ABC/Patrick Wymore; Disney/Bahareh Ritter; Disney/Christopher Willard
A Lifetime Of Devotion: Monaco as Sam opposite (from l.) Steve Burton’s Jason, Dominic Zamprogna’s Dante and Asher Antonyzyn’s Danny.
I started watching soaps when I was in grade school, indoctrinated by the daily Days of Our Lives habit of my best friend Julie’s mom (shout-out Margie!). By the time I graduated high school, I was an armchair expert in every soap on the air (10 at the time), plus a few more that had been canceled since I’d become a fan of the genre. In college, I interned at Soap Opera Weekly and wrote my honors thesis on the intersection of soaps and feminism, and began working at Soap Opera Digest shortly thereafter. All of this is to say that I have spent the entirety of my adult life, and a good chunk of the rest of it, thinking about soaps, its characters and storylines — but also about the relationships of viewers to their soaps.
The Heart of the Matter
The unique nature of that relationship has been on my mind with particular intensity since I found out that General Hospital had made the decision to part ways with Kelly Monaco, a fan favorite and, having begun her career there in 2003, a certified veteran, even on a show with decades of history prior to her arrival.
Over the years, I have interviewed Kelly and spent one-on-one time with her, our conversations extending beyond her work or my work. I think it is fair to say that we are fond of one another and that we have connected on a personal level. Most fans of General Hospital know Kelly far less directly. Their “knowing” of her is based primarily on the sense they get of her personality from interviews, from her increasingly infrequent social media presence, perhaps from encounters at sanctioned fan events.
But just as passionate fans of pop stars and movie stars don’t necessarily know them personally, those who consume the work of an artist often feel like they know something about them through their work. And more than any other genre, soap fans get to consume a lot of the work product of their favorite actors. The shows are on five days a week, 52 weeks a year. Save for the rare “encore episode,” there’s a new show on Monday through Friday. There are hundreds of thousands of viewers who have watched Kelly play Sam over the course of literally thousands of episodes (and many have rewatched favorite scenes and moments, possibly countless times). And not just watched her, but invested in her (both her and Sam) and rooted for her (both her and Sam).
Longtime soap fans are no stranger to heartbreak, which can come in many forms — actors choose to leave or are fired, beloved couples break up; your favorite character is stuck in a storyline or pairing you hate, or has no storyline to speak of. Sometimes, that heartbreak is mended — that actor who left returns, the writers split up that detested couple or wrap up that detested storyline, that character who was stuck on the back burner gets a resurgence. And as long as the show keeps humming along, there is always that possibility that that thing you’re hoping will happen actually does.
There are a lot of reasons that Kelly’s fans are upset and/or angry about her imminent departure and are voicing their outrage over it so loudly. Their passion is a reflection of how much they care about her and the character she’s brought to life, how much they’ve invested in her, how much they’ve rooted for her. But I also think it’s a reflection of how much it hurts to know that all the “what ifs” on their wish list for Sam, all the things that could possibly happen as long as Sam was still on the canvas, will never come to fruition. There is now a finite number of tomorrows for Sam McCall to tune in for, and a dwindling likelihood that whatever it was that you hoped to see Kelly get to play out as Sam — which, depending on who you asked, might be getting back together with Jason, or marrying Dante, or navigating the highs and lows of parenting Danny through his remaining teenage years (or Scout through her upcoming ones), or perhaps a storyline that saw her action-adventure side reemerge, or showcased her friendship with Liz — will actually happen. There will be no happily ever after. There will be no reward for fans’ long and impassioned investment.
I felt compelled to write this just to acknowledge that grief, the grief of those lost possibilities, that I think many General Hospital fans are experiencing (or will experience when Kelly’s final episode airs this fall). I think it’s a grief specific to soap viewing, to falling in love with a character and getting to spend 5, 10, 20, sometimes even 50 years watching them, investing in them, and rooting for them. It’s a grief many of us can only share with other soap watchers; who else would possibly understand it?
I’m curious to know if this resonates with you — and what your wish-list items are for Sam. Let me know in the comments below!
