for this week’s 40th Anniversary celebrations, and lined up for a few other revelations.
It was quite an odd combination of short-cuts, diversions and drag-outs.
First, though, the one story that didn’t fall into that category: Teen Pregnancy Central. Although Marcie threatening to become a single mother to Starr’s baby is taking another step down the path to Junoland, I was unreasonably pleased to see Starr grilling Marcie about having a job before handing over the kid. How, un-soap in the midst of a really soapy story. And while the completely unrealistic last minute “meeting” at the Court to try and stop Starr signing adoption papers was ludicrous in the extreme at least it did get us to the point of sensibleness in the form of the judge. Or, the Judge. I like him, both for not taking a single second of Todd’s crap, and for pointing out that the kid’s not even remotely born yet so all this is a moot point. Finally, in this section, I really do like the friendship between John and Blair. And the Todd dartboard.
Now, having navigated my own diversion, let’s go back to the show’s. The biggest diversion was having Langston attempt to seduce David while Markko films in order to try and break up his marriage to Addie, all as a means of David finding Dorian’s rohypnol stash. I’m not sure why David couldn’t have just been ferreting around in Dorian’s closet looking for some evidence of what she did to Charlie – given he was already suspicious – or, you know, cash. Why instead they elected to have the fake teen seduction, which inexplicably took place in Dorian’s room, I’m not so sure. It did, however, deliver some amusement, not the least of which being Langston’s outfit.
Far more amusing to me though was the placeholder Battle for BE scenes between Clint, Nora and Dorian. Clint and Nora playing tag-team with glee even though they’re basically not speaking to each other. Nora commenting on the smell of nail polish in Dorian’s office, as that was the first thing I thought when they went into the room: that office is going to smell of nail polish. Clint playing charmingly dumb with Dorian about David and Addie’s wedding. Not to mention Dorian’s slightly unhinged reaction to them.
Dorian’s ebbs and flows are definitely one of the best things about this show. I’m not sure that waving garden sheers around in a car was such a great idea, but beyond that I really appreciate the way that Robin Strasser plays all the emotions just on the surface. She’s scheming and manipulative, but the evasiveness and insincerity and vulnerability and pride are all there. In her conversations with Clint and David and Viki this week, it’s clear Dorian’s by no means a perfect liar, and so much the better for it.
She was, however, part of the drag-out part of the week. The two-part drag-out being Tess’s multiple murder attempts. Exactly how far did Viki drive without ever putting her foot on the brake? Exactly why did she and Dorian – having spent the better part of an episode hanging out in the middle of the street debating which diversion to take – get in the damn car again if the brakes weren’t working properly? And I know the killer risotto didn’t look very appetising, but how long does it take someone to take a mouthful?
By the way, was Tess always this psycho? I know she’s meant to be a wild child, but she seems closer to outright insane. And Natalie has a vanity plate? She doesn’t strike me as the type. Tess, yes. Natalie, not so much. I liked the way Tess had break-line cutting instructions printed out though.
Over in Mendorra they decided to go with the opposite and having dragged stuff out last week, preferred the compression method of story-telling. So we rapidly have Tina and Cain dethroned, Jonas in their place – with nary a question asked by anyone at all – an arranged marriage planned between Jonas and Talia, a plan to have Cristian murder Sarah, and another to have Tina and Cain beheaded. Anything in a Fake Soap Country is going to be over-the-top, so why not go all the way? Actually, I genuinely don’t have a problem with that because it can be soapy fun. Well, only one problem with it and that was Talia’s pre-engagement detour into woe-is-me self-pity party over being Carlo’s – sorry, Carlo Hesser’s – daughter. That wasn’t attractive at all. Annoyed the hell out of me, in fact.
For Rex we had the short-cut followed by the drag-out. First, the soon to be patented Delfina Prophecy Short-Cut. Which I really don’t think I mind because she’s kind of fun. That gets Rex to Tex, where he then gets held up being word-vomited upon at the diner while Bo gets his own other worldly short-cut in the form of the Ghost of Asa. The baiting of Bo by Asa should have received more time I think, because it’s the perfect trigger for stupid behaviour but seemed to be over too quickly. Nevertheless all that served to reveal what we already knew, that Rex loves Gigi and that Bo’s a good guy and sometimes conflicted about it, and to get them both out riding in a rainstorm. Not the most artful way of achieving that, but at least now we’re set up for the Anniversary to come.
Also, I shouldn’t have been laughing at Rex’s face when he fell off the horse, but I was. And kind of, maybe a little, at the lightening VFX. And why, precisely, did Rex grab the fence?
Finally, the other point that felt like a short-cut to a reveal: Charlie finding out that Rex is Shane’s father. I’m not quite sure why I’m not really satisfied with how they got there. Brodie has certainly been established as a drinker from day one which is more than can be said for a lot of soap alcoholics, but I guess I feel that he hasn’t quite been on enough for it to feel real that Gigi was sending him off to AA right now. Or perhaps the feeling that it’s been rushed comes from the fact that he spilled the paternity secret to Charlie in the very first meeting. It would have been more soapy to have them play out a few meetings and then have the reveal. As it was actually carried out though, the alcohol problem simply felt like a means to an end.
Which is just to show precisely how fickle I am, because I was annoyed by this short-cut, but not by most of the others this week. Maybe that’s because most of the others were to get us to the specifically Anniversary-related stories and so had to be in a certain place by a certain time, whereas this story is on a much slower burn and so could have afforded to wait.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to this week and a little Event storytelling.
Favourite lines from last week:
“You were going for a swim weren’t you?”
“Was it the towel or swim trunks that gave it away?”
“Ok, I think a discussion of boundaries is appropriate here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you.”
“Take a gas can.”
“Bite my knee.”
And especially:
“Am I asking too much?”
“No. Jessica is. Pesto risotto? We’re having green rice for dinner. Maybe we can frost some tofu for dessert.”
