Totally Confused

I've come to the conclusion that I am just not meant to understand The Young and the Restless. It's, like, Memento or something where you sort of get the gist of what's going on, but you couldn't explain it to someone else. "So there are these people and they live in Wisconsin, and they are all business people except when they want to get into politics and some of them are sociopaths and there's this guy and I don't even know if he's human..."

It's confusing. And it shouldn't be confusing! I should not come away from watching this show with so many questions. I might be a lot of things, but I and Velma ain't dumb, so I am thinking these might be faults of the writing staff and not my brain, which is a relief. If you have answers to any of the following, please let me know!

IS Y&R PRODUCED BY THE HISTORY CHANNEL?

After the debacle that was the reliquary storyline, I began to suspect that someone at PBS had a hand in the production of this show. And now they've ushered in this bizarre race for the senate storyline. It's like someone out there wants soaps to be...educational or something similarly evil. Daytime dramas are no place for book-learning!

Now, I could theoretically get behind a political storyline on a soap opera. If, you know, any of the characters involved had EVER IN THEIR LIVES hinted at wanting to run for office. I mean, all it took for Jack to sign on for a campaign was Victor suggesting it. "Get involved with something stressful, expensive and totally life-changing on a whim? Okay!"

I still don't even know where Nikki's urge to be a state senator came from, but the woman is steamrolling family, friends and other loved ones to win. As nice as it is for Nikki to do something other than repeat what Victor just said, I wish that we knew why she wants to be senator so badly that she is ruining the lives of her children in order to do so.

DOES PORN CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE?

I'm thinking that we may soon get a very special episode about Daniel's brain damage. The boy can barely function in society due to his porn addiction. How stupid does a person have to be to start watching porn at their job where the security is always high?

Stupid enough to tell someone online that he doesn't have a girlfriend, when he's actually married. Has he never watched television before? Everybody knows that when someone emails you online, it's always your significant other trying to trap you!

I'm also thinking he's been getting his fashion cues from the movies he watches. This is a mustache only a porn star could love:

WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO PHYLLIS?

I know that the most simple answer is "karma", but the last six months of the woman's life have been ridiculous--town pariah, miracle baby delivered in an elevator, miracle baby kidnapped, getting kidnapped herself, getting arrested, town pariah again, and now her husband's plane crashes?

If I didn't know better, I'd think that Lynn Marie Latham was following the cue of the writers at All My Children and attempting to turn an antiheroine into a heroine by making the woman's life nonstop pain and misery, so that she gets the sympathy of the audience.

HOW DOES BILLY WARLOCK STAY SO YOUTHFUL? DOES HE SACRIFICE PUPPIES TO THE DARK LORD? DOES HE JUST USE A GOOD MOISTURIZER? WHAT GIVES?

The man is 46 years old. 46 years old! He looks decades younger. He could pass for one of Daniel's friends from school.

I am a little creeped out by it, if we're being honest.

WHY IS AMBER STILL POLLUTING THE AIRWAVES?

I only have enough room for one blonde, trashy, gold-digging schemer in my life, and Carly Benson Roberts Quartermaine Corinthos Alcazar Corinthos Jacks is it, mostly because she doesn't make me want to stab myself everytime she is onscreen. And she has some redeeming qualities (I can't tell you what they are at the moment, but I know she has some somewhere...). And she doesn't routinely harm the nation's eardrums by showcasing her "singing talent",

And not even Carly would be caught dead in a skintight purple halter jumpsuit

Yes, a jumpsuit. I have no idea why the other characters didn't visibly recoil on sight, but I guess Jeanne Cooper's Emmy nod is deserved after all because she made it through several scenes without breaking character and shouting "For the love of God, why?!" at Adrienne Frantz.

WHAT DID AMELIA HEINLE DO TO ANGER THE WRITERS?

I'm sorry, but I will never think it is okay to make a pregnant woman act out scenes where she loses a child. Never. That is just cruel.

There was no reason for them to even make Victoria get pregnant. All it did was briefly give Brad and Victoria a reason to stay together ( really briefly..the Sharon/Brad affair reveal, Victoria's rebound night with JT and the pregnancy seemed to happen over the course of three days), but, you know, a good writer could have made a compelling reason for them not to get divorced without bringing a baby into it. Of course, a good writer wouldn't have put the two characters together in the first place, so this is all a moot point.

How weird was it that JT was with Victoria to get the news while Brad was getting her chocolate milk? Very, right? I know it was probably to make Amelia Heinle comfortable by having real-life husband and babydaddy Thad Luckinbill with he while she had to act that out, but it made no sense for JT to get the news with her! It was all so strange!

WILL I EVER GET TO SEE SOMEONE KICK MICHAEL IN THE THROAT?

Lord, I hope so.

I was actually infuriated watching him be all giddy and gleeful that Jack would be going down for owning Jabot. Infuriated! It was embarrassing! But to see his smarmy self rejoice  that Jack experience a "well-deserved downfall" made me see read.

The evil thing Jack did? OWN HIS FAMILY'S COMPANY when a lawsuit settlement prohibited him from being involved in it. And that lawsuit? Came about because Michael's psychotic mother was responsible for killing a woman and used the woman's death as leverage to ruin Jack's life. All of which Michael knows because HE HELPED HIS PSYCHOTIC MOTHER COVER IT UP.

At this point, I really wouldn't be upset if all of a sudden Michael, Gloria and Kevin were written off the show and never mentioned again.  Like, Lauren could say "Oh, this baby? Immaculate conception" and I'd be okay with it. Or, if they needed to explain their absence, I'd be okay with "Remember that family of aliens? They were pretty crazy. I hope they're doing some wacky stuff on their home planet!" Really. I'm not asking for sense or logic or even good storytelling. I either want these assholes to get what is coming to them or I want them off the show. Just so my blood pressure doesn't get any higher.

WHY DO I ALWAYS LOVE CHARACTERS WHO EITHER GET NO RESPECT FROM THE WRITERS OR NO SCREENTIME AT ALL?

Probably because I secretly hate myself. It's hard, you know, when your favorites either appear onscreen 14 minutes weekly (like Robin on GH) or have the odds stacked against them so that it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that nothing good will happen to them ever (like Jack Abbott, love of my life).

I know, Jack, it makes me weep, too.

WHAT'S WITH ALL THE "PRESUMED DEAD" STORIES ON THIS SHOW?

So the Newman jet went down with Sharon and Nick on it. This comes weeks after Sharon and Dru fell off the "cliff". Has no one on this staff heard of spreading things out just a little bit?

Comments

[zarathelawyer]

And here you sum up nicely why I haven't watched Y&R in weeks, if not months.

Also, the Billy Warlock thing continues to confuse me too. The man has been married like 15 times and been shafted by two different soaps, surely the stress must age him. And yet it doesn't.

I have 3 things to say:

1.) Billy Warlock is 46? REALLY? That IS freaky, he looks about 25.

2.) I watch Y&R once a year and, like Billy, it never changes...same damn storylines going on and I never have to "catch up." Maybe they are just coming full circle again when I see it, but I kid you not...same storylines...

3.) What I wouldn't give to see Robin on my screen 14 whole minutes a week! I think its more like 5 if we're lucky...and 3 of those are usually listending to Nik breath heavily.

[Evil But Twinless]

There is nothing creepy about Billy Warlock! Nothing! Just because he drinks the blood of virgins, or something, is no reason to be rude.

I seriously want him and Julie Pinson to have a hundred children, just to revive the goodlookingness of the species. At the very least they have to have two to cancel out the Spears/Federline spawn.

[CHH]

Billy Warlock's youthful appearance has to be the result of either a pact with the devil or he's got a picture in an attic somewhere. The guy was on Baywatch and shows no sign of any sun damage. Something is surely not right about this. I'd be demanding an investigation if I didn't like him so much.

[Louise]

Omg, I haven't watched Y&R in months and months and I quit watching because Michael and Gloria and Kevin were getting away with everything.

And now you're telling me THEY STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN CAUGHT???

Wow. I don't know how you haven't had a stroke.

[angela]

i am currently watching Y&R to catch that one day where cock-eyed Gloria actually pulls it off, and her eyes actually pop out of her head. I feel it coming any day now.

I'm waiting for the writers to throw my boy Jack a bone. Jack steps on people that deserve to be stepped on [Gloria, Nikki, etctetc], and is quite the family man. Who can resist her constant teary eyed self over how lonely he is? im gonna pour one for Jack tonight.

[Goddess]

I greatly enjoyed your comments on Y&R. I think the thing that's bugging me since LML took over is the way she's dragging out the storylines. They're taking forever to reach a conclusion and it seems like they're recycling the same garbage storylines over and over: plane crashes, miscarriages--will they EVER let Victoria have a healthy kid?--and good old Shelia, who seems to have more lives than 15 cats put together. And try as I might, I just can't get used to the idea of Jack and Sharon being married. It's beyond creepy when you think about the fact that he was stepfather to her HUSBAND and now to her husband's son. YUCK.

[J]

I think I know why Billy Warlock hasn't aged in decades: his last name is Warlock, which is the male version of a witch. Nuff said. :)

[cassie1013]

Lol who knows what the hell is going on with Y&R. I'm seriously expecting an island with all these "dead" people to show up (LML should stop pulling from JER's fantastical instant ratings from crappy storylines bible).

[SimoneS]

I have had enough of the Fishers/Baldwins. I can't even stand Michael any more. Gloria and Kevin make my skin crawl. Kevin has been magically redeemed and now is best buddies with his victims, Colleen and Lily. Sick. I love Jack also.