Episode 111 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 111:

Michael parries Victor's attempts to impair him.

This was `just for fun'. I'm actually pretty happy to see Victor going after Michael in some interesting way, but I felt obliged to try to have some fun with it anyway. I have some other ideas, too, but there's only so much I can try in an episode.

Cricket compares disparate clues in hopes of repairing a parental paradox.

Now, this is a more serious issue. The letter on the show really did say June 12. 1987. And the first thing I thought when I saw it was ``but Carl was in the Cassandra rescue plot!'' So I checked my tape library and found an old tape that I just happened to have saved from that era, and sure enough--the 1990 Miss Universe pageant was being advertised in the middle of the same week where they tied off the Cassandra "dry ice" plot. So it looks suspiciously like someone didn't do their homework. Either they shouldn't have used that date so conspicuously on the letter or else they shouldn't have said the letters preceded Carl's disappearance by only a few months!

Apparently, Victoria's parental parcel will arrive with time to spare.

It's been bugging me that Victoria is due on October 15 (assuming my memory is right that in January we saw her looking at a calendar around January 15 and saying how pleased she was that she'd timed her fling with Cole correctly) and isn't making any plans for it. Indeed, we are now past the point where even a 3-week waiting period on Neil's divorce, if it happened today, would be enough for her due-date. I think we're looking at a long gestation period, like Sharon's 10-month premie, Noah. But I also thought it would be fun if we had a real premature birth and just confused things some more in ways people don't expect.

Katherine prepares to parlay Jill's parasitic paranoia.

I've had it in the back of my mind for a while to try this idea--that Katherine had set up the whole thing and tricked Jill into it. I guess it still bugs me how neatly the letter fell into Jill's lap. But if Katherine had masterminded it, I could understand the fortuitous timing better. I think it works pretty well, actually.

Trisha achieves parental parity by parroting Meg's paramour disparagements.

Gee whiz this plotline with Meg and Trish is familiar. It was bad enough having Meg be the expert when Trish was with Ryan, but now repeating it seems silly. She wouldn't be the first in the world to offer advice she wasn't experienced enough to give, so that's not the problem. The real problem is that it's just more boring and tedious to do it this way--it feels too much like the previous plot. Both of these actresses could be better used.

Sharon finds Grace's parading her apparel too transparent.

I felt like the scene in Intimate Secrets was wasted. They had that sales lady get all the useful dope on what Grace was up to and then not use it for anything. I felt like she could have interacted more, and so this was my attempt to better integrate this. Of course, on the real show it would be a more stretched out timeline. But I kinda compressed things here.

That's all for Episode 111's morals. Don't miss Episode 112 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.