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Weekly Guiding Light Blog: Blogging from the Beacon. Monday, August 18 2008

Week of August 11 - 15.

While the old Alan thankfully came back a little last week, I can't help wonder how villainous can he really get when he has people like Mallet, Frank and Jeffrey as enemies? At least he's been trying to team up with Dinah. I enjoy their scenes together and I genuinely appreciate Dinah acting like an independent and conniving person again. That's the Dinah I remember, but I don't know how long she will stay up before being dragged down by those around her, especially her brother, and reduced to a shell of her mischievous self (that's what happened to her mother after all).

The Grady trial quickly wrapped up without much fanfare. No one was too surprised by the outcome but Jeffrey was certainly dejected. So much so that he wanted to push into getting married to Reva even more quickly and then have a lengthy honeymoon. I think they make a good couple, but I have to wonder why whenever something goes wrong, the only thing they can think to do is get married quicker. I assume it is supposed to mark some new point in their life; they'll be reborn and everything else will vanish. That's the Reva fantasy, which sounds strangely similar to the apocalypse.

Maybe that's why Josh is so excited about her. Although I've never been a fan of Jeva, watching him pursue her is still strangely sweet and a giddy Robert Newman is a welcome change. He and Cassie split up very quickly, also in a bid to start a new life. The end of the marriage was basically summed up in two shots: The first with Mel sitting between them and them looking at each other; the second with Mel absent and them staring into blank space. Both of them have leaped off to find something new and, as is inevitably the case with these characters, they will either be dragged to, or run back to, their past. Why does no one know how to move on?

To get back to the point before, Jeffrey's dejection was short lived since Lizzie showed up in his office offering to hand him her grandfather on a silver platter. She also admitted the degree to which she was complicit in trying to have Jonathan killed, perhaps not the best thing to say to his future father-in-law. Revisiting the past is her way to reclaim her future. Lizzie, who betrays everyone eventually, even herself. When self-hatred and self-interest are united so firmly in a character, it can't help but be ugly. Lizzie and Bill may be cute, but it's been an ugly and forced relationship from day one, not to mention a miserable and self-destructive one. It's always annoyed me that they have essentially ignored his previous history with most of the characters on the show, losing the more complicated and awkward elements that could have added nuance to his recent behavior. Instead of all of the complexity that could arise, he often seems like no more than a babbling mess. If they are going to keep shoving characters into these slightly incestuous relationships, couldn't they just acknowledge it and play with it? Of course, one might object, that's rather sleazy. But the point is that it is sleazy anyway, and if you're going to go that way, go that way. And speaking of sleaze... like many people on the message boards seem to wonder, and I have to keep wondering, where is the sex? It's not like they have to buy expensive costumes for the sex scenes or build fancy sets and props (no one in Springfield is that kinky). There has been a marked decline in the quantity of sex scenes on soaps in general over the past few years. I can't even remember much about the 90's besides the sex and I really don't understand this change. Can anyone enlighten me?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Have fun.

Matt Purvis
News and recap writer
Soaps.com