The Goddess Speaks
The Goddess Speaks
Soaps seldom wash away
key charactersMaria has come back from the dead. She has her old face, but not her old memories, which is 1-for-2 when it comes to the rules of reincarnation in the soap opera world.
Soap characters rarely die, they just go away for a while to work on movie careers. When their movie careers die, they come back to daytime TV, minus their memories.
When the movie career doesn't die, but the character is beloved, he/she has plastic surgery and comes back. When Meg Ryan left "As the World Turns," she came back as Lindsay Frost, who had Ryan's hairstyle and mannerisms but was about a foot taller. That was some plastic surgery. Didn't cure her amnesia, though.
Maria lives, or re-lives, on "All My Children," a soap I have been loosely following for 20 years. Back then, I was working a 3 p.m.-to-midnight copy-editing shift in Florida; prime-time TV did not exist. We'd go to bed at 2 a.m., get up at midmorning, watch "All My Children" before work. We all did it, guys and gals alike. The show remains my guiltiest pleasure.
It's worth admitting to now because the show has reached critical mass when it comes to the walking dead. Here is the fast-forward version. Bear with me, it's worth it:
Maria was lost in a plane crash five years ago, but her body was never found. Her husband, Edmund, eventually fell in love with a woman named Alex. Alex had been married to Edmund's brother, Dimitri, who had some debilitating brain disease and, unable to deal with the consequences, walked into a large body of water (such as is apparently available in Pine Valley, Pa.) and killed himself. But his body was never found.
This makes a widow and a widower finding happiness together, which is a sure cue in soap land that a dead person is coming back. It was a tossup whether it would be Maria or Dimitri -- turned out to be Dimitri. He and Alex rode off together, leaving Edmund alone.
Months passed and Edmund fell in love again, with Brooke. Now, Brooke was once briefly involved with Tad, who fell into a raging river and presumably died, but his body was never found. He came back years later, with amnesia, believing he was a winemaker from Napa Valley. That passed, however, and he ended up with his true love, Dixie, until she (presumably) died in a car crash in Switzerland while pregnant with Tad's child. But guess what? Her body was never found. Look for her to return with a new face, amnesia and a baby, when Tad is finally on the verge of new happiness.
(You know what's really troubling? I can remember all this without looking it up. Imagine how much room there would be in my brain for, say, the political history of the Middle East if so much space were not devoted to this useless information.)
BACK TO Edmund and Brooke. They got married a couple of weeks ago, but guess who was lurking outside the chapel? Maria! She'd been ensconced in Nevada, thinking she was a hunted fugitive named Maureen. (Soap amnesiacs always take new names that resemble their old ones.)
So what's up with the Pine Valley police, anyway? Isn't it abnormal for one small town to see so many deaths in which the bodies go missing? You'd think "60 Minutes" would be investigating.
Dead-rise-again story lines suck for veteran soap watchers who can see them coming miles off. It's part of the draw of the genre: We know what's going to happen, but how will they do it this time?
The lead-up is better than the payoff, which will be thus: Many weeks of anxiety will follow as Maria regains her brain. Another man will be involved. Many emotionally wrought reunions will occur. Eventually, Maria and Edmund will reunite. Brooke will marry Tad. Then Dixie will return.
The only route to happiness is for Brooke is to die, but her body must never be found.
Star-Bulletin food writer Betty Shimabukuro now gets her "All My Children" fix via SoapNet late at night, which means it has become prime time for her once again. "The Goddess Speaks" is a Tuesday feature by and about women. If you have something to say, write "The Goddess Speaks," 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813; or e-mail features@starbulletin.com.
The Goddess Speaks is a column by and about
women, our strengths, weaknesses, quirks and
quandaries. If you have something to say, write it
and send it to "The Goddess Speaks," 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813; or e-mail features@starbulletin.com.