The reason this storyline jumped the trolley HAD to be because of the strike. Long was not prone to writing overly-convoluted mystery plots. Even if you didn't care much for her mystery stories, they were pretty straight-forward and understandable. That's true of both the Fishing Trip Mystery and the Barbados Mystery.
I'm not even sure that Long created the characters of Sonni and Will. I think Will came on before she returned, maybe Sonni, too? Will and Josh must have talked about her, at least. I believe Long came back just after Josh dumped Reva over Mara's paternity. Literally one of the first things she did when she came back was put Reva in her red dress and cause a scene at the country club, where she caught Alan's attention.
So she inherites this story, and then there's a long writers strike. I'm not even sure Will and Sonni were intended to be these dark, almost twisted characters in the beginning. Then when the scabs came in there was so much wacky stuff: Will and Sonni having this weird, sadistic relationship, plotting to kill Josh while Sonni was still jealous of Reva (because, of course), Will once being a priest, Sonni (or was it Solita?) being a porn star in Argentina. Sonni fell off the cliff, no, Solita fell off the cliff, no, Solita was impersonating Sonni, Sonni was caught in bed with Will and whipped almost to death by her father, no, it was Solita, who ended up hanging herself, then Sonni took over Solita's persona, blah, blah, blah...
It was pretty insane, and totally not the kind of mystery story Long had written before.
As crazy as the story was, the audience did like Forbes and Breen, so Long had to figure out ways to keep them on the show, at least until their contracts ran out.
I can't envy her coming back from the strike, because she had to put out a bunch of fires: Bernau was gone, she had to fix the Sonni story, she was told to bring Roger Thorpe back from the dead, which changed whatever direction she originally intended for Blake, etc, etc.
By
DeeVee ·
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