Stories that should have ended characters, but didn't

[Cheap21]

How about Julie on PC? Revaling that she was a serial killer, responsible for terrorizing Port Charles and murdering several characters seemed like it would be the end of her. She instead went on to being redeemed and had a successful and popular romance with Chris

[Quent]

When Emily shot Paul Ryan in the back, then rolled him off a cliff, I thought it would be the end for her. Now the two of them are happily married!

Barbara Ryan put out a murder contract on Rose D'Angelo, but she is still prancing around Oakdale.

Kirk Anderson killed Diego some years ago (and let Lily take the rap for it!), but he came out of it with no jail time at all.

[MichaelGL]

How about Guiding Light's Alan and Alexandra Spaulding? Edmund Winslow? Richard Winslow?

I seriously believed we would never see Alex again after the reveal that she was a drug dealer. I thought having her stalk Reva(She even bombed WSPR!) and gaslight Alan put an end to the character, but the character(IMO in name only) stayed on long enough to get branded as a drug dealer. What was it about the TPTB that made this character their whipping boy, or girl?

Alan Spaulding overbearing father shoots the very son he has doted on since his arrival in Springfield. Zero. Logic. How the character was released and remained the "head" of the Spaulding family after that is pure fantasy.

The San Cristobel story should have ended when Josh and Reva returned to Springfield, but Edmund and Richard stayed long past their expiration date.

And who can forget the many times Reva Shayne has died?

[LoyaltoAMC]

This is an easy one for me: Robin Mattson's Janet. FMB for all intents and purposes, fired Mattson in 1996, and had an exit story planned for her, albeit an idiotic one (she kidnaps Brooke and takes her place, which praise the gods never saw the light of day). Then Francesca James suddenly took over, decided to spare Mattson because she was very popular with the fans, and forced the redemption story. Yeah, Mattson and Kiberd had on-screen chem, but her romance with Trevor never made any sense and was tough to watch. IMO that redemption story should never have taken place, and Janet should've gone to jail at some time even before the Pierce/Janet/Laura "family" was formed.

[Cheap21]

How can anyone forget AMC turning Jonathan into a woman beater and serial killer? He killed 3 people, including veteran Edmund and spent months terrorizing various women. When they had him killed off in the cave, I thought that SHOULD have ended him. Instead they revealed that he was alive complete with a brain tumor. This story still screams WTF. Theres some stuff you dont redeem and it was insulting that AMC even attempted that. Thanks MMT!

[SFK]

And wasn't he even faking crazy for a while? I really did not like that guy, and him and Lily in a scene together was shoot your TV type crap.

[soapfan770]

Not to mention Emily kidnapping and locking Dusty up in a cage. Why'd she do that again? Later she fell for him and became a prostitute.

Michael Baldwin should have ended back in 1993 but came back with a redemption story in 1997. Actually Michael 1997-2005= Michael 2005-present:

[DRW50]

I'm not sure. I don't think a lot of the writing for him at that time made him a good character because it was all so one-dimensional and bizarre. Just as Phillip dangling a pregnant woman over a boat didn't make him seem like a good character to me. The writing which had gotten EJ more fans was earlier on in 2006, before he became such a cartoon. He was never even supposed to be the Gloved Hand until last minute rewrites.

The sad part is that I don't even think that Sheffer saw him as despicable. I think that this is the type of writing which gets Sheffer going and he thinks that this is what makes someone manly. I don't think he saw this as EJ being a big bad villain, which is why the writing a few months later clumsily tried to make EJ into more of a leading man or a sympathetic figure, with his sudden love for Sami, the Santeen stuff, all the rest.

I never understood this either. I think they decided they liked Jeff Branson so they would redeem him, but why not just have him come back as a long lost twin? Then to make matters worse, they paired him with Lily, and made him put on this fake brain damage routine. Why?

[Khan]

Because, he was afraid he'd lose her, or some silly ish.

The situation with Jeff Branson @ AMC was tricky. Obviously, they'd written Jonathan into a corner; yet, by the time they had realized that, TPTB decided JB was just too good as Jonathan (in spite of the atrocious writing) to let go. At the same time, though, there was no guarantee he'd click as a new character (i.e., Jonathan's long-lost twin). Unfortunately, the solution was half-assed, to say the least. Therefore, in retrospect, I think someone @ the show should have been wise enough to say, "You know what? As much as we like this guy? We gotta let him go."

[quartermainefan]

I decided I liked EJ when he had Steve tied up to a chair and Steve spit on his shoe. So then non-chalantly he picked up his foot and wiped his shoe off on Steve. I thought that was pretty cool.

[DRW50]

So the whole rape story didn't work for you either? I still don't see the point of that mess, since obviously there were other things they were doing if they wanted to make EJ seem like a love to hate villain. Since Sheffer has exploitive rape stories on all his soaps, where a woman is coerced into sex, I guess it's just something he likes to write.

I'm glad soaps at one point didn't cave to this mentality. Imagine if ATWT had tried to "redeem" Doug Cummings.

[Khan]

No, imagine if Christopher Goutman had tried to redeem him. ;-)

[catsmeouch]

Nicole kidnapping Sydney on Days.

[Mitch]

The P & G soaps, which used to be really strong in making sure that bad deeds were punished and that bad characters came to an end (hence their reputation of being "old fashioned," and not hip by having a lead "hero," be a rapist.) The last four years that all changed in their desire to be edgy (which is laughable, as they werent edge enough to let two women have sex or talk about it and we know what they have done with the gay boys.) Especially Wheeler, who seemed to really aspire to a New Age type philosophy that there is no good and bad and morallity is all relative. Alan should never have been a character on the show after hiring a hit man to kill poor insipid whatever her name was. It could have been excused as he wanted Jonthan dead and that was definatley in character to wipe Jon off the map (he was threatening to take the grandkid away) but he showed no remorse from an innocent girl dying. Alan wasnt even really shunned by the rest of the town.

Along those lines, Grady was the killer of the girl, and we saw him gunning for Jonathon when the dimbulb got in the way, and even then kept going yet later Wheeler brought him on thinking lighting would strike twice and she could have an edgy bad boy who never took a bath, so she tried to make the audience feel sorry for him cause, like someone was mean to him when he was a kid. Everyone hated him and finally Phillip threw him off a cliff (and no one even cared) but no producer in their right mind would have tried that.

Oh, and Jeffery raped Olivia when they were kids and should have been the victim of a whodunnit.

[Khan]

Frankly, just about every story on daytime in the past 5-10 years should have "ended" one character or another. I can't remember the last time someone was written in a way approaching recognizable.