Ambivalence Reigns…

Real life is rarely black or white; it’s often in that vast gray area between. Sometimes, the great thing about soaps is that it gives you the clarity that doesn’t exist in real life. For better and for worse, The Young & The Restless has never been one for that, which gives it more of a realism than other soaps.

Once again, this week, ambivalence reigned. I just don’t know how I feel about two of the major storylines going right now.

First up, we have the Ashley-Abby-Tucker deal. Part of me understands where Abby is coming from and she is right about her mother’s choice in men. Granted, you have to show due respect and deference to your mother, but I get her. Another part of me is just like “let it go”….Ashley’s a grown ass woman, and can do what she wants. The main thing that gets me is the vitriol with which Abby is approaching this situation. Her level of hatred doesn’t really match anything Tucker’s done, to the point where Rashid (BloodyAfrikaans) asked me if Tucker raped Abby or something.

The second storyline that I’m really ambivalent about is the Diane-Victor marriage. Part of me feels bad for Diane. Victor treats her like garbage….he always has. He discards her whenever she becomes inconvenient. The other part of me has no sympathy for her. She went into the marriage for the wrong reasons, she was warned about Victor and has experienced Victor discarding her before. She’s foolish for entering into a marriage with Victor again.

What do you think? What’s your take on these issues?

BTW,on a completely unrelated random note, if Republicans can’t accept Common and think he’s a thug, there’s no hope for the rest of us….

 

Strong performances, crappy writing, and…more death!

Housekeeping

…so today is the first day since my surgery on Monday that I’m not a) high on percocet and b) not feeling like 10 people just kicked me in the guy.  Prior to that, I just haven’t been that inspired by Y & R to write about it.

Onto business…

This week has had the weirdest juxtaposition of Y & R.  There have been so many strong performances this week that I’m almost scared to list people for fear of leaving people out. But I’m an idiot, so I’ll do it anyway:

• Billy Miller (Billy Abbott)-In the strongest terms possible, Y & R can not let this man go.  He is playing the hell out of his role.  At this point, he may be the best actor on the show….no one else can pull off funny, serious, sad, angry, and depressed like he can right now.
• Judith Chapman (Gloria Bardwell)-They only give her material sporadically, but whenever she gets something, she knocks it out of the park
• Marcy Rylan (Abby Newman)-She nailed her role this week too, showing a vulnerability with Lily that makes her more endearing and a strength with her mother, who she is 1000% dead on about.
• Elizabeth Mitchell (Chloe Mitchell, with her fine self)-The range of emotions she’s displayed has been great….I got where Billy was coming from, but in the scene at the jail, you really just wanted to hug Chloe
• Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher)-Excellent as always….he’s one character the writers have done right by, showing him growing and becoming stronger.  They should use the same blueprint for Sharon
• Emily O’Brien (Jana Hawkes)-Y & R has had some evil folks over the years.  None of them scared me like Jana this week.  She was completely believable as she descended further into madness.  <spoiler alert!>  Of course, Y & R had to ruin that by killing her off, which brings me to…

Crappy Writing

Before I get into the death issue again, let me show exhibit A of crappy writing:

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v20960988jewh9Tcx

Did they decide to hire writers from “The T & A Team” or “Riding Miss Daisy?”  You can almost hear the boom chicka wow music start playing. That was porn-quality bad dialogue.  Dialogue aside, Y & R has a serious writing problem right now.  They’re writing some horrible stuff, becoming repetitive (Malcolm and Neil fighting over the same woman, mistaken murderers, custody battles…rinse, lather, repeat), fanciful (Cane and Lily, though I’m thinking that they’re going the evil twin route, and just plain lazy (deaths, never explaining who killed Richard Hightower).  It’s like there’s no overall direction, like they just throw plots on a board to see what sticks.  As I’ve stated before, they overuse death as of late.  With Jana’s demise, they wasted a good performer and an interesting character (one could argue they’ve wasted her since the kidnapping, but I digress).  I would have preferred for Jana to get brought to justice, spend some time in the Loony Bin, and leave town.  Then maybe you bring her back a couple of years down the road and have her be like Director of Social Media at Newman Enterprises and completely over Kevin a la how they rehabilitated Phyllis’ character. 
Random thoughts:

• I didn’t have a problem at all with Luke Kleintank as Noah Newman, but it’s nice to have Kevin Schmidt back.  Lose the Bieber-esque hair, though.
• I can get into the Neil-Malcolm-Sofia storyline. Not their fault, but it’s so “been there, done that”
• Devon is at his most annoying when trying to “protect Lily”
• That guy in the cemetery?  Clearly not Cane.  Lily’s too dumb to ask questions that only he’d know
• More Leslie, please and thanks
• Did they really need to “temporarily recast” Jeff Bardwell?  Why not just send him on vacation?  He isn’t crucial to any storylines right now
• Did anyone else throw up in their mouth a little bit seeing the Silver Chipmunk mask?

The Sublime:

So I was watching Dumb and Dumber in my convalescence and thought that one of the characters looked familiar….

That’s right…the guy in the middle is Angelo.  I didn’t recognize him without the dog.  Not that I watch that kind of thing….