Episode 143 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 143:

If the US were attacked, how would Genoa City residents show their mettle?

I know this is a touchy topic, but it seems weird to have plotlines that just utterly bypass the 9/11 attack as if nothing happened. I felt I had to do something to show it would have affected these people. I think a lot of the audience works through a great number of hard issues by sympathizing with or hating people for their roles in the plots that are there, and the attack ought really be no exception.

If there were an olympic medal for obliviousness, would anyone but Nick be in the running?

Lately Nick's being played too much as a smarty. Honestly, I think the character doesn't have it in him. We've got him going out and talking to Trisha and starting to become like his Dad does, trying to track down the answer. I think he should go back to being a comedic character. I tried in this episode with his surely-ineffectual attempts to help the search crews with smoothies, as well as with his confused attempt to get Larry to "hit on Trisha" (not realizing he was taking out a contract on her life, and presumably instead thinking he was sponsoring Larry to help him date Trisha) to get him back in line. What put me up to this was when I saw that conversation between Larry and Nick on the show; it just seemed like Nick was all in all too savvy, when there was much more interesting opportunity for him to get confused and have Larry go at it. Then later there could be a big scene where Nick explains his confusion and no one believes he could be that dumb. (Except us viewers, of course.) On the other hand, it would mean losing Larry, who I like. But at least in AWO I can bring him back again next week.

Will Colleen dominate the category of cold meddling?

Colleen is not warm. Nowhere close. She's pure evil, yet she's being played as lukewarm evil. I was trying to think of what the meanest thing she could do to break up her father and Tracy and to get Tracy/Brad back together when along came this 9/11 event that everyone thinks it's completely inappropriate for anyone to exploit. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I figure if I make her cold enough to exploit even that tragedy, you'd get an idea of how low and evil I think her character could sink if she really tries.

There would also be a certain weird pattern if Steve came back and found Tracy had "unwittingly" ended up marrying Brad: Remember how once Brad was kidnapped by an ex-wife (Lisa, I think) and how merciless Tracy was to him afterward, as if he'd somehow left her deliberately. She had "moved on" (away from Brad) at the time. I can't remember if it was toward Steve. (Maybe some reader can send me email letting me know for sure and I can update this document to be more firm on the matter.) If she now moved away from Steve and toward Brad for reasons she was just again confused about, that'd be kind of appropriate in a weird kind of way.

That's all for Episode 143's morals. Don't miss Episode 144 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.