Episode 17 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 17:

What major character bites the dust?

There's been a lot of speculation on the newsgroup that there is a major character going to be leaving soon. I don't suppose it's a matter we'll get to vote on, but I've never let the fact that no one asked my opinion stop me before, so I put in my bid for it to be Victor. It's not that I have any major hatred for either Victor or Eric Braeden, but it just makes me sad that over time the entire show has started to circulate around him, rather than being a struggle between multiple points of power. So this seemed an opportunity to right that wrong.

Also, of course, I tire of anyone as hot-blooded as Nick just giving in to Victor all the time. It's true that this week he appears to defy Victor, but not in as major a way as I'd expect. I expect a boxing match or for him to walk out or something--not merely words. Nick has not been raised to be a person of words.

What of a minor character who wipes the dust?

Am I the only person who thinks that Helen has a little bit of the look of that woman that holds the writer hostage in Misery? There is something definitely weird about a woman who dusts a neighbor's house for months without being asked, and there's something weird about the letter from Linda being there all that time and not being noticed by Helen. I keep expecting her to call Kurt ``Mr. Man'' and to find that he has been kept from leaving. By rights she ought to be the ``bad guy''.

But then when I tried to write it that way, it came out silly, with bars of a cage falling around him in the middle of the living room, and I didn't like it. I basically decided we've already had too many people locked in living rooms or basements on this show--and even if I, too, had succumbed to the ploy in a previous episode or two, it wasn't yet time for another. So I changed the ending at the last minute--hopefully for the better.

What character minor stirs the dust?

I know LLB's rumored to be pregnant, but I decided to ignore that constraint here...

Always the pro-lifers (who plainly dominate the writing for this show) push the idea of adoption as a better alternative to pregnancy than abortion. I think it's time they investigate the obvious consequences of that. If a community doesn't adopt as many people as it gives up for adoption, then where do all those supposedly-adopted kids end up piled up? My feeling is that Mary, in spite of her religious beliefs and in spite of the fact that she'd probably encourage any unwanted pregnancy to be given up for adoption rather than aborted, would hypocritically reject an adopted baby--insisting on a "real" grandchild. It might be fun for Y&R to explore the acceptance issues in adopting, perhaps even aggravated by a mixed-race situation. And it would give Paul and Cricket something new to say to Mary ("our hands are full"); after all, after this little episode, she'd dare not say "Isn't it time you had another?"!

That's all for Episode 17's morals. Don't miss Episode 18 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.