Suicide in Soaps

[FrenchBug82]

 

Didn't Annie also try to fake a suicide attempt to get attention (from Ben?)?
That's something she would do and I have a vague memory of it

Edited February 8, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[LondonScribe]

One of the most harrowing and powerful storylines of 2018, Aidan Connor’s suicide. As said, done without providing any details but relying on on the raw reactions of the other characters.

 

This was treated very sensitively at the time, with what amounted to a ‘trigger warning’ ahead of time, contrary to usual efforts to hide spoilers. Similar to the recent warning given about the Eastenders domestic abuse murder.

 

You can find the episode online featuring his last day, but below is the episode featuring the discovery and aftermath.

 

 

The now famous speech from Gail that has been referenced:

 

 

 

 

 

[vetsoapfan]

 

My memory is vague on this but I think Naomi Vernon on OLTL staged a "fake" suicide to get attention from her husband, but ended up killing herself for real. Hmm. I'll have to check it out.

 

Oops, I just posted about this before reading your comment.

 

I really must learn to read an entire thread before posting replies!

[Bright Eyes]

I feel like Bill Bell has had numerous women try and overdose on pills in a manic state of duress.

 

And just because it hasn't been mentioned yet, on DAYS, Dr. Ali McIntyre slit her wrists in the bathtub, writing MIKE on the wall with her blood. She was found by her mother (played by Marla Adams) and survived.

 

To add another aspect to the topic, do you think there are any characters who it would have made sense to take this route with?

[Faulkner]

That episode is powerful. Aside from tributes to characters whose real-life performers have passed away, American soaps haven’t treated death so powerfully in many, many years.

 

I think JJ on DAYS would have been a great story touching on this subject. Not in the context of the racially biased police shooting story, however. Didn’t need him becoming a martyr.

[FrenchBug82]

That American soaps overuse death as a plot device is something I have said for years. And they very rarely show the emotional aftermath of it. People cry when it happens but then never mourn after that. Story moves on.
Only brilliant exception has been Cassie on Y&R even though that got marred with the Mariah retcon.

[Ben]

You might be thinking about the time Annie stood on the window ledge of the Sunset Beach Inn and threatened to jump if Gregory didn’t prove that he loved her by signing over her stock (she always did confuse money with love). Ironically, Olivia didn’t give a f*ck and slammed the window shut, causing Annie to lose her balance just as Gregory talked her down. She fell, but she was wearing a harness.

 

There was also the time Annie hung herself in jail so she could escape. She was wrongfully the prime suspect for Del’s murder. That scene was quite graphic as you saw her hanging from the prison bars.

 

Or, you might be thinking about when Annie jumped off of the Lifeguard Tower after she fled the police. She was jealous of Ben fawning over Meg, so she jumped, pretending she had fallen, just to get his attention.

[titan1978]

GH had two examples in the 1990’s that felt real to me.  When Lucky “died” in the fire, both Becky Herbst and Genie Francis were haunting and almost depressing to watch, Genie especially for months after.  It was in character for Luke to be upset and then try to bury it, with it resurfacing whenever he saw Laura, so he avoided her.

 

The other was Stone.  Like a lot of people I have known that dealt with long-term illness with no hope of survival, the grieving was all before he died.  We saw everyone process during the last four months he was alive, say goodbye, have regrets, challenge their beliefs.  I have know people that went through Hospice, and also folks that died from complications from AIDS.  And the way everyone acted felt real to me.  The end takes so long and was often so painful that the intense part of the grief was released by the time the person passed, and the aftermath was spent more on remembering when it wasn’t the end of their life anymore.  It felt real to me.

[FrenchBug82]

And Robin did mention Stone from time to time in the years thereafter.
Both mourning stories well-written but it is rare for soaps - which is weird since it is a medium that stretches over such long times- that a death is still talked about more than a year later - never mind ten.
Cassie on Y&R is still memorialized by her parents on the show *every year* and she died in 2005. They use it to push story at times since they like to keep Sharon and Nick in each other's orbit but that's quite an admirable consistency - and very realistic that parents who lost a teenager that way would never quite stop mourning.
They also had Tracy talk to Victor about Colleen not that long ago. It is the kind of small details that make a huge difference to me as a viewer - and how Y&R is still keeping me despite having been hot garbage for the most part of the last dozen years.

GH could definitely have done something approaching with, say, Morgan but while they do mention him still a lot, it is often in the context of revenge or yelling at Ava or being scared that some other member of that mobster family is going to be killed. Suffice it to say it doesn't ring the same way.
If Lucky had stayed dead, maybe they would have done more mourning but since no one ever really dies on either GH or DOOL...

 

 

I have been thinking about this question a lot in the past 24 hours believe it or not. It is a great followup question but truth be told, I don't have an answer I find satisfying.
Maybe because the kind of story I had in mind would need to have been seeded very early on and built up slowly to make sense and be sensitive instead of sensationalistic and all the attempted suicides that have been listed in this thread seem to have come abruptly after a shocking event.

Only vague idea I came up with would be maybe Diane at the end of her god-forsaken last run on Y&R. They were playing her as very desperate by the end so with a few tweaks it wouldn't have been crazy she decide to go out with a bang.

Lord knows Maura West could have played the hell out of that story and it would have been a huge step up over making Nikki a killer. There could even have been a plot twist whereby Diane would have manipulated Victor into taking Kyle on if she wasn't around (bestowing her attempts at getting his fortune indirectly to her son while lessening her guilt at leaving him), a petty revenge against Jack from beyond the grave, decent story by pitting Jack and Victor etc.

I don't know if it would really have been true to the story of the character from thirty years ago but it could have fit IMO because she was a bit of a mess and loved emotional blackmail.
But I can't say it is a slam dunk of an answer.

Edited February 9, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[applcin]

Sticking with the Stone storyline on GH, IIRC, didn't Robin think about jumping off "their" bridge after he died and the newly-minted (or newly minded) Jason literally talked her down? I think, in answer to the question of any character this might have made sense with, I think Robin at that time would qualify. Her boyfriend had just died, she herself learned she was HIV+ (and possibly facing the same journey as Stone), she was still a teenager, her parents were dead...she did have her Uncle Mac and her friends but it wasn't the same.

Also, I'm trying to remember from that time in the 90s (since I haven't watched in many years so don't know what came later) but did Brenda try to harm herself after a breakup with Sonny? I know there was a car accident and addiction to pain pills which had nothing to do with suicide but was she ever so despondent over losing Sonny that she contemplated it?

[Faulkner]

It would have made sense, but, oof, losing Robin to suicide after Stone’s prolonged illness and death would have been beyond brutal. That would have been too much for me. Glad that they established her as a survivor.

[titan1978]

It was hard enough watching her deal with Stone and then also being HIV+, which is still one the times a soap went for realism  and it was shocking, because they usually don’t take it that far.

 

I also vaguely remember her thinking about jumping off the bridge.  And about Brenda- one of the worst breakdown stories of all time.  Just not in her wheelhouse.  She does well with emotional material, it was shocking how bad that was at the time.  Compare that to Genie Francis at least turning in a harrowing performance as she was entering her catatonic state after the debacle with Rick Webber.  Both poorly written but at least one of them managed to pull it off.

[Soaplovers]

 

I think Patty on Y & R would have if the show wasnt a plot driven mess.  She had already attempted suicide in 1983 in front of Jack...and when she came back in the late 2000s...she was barely hanging on.

 

 

[Paul Raven]

Back in the 70'sI think Joann on Y&R attempted suicide at some point over her crumbling marriage to Jack/Johnny.

 

On DOOL Marie Horton tried to take her life in 66(?)

[amybrickwallace]

 

Same with Dr. Dan Allison on The Doctors - he was terminally ill but managed to kill himself and frame his romantic rival, Dr. Steve Aldrich, for the "murder".