As The World Turns Weekly Blog

Carly's devious grin (Soaps.com)

As the Word Turns.

Thoughts on the week of February 15-19.

Mick’s story hit its final peak and consumed the first half of the week, which provided a rather nice break from everything else. Of course, Mick is going to be around for awhile still and things between the disturbed young man and Oakdale’s most dysfunctional young couple will persist for awhile. Oakdale’s square of romantic ruin took up most of the rest of the week as CarJack ran into DustJacket.

Monday was nice, starting out with a little humor courtesy of Reid and Henry, as well as some cuteness thanks to Emily and Paul. This provided a nice symbolic balance to Mick. Since he was acting as the evil portion of James’ lingering legacy, seeing the very non-James aspects of his two sons, as well as Barbara, was a nice dramatic device. It also made the violence kicking in at the wedding more complicated. I didn’t find the hostage taking situation especially tense or inspired, but there were good bits littered throughout. Bob, Kim and Reid were fun as Bob faked a stroke so that they could escape. Mick calling the wedding guests out on their substantial flaws and various crimes was also nice, although it pointed to what may be one of the show’s real flaws, which is that almost no one in Oakdale is actually very sympathetic. But even with its substantial flaws, this story still reminds me of what can make Daytime fun. Intentional or not, I can hardly fault them for giving me a few laughs and some memorable moments. In particular, I was fond of Alison in her wedding dress with her white gloves covered in blood. It was a good crisp image to cap things off and visual precision isn’t something I normally associate with ATWT.

The fallout from the story should be interesting. Alison and Casey seem to be over, which might have been more interesting if they hadn’t broken up so many times already and if either of them really had clearly delineated emotions instead of emotional twists which bend wherever the plot needs them to go. Henry and Barbara have been pulled closer together which provides a unique chemistry that the show doesn’t really have and could give some great material to both of them and salvage what’s left of her character. Paul and Emily also seem to have returned to their more romantic sides. Watching Paul admit that he is finally becoming someone he could like was nice to see.

Defusing around Damian. Maybe it was just because the story had been dropped for nearly a week, but whatever energy which the Damian plot had seriously dissipated by the time it reared its head again. Lily popped up to look worried. Molly tried to cover things up for Holden's sake by faking a goodbye note from Damian. That won't pan out too well. Molly was far more interesting in her brief flirtation with Dusty at the end of the week as she probed for details about the life of his privates.

And then came the crapulence of that supercouple, CarJack, the show's resident sickness. It's no coincidence that Liberty has cancer from being in their proximity. Supercouples aren't always bad, just to be fair. ToMargo doesn't have anywhere near the problems that CarJack does. But their adventures were each different and their problems weren't simply recycled; they were varied and well-integrated, even though they're now criminally neglected in the plot department. CarJack is a textbook case of the worst cliches of Daytime writing. It isn't even writing: It's mechanical scrawling. History does all the work so the writers won't have to. It's lazy, it's bad and I'm sick of writing this every week, but if their broken record won't stop playing, neither will mine.

All that said, and just to be fair, there were still some nice bits and pieces in the mess. When Carly caught Dusty and Janet together, she looked happier than she's ever been. It's been awhile since her vicious, selfish streak came through without also being full of self-loathing. Instead, it was full of self-aggrandizing, which was sort of a nice change. Watching Jack's face spasm through all of his scenes to demonstrate that he was reacting to what was going on around him was also unusually animated. The nicest touch, however, was seeing both Carly and Janet get stacked together as, almost back to back, they were shown doing their makeup, figuratively putting their faces on for their latest round of deceptions. Liberty and Parker continued to drift around like the sad punching bags for this plot that they are. Craig made a brief, and welcome, return appearance that sadly didn't go anywhere, and Janet's father visited. Apparently he comes from the same republic of Italian-American stereotypes that Uncle Ralphie came from.

Anyway, that was my babbling for the week. You can catch a video preview for next week here. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below and remember that this is all in fun.

Have a happy weekend everyone.

Matt Purvis