18 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

Yes, but fortunately, not always. It's a shame that Guiding Light didn't pull a Capitol. The last scene should have been a blindfolded, ex-princess Reva facing a firing squad. That would have been my happy ending.

😂😂

Reva is such a polarizing character.

As for the happy ending discussions, I prefer them. If writers have a reasonable amount of time, they should craft a goodbye that's true to the story and pays some fan service. I'm still confused as to why Josh and Cassie got married and Reva had a menopausal baby with Jeffrey. But it makes sense that Josh/Reva were endgame. They were toxic, but fans can overlook a lot. I don't like that AMC and OLTL ended on cliffhangers.

40 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

The Jessica moment was also treated very seriously - Soap at its best knew how to balance comedy and drama.

I don't think you are wrong about tidy endings - on Neighbours, which concluded (again - like GL the show was canceled and revived multiple times) a woman found out a month before the show ended that her husband was cheating with her daughter's friend, and they were strongly hinting at a reunion in the finale. I didn't mind the happy endings on GL as much because I thought most of them were believable. Vanessa and Billy had never split up because of lack of love - he shot someone and went to prison. Josh and Reva had split up and reunited again and again. So had Beth and Philip. Rick and Mindy were more of a stretch, but more on Mindy's side as the show seemingly never had her progress any as a person in her 15 years away from regular Springfield living. But as an ending I thought it was cute, even if they barely got any airtime. Krista and Michael always had good chemistry. If Kim Simms had been Mindy I would have had more of an issue.

While Rick/Mindy (definitely) and Frank/Blake (sort of) come out of nowhere, at least Wheeler had been half-hinting at Van/Billy over the past year or so. Even though Van rarely got POV moments, there were times when Bill was hurt or something where she'd tell Billy she needed him.

I don't even really think it was about giving Van a happy ending as much as it was giving Billy a happy ending.

I never understood the Reva/Jeff relationship, so I'm going with it was to keep Cole relevant on canvas and his fans happy.