Storylines involving work are commonplace on General Hospital, Young and Restless, Days of Our Lives, Beyond the Gates and Bold and Beautiful last week — but are they bringing the necessary drama? Here’s our critic’s take on Willow’s trial on GH, the fashion battle brewing on B&B, the battle over Newman Enterprises on Y&R and more.
Work storylines only succeed with high stakes and battling family members — and it helps if they are laser-focused on a goal.
GH scored on all fronts with Willow’s trial. Drew blackmailed Alexis into defending Willow by threatening to keep her granddaughter, Scout, away from her family. Alexis vowed to win the case during more office meetings than should have been entertaining, but each one brought something valuable to the story. Tracy’s anger at Alexis for getting her to implicate Michael was particularly entertaining, as were Drew’s repeated efforts to bully his new bride’s attorney.
Drew: “You’re putting me on the stand tomorrow.”
Willow: “It can’t be you on the stand. It has to be me.”
Alexis: “We have been over this. Turner will destroy you.”
Suzanne (to Willow): “And you do have a history of breakdowns in court.”
Ha! Drew was actually the one who suffered a breakdown after forcing Alexis to put him on the stand. During Acting District Attorney’s Turner’s cross-examination he spewed that he was Alan Quartermaine’s son, a Navy SEAL, a congressman, a patriot, blah blah blah, and asserted without evidence that Michael was the perpetrator. (It’s never a good sign when the judge tells a witness to “calm down.”) Drew’s meltdown caused Alexis to have to allow Willow to testify in order to mitigate his testimony. When Turner asked Willow if she had ever touched the gun we got a shocking flashback of Willow stealing it, going to Drew’s, and shooting him. She did it!
Meanwhile, Trina and Kai came up with a clever plan to solve the mystery of whose ringtone they heard the night of the murder. Gio maneuvered himself with Wiley while the kid called his mom, and the amateur sleuths heard the offending ring tone in the courtroom.
Trina: “All the evidence points to Willow. We have to go to the police!”
Kai: “Not unless we want to go to prison ourselves.”
The whole arc was a master class in building suspense to an appropriately juicy crescendo while pitting family against family (Drew v. his ex’s mother Alexis as well as the Quartermaines). But in the end, we learned the real rivalry was Willow v. Drew — and Willow is winning.
The Logan sisters going at it on B&B came out of left field, but it has energized the whole show. Katie’s new fashion company, Logan, will be in direct competition with Forrester Creations, and Ridge and Brooke don’t like that at all.
Ridge: “Katie ran Forrester for a minute and a half the last time Spencer stole from us. So what do they have now? A name that doesn’t belong to them, no design team, and no fashion sense. Good luck.”
Actually, Logan is Katie’s name too, she’s hiring talented designers Ridge fired from Forrester who have an ax to grind (including his father, Eric!), and they all have fashion sense. First up was Deke, who is the half brother of Brooke’s daughter/Katie’s niece, Hope, and that promises a lot of messiness.
Katie (to Deke): “You’ve got talent. I am determined to succeed, and you might be able to help me prove my sister wrong.”
Props for being honest about her goals. The only thing I’m not on board with is Katie’s incessant gushing about Dollar Bill giving her a fashion house.
Katie “This is the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me!”
Her brother Storm fatally shot himself so Katie could have his heart, so miss me with that.
Deke’s firing from Forrester meant he had to go work at his dad’s restaurant, and working with his stepmother has made for some awkward moments. There was Sheila asking Deke to forgive her for making “a terrible regrettable mistake” in between refilling water glasses and here’s me: One mistake???
Deke is having none of it.
Deke (to Deacon): “You do realize you haven’t succeeded because of Sheila, but in spite of her. Most of the employees can’t stand to be around her, and most of the customers too. People avoid your wife like the plague. You deserve better; a life with someone who has morals and decency who is not a convicted felon.”
The close working conditions have also lead to some fun eavesdropping.
Sheila: “Can we have a word? I overheard your conversation. You encouraged your father to find another woman and that didn’t feel real good.”
Deke: “My dad and I were having a private conversation.”
That’s the energy people need to deal with Sheila. It never made sense that Deacon married this psycho murderer and then hired her to greet the people she tried to kill at his restaurant. If the goal is a more realistic story for Sheila, okay. Steffy and Hope having convos at Forrester about Taylor and Deacon getting together is an another valuable prong to this story which is building to a familiar place.
Hope: “Your mom is into my dad? I would love for my dad to leave Sheila!”
Steffy: “She will go insane.”
Joey wanting to name the new free clinic after Doug McBride on BTG is next level nutty. Why, you ask? Because Joey was in bed with Vanessa when he had her husband killed. Leslie smells a rat, but even she has no idea what Joey is capable of.
Leslie: “You let poor, dim-witted Dr. Doug rack up a gambling debt in your casino, then he drove himself into a ravine three sheets to the wind on booze from your bar, and then you started getting busy with his widow.”
Joey: “We all make choices. Doug made his. My acknowledging him with this gesture has nothing to do with guilt. It’s about honoring the father of Vanessa’s children.”
Joey’s smooth, but working with nutbag Leslie on a project memorializing a guy who is only dead because of Joey feels like he’s asking for it.
DAYS dropped the ball with Titan v. DiMera, choosing instead to focus on ancillary characters and a book plot that so far has gone nowhere. (Stephanie’s an author! Bonnie’s an author!) The way to jazz up a stale business story is to pit family members against each other within the company.
Xander: “If these sales numbers don’t improve I will have no choice but to shut Basic Black down.”
Brady: “Is that tantrum about my job performance? Or me and Sarah?”
Xander: “You’re fired.”
That ain’t it. Making Brady work with Xander while he’s pursuing his ex-wife is Soaps 101!
Which brings us to Y&R, which lately tells only convoluted business stories or tales of Sharon’s exes returning from the dead to stalk her. We are one year into the Aristotle Dumas/new Cane story and so far it’s a dud. Lily rejected him, his “revolutionary” AI program was easily stolen by Phyllis, and now he sits around the GCAC (which he supposedly owns) broke, bitter and alone. The rooting value there is in Jack v. Victor, with both their families having the patriarch’s backs. But if Cane joins Team Jack, that could help redeem him.
Cane: “Victor never loses.”
Jack: “That’s a crock, and you know it. You have that man on the run. He doesn’t always win and I’ll be damned if he wins this time.”
Cane: “Why should I help you?”
Jack: “Revenge.”
Michael: “We need to get our hands on that AI program.”
Nikki (sarcastic): “Oh, is that all? Let me make a few calls. Even if we were able to do that, how would we get away with it without Victor knowing?
Michael: “By arranging for the blame to fall on the person who started this whole mess: Cane.”
Nikki backing Jack over Victor is a goal we could get behind, and those stakes would be well worth it.
Nikki: “Tell me more…”
Yes!
Hey. It’s only my opinion.
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