EW: Soap characters who got away with their crimes

[dragonflies]

http://community.ew.com/2016/04/12/quinn-soap-opera-crimes/

[Cheap21]

Anyone with the last name Horton or Brady

 

otherwise what a dumb article

[NothinButAttitude]

99% of soap characters get away with crimes b/c the writers nowadays are too lazy to send characters off to do real time for their crimes. Instead, they prop these corrupt characters up as pillars of the community instead of seriously punishing them.

 

When was the last time a major soap character got sent to jail and actually did a stint (as in years) for it? Only people that come to mind for me are Alan on GL, Carl on AW, and Michael on Y&R. 

[YRBB]

The real issue is that daytime is so unimaginative and so focused on shock and shlock, that a lot of characters routinely commit crimes (some of them heinous and despicable, in the process destroying the character) because it's more "exciting" and "fun" and "omg" to have the 123rd murder within a year than to write complicated, interesting family drama. It's easy to do constant crimes. Of course, this becomes even worse when they ignore the crimes, having everyone pretend it's OK and justify them, and then proceed to have characters do it again and again and again.

 

If characters nowadays paid for their crimes, each show would have about five characters each.

[Michael]

 

Yeah, where's the latest cast photo of Days of Our Lives?

 

Nick Fallon did almost four years in prison for terrorizing Melanie and killing Trent Robbins. I thought that was handled well. Gabi spent a year-and-a-half in prison for shooting Nick dead. I know a lot of people think she got off too easy (especially since she got away with masterminding Melanie's stalking and kidnapping), but she was a young mother who did actual prison time for shooting a lunatic who'd been terrorizing her, so... meh. I do wish it was at least a minor issue in her relationship with Nick's cousin, JJ, though.

[YRBB]

Wasn't the only reason that this happened that the actress left? 

[dragonflies]

I read something recently that said that soap writers are afraid to have characters be punished for their actions.

 

Its idiotic. That's what soaps used to do have characters pay and be redeemed by their own actions not be propped out the wazoo as "redemption"(looking at you Sonny, Carly, Jason & Sam on GH)

[ReddFoxx]

Phyllis Summers got away with murdering someone, didn't she?

[NothinButAttitude]

^

All of this. However, I don't think we'd even have 5 characters. Those 5 would be arrested for being accessories of crimes for concealing the truth about crimes committed. 

 

I agree. I think Sonny and Jason are the issues on GH. I'd find them more compelling if they owned their sh-t and weren't written as good guys. 

 

Sam and Carly have proven they can be upstanding citizens and just basic soap vixens when they are out of Sonny/Jason's orbit. 

 

Technically, yes. She supposedly killed Sasha Green but it wasn't confirmed. 

[frequentsoapfan]

Yep and once she decided to return full time she was let out. 

[P.J.]

I was surprised anyone would bother bringing up ATWT and/or Kim & John in an current article. Then I saw the author was Alina Adams, and the lightbulb went off. I can't believe EW has a soap commentator, given that I saw there were more articles by her there. I assumed they just had their somewhat sketchy weekly fan recaps.

 

[Paul Raven]

That  'character getting away with crimes' trope really started in the 80's as another example of the shift in storytelling that took hold at that time.

Can anyone think of examples of this before that time?

What were the consequences for Vanessa on Y&R when she shot Lance?

Rape seems to be the exception.I guess the attitude to this was different in the 60's/70's (at least as far as soaps were concerned) as it was something that was covered up and to be ashamed of.Usually with soap characters the rape occurred with someone the female character had an involvement with eg Bill Horton/Laura.Phil Brewer/Diana  etc.The male character was punished not by law but by losing the love of a woman,being shunned by the community or dying.

Bill Bell was,I think the first writer to have a character raped by a stranger as an act of violence.

Victor locking Michael Scott in the basement was an early example of a character getting away with a crime.Bill Bell must have justified it in some way.But it was part of a wave of storytelling that is now ridiculous in it's frequency.

Of course, in real life,people do get away with crimes but the morality of soaps these days means writers can let characters do the most heinous things and get off scott free...

[slick jones]

Can we count execs that keep getting away with killing shows... Valentini and Varni for their heinous destruction of what little is left of GH

[DRW50]

GH died years before either of them were hired. 

[slick jones]

I totally agree, but these guys are putting the nails in the coffin...