OLTL: Discussion for the week April 13

[rangethatrover]

His storylines usually tie up extremely well, the May spoilers were blah to me, but i am looking forward to sweeps.

[Vee]

I think he introduced Jared, Charlie and Gigi very well. Stacy is the exception to the rule.

[rangethatrover]

And Stacey does have Frons written all over her, so this could have been his doing too..

[EricMontreal22]

Aww I misunderstood I thought youw ere complaining and thought he was TOo hairy and needed waxing right now--iw as gonna point out tdoay's episode showed he didn't

You're too good to me

[EricMontreal22]

Well AND add to that the simple flaw that Rex has been built up as a sneaky character--there should and owuld be NO problem telling him what' sup and getting him to pretend to be into Stacy until they get the marrow. ADD to that Roxy is meant to be sneaky too and she swould never stand by watching this. And that to me goes back to the writing--a couple of times we've had Gigi say when peopel tell her she shoudl just tell Rex and pretend "Don't you think I knwo that! but we can't do that..." and then NEVER even explain why.

[rhinohide]

He did a good job with Schuyler too IMHO.

[DavidEvanSmith]

I blame Frons for EVERYTHING Stacy.

As for the interesting "Sister/Brother" dialogue between Todd and Tea, I think Todd was supposed to say sister, but flubbed the line, and Florencia Lozano was kind of forced to flub hers to make up for it. She had a slight stammer of an actress who quickly had to retool the line in her head when her lead-in wasn't what she expected. But it DOES make for an interesting dialogue to analyze if it was scripted the way it was played.

[Vee]

I think Todd and Tea are fascinatingly twisted together, and the chemistry is definitely there. They were hot. As I've said, I think they make a great junior "Carlo and Alex," a sort of king and queen of evil and debauchery. The problem is, if you just keep playing these notes, Todd stays where he is as a character, which is really nowhere. TSJ is very entertaining playing smarmy and flirtatious and sick and cruel, but Todd has been gutted by Tarty and the writers have failed to reconstitute the character in any meaningful way; we're basically watching an unredeemed repeat rapist in a sex farce. This isn't Carlo, who was larger than life and campily evil; Todd and his evolution used to mean something, and the show tried to treat him with at least a modicum of responsibility even as they failed over and over in the ensuing years. Now it's like they've sort of stopped trying and are grinding their wheels in place, enjoying the ride as Todd and Tea sink deeper into their own pathology.

Todd and Tea are fun, but this and Tarty should be Todd's moral nadir. He isn't even really trying to change; he just wants people off his back. If he's going to continue on the show, he has to find a way to regenerate, and he won't do that with Tea because fun as they are, she wants him to be this twisted - that's her hang-up. If he stays like this, he just becomes a very surface, superficial character, a typical soap ne'er-do-well like Ric Lansing. And that kind of marginalization would be a horrible way for such a formerly deep character to die.

[rhinohide]

But isn't that sort of the twist? Isn't that what draws Todd to Tea? She really gets off on his smarminess. Blair did at one time, but when they had kids and even somewhat before, she wanted him to grow up and evolve. Tea never really wanted that, she truly psycholoved him for exactly the parts of his character that everyone else finds so detestable. And that's why Todd feels both lust and loathing for her. Kind of like that old saying "I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member."

So the evolution for Todd's character if they choose to keep him with Tea (who is truly bsc) is to really love her without the side of revulsion.

[Scotty]

I mostly agree.

And Stacy's introduction reminds me of Spencer Truman, who was thrust upon us shortly after he first aired.

Remember how OLTL made him out to be a god? Ladies nearly fainting, men very impressed, other doctors amazed by his wealth of medical knowledge.

Talk about crazy. Almost as bad as when he put Blair in a wedding dress and tried to "marry" her, while she was in a hospital bed.

[DavidEvanSmith]

I'm so exhausted by Todd's psyche that I'd really prefer they shift the focus to Tea's for a while. She's much more twisted, fascinating, and fun to watch this time around. I don't know what it is, but the bastardization of characters that happens when they make several returns to a show actually WORKS better for Tea because she seems to be sinking deeper into what she was before, rather than getting further away from it.

What was Tea's big secret from the past? That she had gotten pregnant by her sister Annarosa's husband and it caused her sister to kill herself? If that's what it was, it explains this twisted belief Tea has that "love is pain" and why she's so pathologically drawn to toxic men that will only bring her misery. I found it so laughable when OLTL would try to pair Tea with Andrew Carpenter or Kevin Buchanan or John Sykes because Tea really needs a freak and in Llanview it doesn't get more screwed up than Todd. The time Tea was with RJ was a point when RJ was getting watered down anyway.

But I need them to go a little deeper. A newer viewer wouldn't know a damn thing about Tea's sister or Todd punching Tea in the face when she was in her wedding dress. No one will see any more than Tea having some animal attraction for Todd, and may not realize she's got a hell of a lot more deep issues.

[rhinohide]

While I completely agree with your take on this, I am more realistic. They will never center Todd's story around Tea on this show . . . but maybe Stacy?

[reallyhateskateonlost]

Please with sugar on top, let John McBain be the serial killler! This way Todd will get the last laugh on the whole town and get his kids back!

[dm.]

If it got him off the show, I'd be happy.

She is eating this show up. It's disastrous.

[Leia]

Anyone optimistic about cliffhanger Friday?