Here’s another one of my semi-regular reviews of random episodes of As the World Turns that I was able to see. This week I caught the August 25th episode. The series has less than a month of episodes left to air. If things are inaccurate, that’s what you get for watching less than five episodes a month. In the real world, I think a lot of people watch soaps like this casually seeing episodes when they are home and not recording every episode.
My initial impressions were ones of confusion. I haven’t seen the characters focused on this particular episode in months. How I watch this show is reminiscent of how I had to watch soaps years ago. No way to record, sometimes going weeks between episodes equals a bit of backtracking to figure out what was happening on screen. Back then the main thing I used to keep up were summaries in the newspaper, television advertisements and magazines in the supermarket.
Let’s see Holden was with his daughter Faith. The last time I saw her on screen that I can recall she was a lot younger. He was working outside at the farm. She made him lemonade which was a surprise. They talked about the mythos of Lily and Holden. And how Holden should try to get back together with her mom as Molly is out of the picture. They talked about true love and how Holden and Lily were so young when they started their relationship. These scenes weren’t outside, but on a set. Other parts of the program were outside, but this material was not. The majority of the rest of the episode was either outside or indoors, but not using traditional sets.
Lucinda was in scenes with Stuart Damon who I see as Alan from General Hospital and not Ralph. They have a past, and he’s a criminal. Somehow he is out of prison. I don’t understand why they are meeting outside, but they are. There is a reference to a castle that I never heard of before, that seems to not be in Oakdale. It has been months since I’ve seen Elizabeth Hubbard on screen, so even though Lucinda was interacting with a character I didn’t know I could deal with it. Supposedly she did some criminal things, and as he went back to prison he protected her. Ralph was responsible for Brad’s death, but Jack couldn’t kill him. Lily and Craig were together at the castle. She left him as she was disgusted even if she enjoyed kissing Craig.
Janet is being held hostage by Blackie played by Billy Warlock, Julie Pinson’s real life husband. My first thought on seeing him was not his ATWT character. This was the first time I saw him on the program. He was taken care of by Stuart Damon’s character which considering on GH, they played father and son, gave me a chuckle. Jack and Carly had angst, but for once it wasn’t about another person or Brad’s death. Carly’s mere presence kept Jack from killing Ralph. Earlier in the episode, Jack and Carly saved Dusty and Janet from Blackie and henchmen. Yes, ATWT had a roundhouse kick outside and a both Blackie and Jack had guns.
Due to who was on it also felt like a mini-Port Charles/General Hospital reunion, we had Julie Pinson (who was Eve on PC), Jon Lindstrom (Craig on ATWT who was Kevin on both shows), Stuart Damon (who appeared on both PC & GH) and Billy Warlock (who was A.J. on GH). Since I watch GH and watched PC, this was kind of strange. My biggest impression though from watching this particular episode was how so much of this episode had action. We had Jack and Carly follow a trail of blood to a beaten up Dusty who was trying to save a pregnant Janet. After the coast was clear, Janet seemed to be having strife. Jack also put a gun to Ralph. This may have been a blip as every other episode I’ve seen in the last few months had at most comic violence (Barbara being held hostage.) This day had story movement and had a low budget crime feel instead of the traditional vibe of talking over coffee.
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