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What a Tease: 25 Couples the Soaps Made Us *Think* We Were Getting… Then Never Actually Let Us Have
Friday, September 2nd, 2022
As the Rolling Stones once sang, you can’t always get what you want — and, in some cases, you can’t even get what you were kinda-sorta promised, either!
Burns must not scare The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, because all four shows sure love playing with fire. Time and time again, they’ve heavily hinted at new couplings, some of which viewers were massively into, only to pull the plug just as sparks started flying.
More: 30 couples the shows tried to force on fans [PHOTOS]
“OMG, yes! I haaate when they do that!”
Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
Why? There are probably as many reasons as there are pairings that never really got, you know, “paired.” Sometimes the characters in question might have been chemistry-tested, and while the audience might have been like, “Yep, I can see that,” the powers that be might have been all, “Nope, I can’t see that.”
“Why would they do that? It seems… mean.”
Credit: NBC screenshot
More: Soap couples fans never give up on [PHOTOS]
Other times, what fans saw as a capital-S Something might have been a lowercase-n nothing to the writers, just a blip between major stories. So what we imagined was the beginning of a new romance, relationship, fling, what have you, was, in fact… well, no more than our imagination.
It’s happened a lot, too. Take a look at the below gallery of couples that the shows had us thinking were about to take off… that they never actually let leave the ground.
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Image: Howard Wise/JPI
1/25
<p>As she discovered for herself, “They’re real, and they’re spectacular.” But, although the duo passed their chemistry test in 2019, the result was… nada. Nothing. Zilch.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
2/25
<p>A single ill-advised kiss in 2015 was as far as Michael’s wife and Lily’s husband got before irate fans got him swerved back into his usual “Lane.”</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
3/25
<p>We saw the potential in the General Hospital staffers’ pairing. And they might’ve, too, if only she’d turned around. “He’s behind you,” we yelled at the TV. To no avail.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
4/25
<p>Whether we felt like we were cheating on “Cin” as we did it, we couldn’t help but kinda root for Ciara’s “widower” to look at her niece as more than a friend.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
5/25
<p>Now that she’s married both of his sons — and they had a regrettable one-night stand — the ick factor may be too great for these two to ever really make like that candle and catch fire.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
6/25
<p>One kiss in 2010 was all we needed to tell us that we wanted to see more. It was random, it was hot, and it left us as intoxicated as two of those martinis might have.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
7/25
<p>Why the show threw cold water on Kiki’s parents, we’ll go to our grave not understanding. They burned more brightly than many a flame-thrower.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
8/25
<p>Yes, Abe, <em>this</em> is how tightly you should have held on. Instead, he loosened his grip, and their relationship was sunk just as we were shipping them the hardest.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
9/25
<p>The affair between Brooke’s sister and “destiny” (then Ronn Moss) began and ended so fast, he didn’t even have time to pull out his signature move: proposing way too soon.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
10/25
<p>Here, the coulda-been-a-supercouple demonstrate our reaction to the show’s treatment of their pairing as a disposable afterthought. “Boo” to that and also “hiss.”</p>
Image: Paul Skipper/JPI
11/25
<p>Why? Why did her childhood crush never mature into anything more? We can’t imagine and don’t much care to. We’d prefer to daydream about what could’ve been.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
12/25
<p>“Hey, wait a minute… Is that our chance at an actual storyline together slipping out the exit?” Sadly, it was.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
13/25
<p>Don’t look so skeptical, Pam. You — and the show — may have forgotten when you were smitten with Stephanie’s husband. But we haven’t.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
14/25
<p>In 2018, the one-man kissing booth, in his quest to test-drive every pair of lips in Genoa City, laid one on Victoria. Aand… ? Nothing came of it but this steamy commemorative photo.</p>
Image: Chris D/JPI
15/25
<p>Despite the steam that rose off them anytime they touched, their romance was so fleeting that their first dance could’ve doubled as their last.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
16/25
<p>Hard as it was to compete with “WilSon,” “WilSon,” “WilSon,” these two were like a bedtime story that never quite got told in full. Maybe there will be a next chapter?</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI (2)
17/25
<p>“Sick” is such a frustrating near-pairing that we don’t even have a good picture of them together. And at the rate the show is going, we may <em>never</em> have a good picture of them together!</p>
Image: Paul Skipper/JPI
18/25
<p>“Liason” fans have long been understandably irked that she got a more substantial story arc with the fake Jason (his twin brother, Drew) than with the real McCoy.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
19/25
<p>Somehow, Sami’s ex and her half sister’s flirtation lasted only long enough in 2022 for her to catch them like this. Which, OK, in a way was worth it.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
20/25
<p>Look at the way they were gazing at one another back in 2013. A lot more could’ve developed between the model and the photographer than just pretty, pretty pictures.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
21/25
<p>We were eager to see where their friendship was going in 2019. Or at least we were until we found out that the answer was “absolutely nowhere.”</p>
Image: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images
22/25
<p>Unlike so many of daytime’s illicit lovers, Lucky’s half brother (then Tyler Christopher) and his sometime sister-in-law were actually split up once their affair was revealed.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
23/25
<p>To illustrate for her bedmate how small the chances of them having a lasting relationship were in 2013, she produced a teensy vial in which those chances would fit. He still didn’t get it. Neither did we.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
24/25
<p>Here a roll in the hay, there a kiss on the lips. But Hope’s parents have yet to go the distance — or any distance, really, besides the one between them and questionable decisions.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
25/25
