The Best

Days of our Lives: Holly Busts Eric

You can’t blame Tate for thinking Holly knew who killed her father because it had been common knowledge in Salem for years. But Nicole hid Eric’s involvement in Daniel’s death, telling Holly the drunk driver was dead and looking him up would just upset her (a nice detail since every teen has Google in their pocket). Eric returned to town right after his stepdaughter learned the truth and it wasn’t pretty. Holly told Eric she’d still have her dad if it wasn’t for him, and she hated him for lying. Blindsided, Eric stammered that he and Nicole were just protecting Holly because she was a child. “You had 17 years to tell me!” Holly fired back, sticking the knife in by saying Eric stole Daniel’s life and then married his fiancée.

DAYS milked maximum drama out of the scenes, interspersing them with two surprisingly moving encounters. Holly turned to her former stepdad EJ for comfort and he gave it, telling her he was proud of her. Meanwhile, Tate felt terrible about spilling the beans and sought solace from his Grandpa. John drew the obvious parallel between the crime Eric committed back then and the one Brady is accused of now, sweetly counseling Tate that Holly will forgive him. We should all have a grandfather who puts his arm around us when we’re upset and calls us “kiddo!”

 

General Hospital: Alexis Gets Arrested

Murder mysteries are Soaps 101, but this one is different because we know who did it. Sonny shot John Cates in cold blood after Cates tormented Sonny’s daughter and now Sonny and Kristina are both suspects — but it’s Kristina’s mom, Alexis, who got arrested. Yes, it was dumb of Alexis to find a gun in her daughter’s purse and go throw it off a bridge where people could see her (!) but the real drama here is if Sonny will allow the mother of his oldest daughter to go down for a crime he committed.

Sonny’s lawyer, Diane — who also happens to be Alexis’s best friend — suspects her client is guilty, and pointed out that Alexis has no alibi for the night Cates was murdered. Sonny blamed his ex, saying she should have come to him for help with the gun. “Yes,” eye-rolled Diane, “shame on Alexis for not knowing how to dispose of a 9 millimeter.”

Since Alexis didn’t do it, we can now sit back and enjoy all the police/courtroom drama with none of the worry that she’ll actually go to prison. Right, Sonny?!

 

Young and Restless: Victor Plays Hardball

The Mustache had already moved Nikki, Victoria, Nick and Adam around Newman Enterprises like pieces on a chess board and hired Jack’s son Kyle out from under him to work at Glissade. Now, he’s lying to sweet Lily Winters that she’ll be CEO of Chancellor if Victor takes over.

“I do what I have to do,” Victor told his lawyer Michael. “Nothing for you to worry about.” Except that Michael goes almost as far back with Lily and her family as Victor does. And Victor leading Lily to believe he’ll hire her in exchange for dirt on Billy (even though Victor has already promised the job to his wife) is too sketchy even for Michael — and he once tunneled into Christine’s apartment to hold her captive.

If Victor does wrest Chancellor from Billy with Lily’s inside info and then screws Lily over, the Black Knight (as Jack calls him) will have a lot more people to answer to than just Lily and Michael.

 

Bold and Beautiful: That’s All, Luna!

Here’s your cage, what’s your hurry?

B&B didn’t waste any time after deciding to make Luna psycho to vanquish her and move on with a party to celebrate Steffy’s homecoming. “How are you, really?” queried Brooke as everyone gathered around the recently released kidnap victim. Carter and Deacon joined various Forresters and Logans to express gratitude that Steffy was safe and ruminate how Luna could have killed her like she did Hollis and Tom. All agreed Finn was a hero for rescuing his wife from certain death in Luna’s cage — especially Brooke who pointedly told Hope that Finn and Steffy share “a love that can never be broken.”

Hope took that as a challenge, a sure sign of Steffy’s next hurdle…

 

The Worst

GH Makes Lois Ditch Her Accent

What do people love about Lois Cerullo? Her nails, her clothes, her love for Brook Lynn, her no-nonsense approach to the Quartermaines (especially Tracy), and her Brooklyn accent. So it was a head-scratcher when one phone call complaining about Lois’s elocution during a Deception TV appearance resulted in Tracy hiring a dialect coach for her former daughter-in-law — and then Lois kept talking in that strange voice.

“Who are you and what have you done with Lois?” demanded Maxie at a Deception meeting. “I think she’s having a stroke,” responded Lucy.

The scenes were funny, but Maxie and Lucy spoke for many GH fans. There are so few truly original soap characters. Accent-uate the positive and let Lois be Lois!

Bottom line, Lois’s Brooklyn accent is as essential to who she is as the British- and Australian-inflected accents of characters like Anna, Holly and Robert are to them. And not to get too deep about it, but what message is GH sending here, especially to viewers who themselves have strong Brooklyn accents, or other distinctive regional accents, for that matter? This is a big thumbs-down all the way around.

 

Y&R: Kids Aren’t Us

Young people getting into trouble has long been interesting soap fodder, but that’s not what Y&R is putting Connor and Lucy through. Connor returned from his OCD treatment blaming himself for his parents’ tattered love lives, which was wrong: Chelsea and Adam’s cheating wrecked their relationships. They dismissed their son’s comments, prompting Connor to say, “You talk to me like I’m dumb.” They’re giving the kid all this therapy to get him healthy but when he asks a real question about an obvious problem they downplay it? No.

Across town, underage drinker Lucy wanted to apologize to Faith for sparking the car accident that injured them, but Sharon screamed at Lucy that her desperation to be Faith’s friend was “suffocating” and her actions unhealthy. (Lucy later commented to her parents that Sharon’s behavior was unhealthy — out of the mouths of babes!) It makes perfect sense to include the next generation of Genoa City A-listers in story, but let’s see some teenage angst at Walnut Grove before another medical emergency.