Episode 32 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 32:

Phyllis goes tripping

Oh, come on. The comet's very topical. It'll probably be a flash in the pan (or should I say "shooting star") but that's ok. If it gets me good ratings, why not?

And anyway, it was yet another way to write the Phyllis character out. And, as you know by now, I'm committed to getting rid of the new actress or any other interloper who tries to play Phyllis. Let's all join in for the chorus now: ``Michelle Stafford or Bust!'' Oh, heck, we might as well have it all--let's make the chorus ``Michelle Stafford and Bust!''

Cole exposes the source of Nina's confusion

There's really no excuse for rewriting history. None at all. Nina did not sleep with Cole. Retroactively deciding otherwise is an awful trick to play on the audience. It does not reward people for patient day-to-day viewing and remembering what has happened--it says, ``whether you watch or not, it won't give you a leg up on understanding what's coming next, so you might as well not watch.'' And that's just what a lot of viewers on the newsgroup are doing.

Anyway, I struggled for a way to make it not be a lie that the writers have told us. The obvious solution that presented itself to me and others was this: Nina's memory is confused. But if that was so, we could at least expect Cole to help her remember. He's supposedly got a more level head about things, after all. And so then I thought, `what kind of evidence do people usually offer in situations like this?' And, well, you can see how this scene pretty much wrote itself.

Nina and Ryan make their lawyers salivate

There are several points to be made here. One is that Ryan keeps running and talking to John Silva even though John is always quick to remind him that he needs a lawyer of his own. So I got him a lawyer of his own. Doris needed something to be doing anyway, and if this case is successful, she'll be rich right along with Ryan. Which will make her quite the `force to be reckoned with'. Maybe she can even pay back Victor for her surgery!

Another point is that John Silva has no woman. And so I was thinking back about the days when he and Nina used to date and thinking--these two would be fine together. Might as well get something (re)started. The hard part, of course, is keeping them together; for some reason, Silva has had numerous almost-relationships, but never manages to keep one. Is there some deep dark reason for that? I'm really baffled. Hmm. Maybe I'll have to invent an explanation in some later episode.

Nick and Sharon's baby hangs in the balance sheets

This episode was downright scary to write. It sounded just oh-so-plausible. Wouldn't it be terrible if hospitals really did this? I mean, it's one thing for Sheila to break in during the night and do the deed with no one looking. Probably if it really happened, someone would catch the person. But once you have an institution willing to lie about an event like this, it's so hard to bring it to light. I'm reminded of the very excellent movie "The Verdict" which revolved around an incident not unlike this one. Some of the details were different, and the plot structure is surely different, but the underlying set of worries is probably very universal. I'm sure if this had been done for real on the show and extended out over time, it would have been very interesting.

That's all for Episode 32's morals. Don't miss Episode 33 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.