The Young and the Crazy

Now that school is starting, I suppose it should be bon voyage time sucks, but thanks to the Internet, I can still have my time suck and watch it too. Ah, The Young and the Restless. My affinity for this soap, as opposed to the one that I was actually on for four seconds (General Hospital...erg...20 years ago) is that my grandparents watched this everyday and, strangely enough, my second cousins were on the show as babies. The character they played is now dead, so sad.

Anyway, Y&R gives Genoa City, Wisconsin way more credit than it ever deserves, and that's certainly one of the swaying factors for me. This fictional world, only a short distance away from Chicago, is so urban (judging by the skyscrappers outside the corporate headquarters of Restless Style magazine), and yet everyone seems to wind up in the same exact three spots everyday.

Kane

For some reason this summer, one of the things that struck me about this soap (and soaps in general) is how absolutely resilient the characters are--even in the face of utter horrific and or strangely unthinkable situations, they have maybe a week or two bounce-back time--usually less. There is no lasting damage from fake deaths, divorces, attempted muders, and on and on... I suppose in the world of Genoa City, you know there is always a new love-of-your-life down the road, another story line to carry you onward and upward...and if you die, maybe you do, maybe you don't.

Let's take Kane, for example. He's only been on the show for roughly six months, and in that time he discovered that he just happened to move from Australia to the exact city where his mysterious birth mother lives. Not only that, she's the loaded heir to one of the biggest cosmetic companies in the country (Jabot) and he's now the CEO--when questioned about his qualifications based on the fact that he's only had bar tending jobs, his mother quipped, "He's got good instincts, what more do you need?" I know, that would be cool, right?

Yet, Cloe, another new character, has the hots for him, yet he's in love with Lily, the exclusive model for his mother's cosmetic line. Cloe, set to trap Kane, mysteriously winds up preggers with Kane's baby and the DNA tests prove it's true. How did she get preggers when Kane has no memory of shagging Cloe? I personally sense a Tom-Cruise-turkey-baster baby, but that's just me. So instead of trying to figure out how Cloe possibly did this, Lily comes to Kane, the love her life, and tells him he must marry Cloe for the sake of his baby. So he does. Simple as that.

Lily

So at the wedding reception it comes out that Cloe isn't even her real name, it's Kate. She's the daughter of Kane's grandmother's maid. Now Kane is upset by this tom-foolery and as of the last episode, he was kissing Lily who overheard Kate confront her mother at the coffee shop about her real identity.

Cloe/Kate

Another example: The million-year-old Victor Newman. (When Victor was falsely reported dead by the Mexican authorities, his daughter recently explained that he renamed himself in a youthful attempt at starting over after a shabby, poor life. Victor--she explained--stands for VICTORY and Newman stands for NEW MAN. Do you get it?)

Victor/Sabrina

Victor was married last summer in a beautiful wedding to his young, European trophy wife Sabrina. She met Victor because she was friends with his daughter, Victoria. However, Victoria hated Sabrina after she hooked up with her father--a gold digger she said and most everyone else thought so too. Victor's ex-wife, Nicky, also remarried, but he was not quite the catch as Victor's Sabrina. Nicky's husband was, it turned out (what am I saying? It ALWAYS turns out), a gambler and a mob hit man....what a combo! So after the charity gala which Victoria and Sabrina co-chaired (what a cat fight that was), Sabrina got a ride home with David, Nicky's husband. Too bad a mob hit was ordered on David by his mobster enemies and Sabrina died over the course of three or four episodes due to liver damage sustained in the car accident. Lots of tears and scenery chewing conversations before her liver finally conked out.

So Victor went nuts, blaming every one for her death. Did I mention that Restless Style did a controversial hack piece on Sabrina? Well they did, and Victor hated everyone before, and after, well he went out of control--most especially taking his older daugher and son out of his will and leaving everything else to Victor Adam Newman, Jr.--the son Victor only recently knew he had. Actually, this was probably the most logical emotion I've seen on the show. Nicky, however, was horrified by Sabrina's death and especially that her husband was mobster and responsible for Sabrina's death. Later, other bodies were dragged out of her horse stable. Turns out, she was kinda wonderfully clueless about hubby.

Now, after Nicky tracked down Victor in Mexico where he personally killed the hit man who was ultimately responsible for Sabrina's death, Victor does seem like a new man. He's a lot nicer for starters. Yet for the last two weeks everyone thought he was dead. They had a funeral and everything. You would think that finding out that your father is dead and then alive would cause some damage, but in Wisconsin these things just happen---it's like breathing. Actually, the characters do mention this kind of stuff a lot...do you remember when we thought that your father was killed in that accident and then it turned out he wasn't? Maybe this is like that time? Wait, who has these convesations?

This is all by way of me making a point. I am jealous that these people get to have great jobs--I'd kill to have a job at Restless Style--and wear great clothes and get to hang out at the Athletic Club and the coffee shop all the time and have REALLY INTENSE conversations that I could never have in my real life, but please, could I for two minutes handle life in Genoa City, WI without a total breakdown? Probably not.

On the up side, "No-show-Glo" has some tricks up her sleeve in her evil plan to take over Jabot Cosmetics. I can't wait!