Daytime Drive By (July 6, 2009)

Having trouble keeping up with the many gay boys cropping up on U.S. daytime soaps these days? We're here to help with our new regular feature Daytime Drive By, where we give you the rundown on Luke, Rafe, Fish and all the rest of the gay gang. Look for DDB whenever we don't have a liveblog and something gay happens on daytime television that you just have to know about!

In today's Drive By we're taking a swing through Genoa City, as Y&R's Phillip Chancellor III begins explaining his "death" 20 years ago.

Genoa City

Before we jump into today’s episode, a word about Friday’s: Cane got backed into the corner by modern science and was forced to admit he’s not Jill’s son Phillip. Everybody goes with “How could you?” and we hear a voice off stage say “He didn’t, I did.”

Camera pan, and we have the entrance of the real Phillip Chancellor III, played by out actor Thom Bierdz in a Superman pose.

On to today, which is Exposition Day™.  You can ride shotgun while we condense an hour’s rambling about 20 years of history into a quick spin around the block.

The appearance of her dead grandson causes Katherine to have a stroke and be taken to the hospital (though you’d think soap characters would be used to people rising from the grave more frequently than all of the Night of the Living Dead movies combined.)

Anyhoo, Phillip disappears in the chaos and everybody thinks he’s gone, but he shows up at the hospital where Murphy pins him down until Nina can get there. At that point they immediately start screaming at each other in the hallway, so Katherine summons them to her bedside. Catherine knows how to summon, let me tell you.

So they discuss watching Phillip die in a hospital 20 years ago, and Phillip explains that was fake, and he’s been living in Australia since then, he owns a bar, and Cane was a street kid who worked for him. And he concocted this whole Cane-as-Phillip plan to give everybody closure for his guilt over faking his death, and as a bonus, Cane gets a (rich) family who loves him.

Yes, it's really me! Phillip back from the dead! You mean you've seen this plot twist before?

Brief summary of Phillip 20 years ago follows: he was a teenager married to Nina, had a baby, worked at Chancellor Industries trying to prove himself, was a recovering alcoholic who was drinking again, and his car accident was a suicide attempt.

We discover his used the immense Chancellor wealth to fake his death with no advance planning with random people he met in the ambulance & ER. Why he's a MacGyver of fake deaths!

There's lots of screaming in the hospital room about having abandoned his infant son and whether he’d have been a good father. Much talk of depression (wonder why?) and resentment of his complicated life back then. Poor little rich boy! 

Finally, they all decide they’ve had enough surprises for the day and Phillip goes to leave, promising not to disappear for 20 years again.

So, that's the end of our tour for the day. We'll actually be spending the night in Genoa City, as our other gay boys are off today. I'll pick you up tomorrow for a liveblog of more non-zombie Phillip fun tomorrow!