Daytime Drive By (August 17, 2009)

Luke says, "Oh, Come on! You're not even trying...."

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!

On The Young and the Restless we got to hear stories about Phillip and Cane's past today, and J.T.! features big in the storyline! Plus, we sense some hoyay from unexpected (and possibly unwelcome) quarters.

Meanwhile, over on As The World Turns, we were treated to whatever fresh angst Luke could milk Holden's death for.

And I'll probably have a few comments about OLTL too, since I'm not any good at keeping my opinions to myself.

Genoa City

J.T.! is in the bar when Victoria enters, and J.T.! tells her about Mary Jane and the note about Victor. She of course thinks it’s a plot by Colleen to get at her father.

She really does not deserve him. And she gets him in real life, too!

Kevin goes all hoyay on Daniel when he enters and hands him a box – “You don’t have to go, you know you could, stay.” I really hadn’t noticed that before.

Sadly, now that Lily is moving in with Cane, and we’re expecting Cane/Phillip flashbacks, I’m going to have to pay attention to her. Ugh. So. Very. Boring.

The two women I dislike most on daytime are both named Lily. Coincidence?

Victoria and J.T.! fight about how underhanded they think Victor is. She stalks out in a huff. Enter Colleen to comfort J.T.! On the one hand, I like the fantasy in my head of J.T.! and Chance; on the other hand, when J.T.! was with (the previous) Colleen, he spent an awful lot of time without a lot of clothes on.

Before he married Victoria, wardrobe only bought J.T.! pants. I miss those days.

Lily wants story time, and Cane seems willing to indulge with a more complete background on himself. He starts with yes, he did grow up without a family, and yes, he was a bartender.

Colleen admits she didn’t come back to comfort J.T.!, she got a flat tire. He offers her a ride home, and we’re reminded rather unsubtly that he’s being tailed by Victor’s private security.

We discover Deacon is selling Victoria a painting, or scamming her, or something. In any case, she’s going to be drinking champagne in his hotel room while signing some paintings. She’s totally got her tongue down his throat when Amber shows up at his door, putting drops in her eyes to simulate tears.

Deacon seems the type to just ask both girls to stay.

We join Cane in mid sentence about some time that in order to get a woman to stop hitting on Phillip, he tells her that he and Phillip are a couple (And suddenly I’m interested in something about Phillip! Let's see how long that lasts.) When Lily asks if the woman got the message, Cane tells her no, that the lady came back the next day and asked Cane out. So in other words, the story made no sense at all. I rewound four times to figure out what I missed. Nothing. It just didn’t make any sense at all.

Evidently though, this was a bonding episode for Phillip and Cane, and as a result Phillip told Cane that he was not in fact an orphan.

In a far more interesting scene, Colleen shoves her tongue against J.T.!’s lips. She gets no response, but Victor’s dude is there with a camera to capture the moment. Hey, if he’s going to take private photos of J.T.!, can I have copies?

J.T.! with old Colleen in the old days.

Never mind that Victoria is literally all in Deacon’s tonsils at the club when Amber finally barges in, the photos are going to make poor, innocent J.T.! the bad boy. And since he’s been a bad boy, he sould go to my room. What – that’s not how the expression goes?

Seriously, they teased there would be something juicy from Phillip’s Australian past, and that’s what they gave us? That sucks. So until then, let’s talk about important things, like J.T.!’s butt. Or if you insist:

• Is there some big Aussie secret we need to care about?
• Why isn't there more soap nudity on this show?
• Do they still have the old pool sets that used to keep the boys like J.T. undressed?

Oakdale

We join Emma freaking out about the fate of her son, who Meg already knows is dead, but Emma doesn’t. Then Faith enters and picks up on the tension.

Emma is a soap vet, and her deliver rocks.

Lily and Damien arrive at the farm, having just stepped out from the Oakdale Transporter (which seems to have given Damien a haircut on the way). With all the subtlety of a train wreck, they tell Faith Daddy’s dead.

Luke shows up outside Java and waves Noah out. When Noah questions why Luke’s not still in Kentucky, Luke tells him, with this crazy, restrained emotion*, that his father’s car crashed and burned, and it’s all his fault.

*I really had planned something snarky about Van's performance being phoned in, based on previews I'd seen. But I gotta say, he nailed it. He was right on the edge of blubbering, and he actually made me tear up. It seriously may have been his best 30 seconds onscreen ever.

The preview really chopped up the delivery. I can't even snark.

The scene going down at the farm is pretty heavy. Emma isn’t buying the death of her son based on a watch. Lily goes to take Faith home, and Damien comforts Meg.

Luke’s blaming himself, because if he’d gone, Holden wouldn’t have fallen asleep behind the wheel (current theory, and probably a good clue that something’s up, since they have only one body). Noah’s trying to convince Luke that him blowing off Holden for Damien had nothing to do with the accident, and if he’d been in the truck, he’d be dead too. What if somebody had forced Holden off the road? Noah seems oddly detached, but then again, Jake always seems detached. But pretty.

Later, Lily, like OLTL's Roxy on a bender, blurts out to her young son, Ethan, that Daddy’s in heaven and can never call or write. Jeez, after the clumsy way she told daughter Faith, I thought she’d try harder.

Lily's delivery would be judged harsh even by these two.

Meanwhile Luke and Noah have moved their act over to Java. Noah delivers a speech about nurture being more important than nature for fathers, and how Holden knew Luke loved him. It’s kind of weird, because Noah’s face is completely blank during this, like he’s had a Botox overdose. Meanwhile, Luke is holding back tears, delivering a beautiful, understated performance.

Damien, naturally, shows up at the Lilypad to give comfort, and Faith walks in on him holding Lily. Faith goes total teen terror on him, which he and Lily don’t seem to understand.

I have a feeling this is the last time Faith is seen being rational.

Luke goes to join his family, and doesn’t want Noah to join him. At first he says it’s because Noah is working, but since that’s never before stopped Noah from walking out on one of his Java shifts, Luke has to admit that the sight of Noah reminds him that he should’ve listened and gone with Holden. Fairly twisted logic. And I wouldn’t be turning away comfort from Noah right now, not the way he’s looking in that tight green t-shirt.

Parker comes home and finds his cousin on the porch, crying. He takes Faith inside, and she clings to him. About that time Liberty, who he stood up, comes to the door and sees it, and gets insanely jealous. Ew!

Didn't we already have a Faith-crushing-on-Parker storyline?

Luke comes home to the Lilypad just as Lily is running out to look for Faith, and teeters on the edge of overacting with Damien for a second. Then bio-dad says exactly the wrong thing: that Luke, after all, has a spare daddy. At this point Van pulls it back to believable, and bursts into tears as Damien pulls him tight.

Liberty heads back to her school picnic, which I didn’t think was relevant before, to find the hottie (seriously, he’s HOT) who had the vodka in his water bottle, hops in his backseat, takes a big swig, and pretty much dives for his shifter.

Noah, who has taken time off from work to change out of the hot t-shirt into a really, really ugly plaid shirt, enters the Lilypad to tell Luke he doesn’t get to push him away. Damien goes backstage, and what follows is a really touching exchange, marred only by the fact that Luke’s so choked up at one point I have to rewind four times and step right in front of the speakers to hear the most important line. Suffice it to say, Noah came to hold him, just like Luke held him when Noah’s father “died.” And with that, my feelings toward Noah soften just a little bit.

Noah's stubborn rufusal to let Luke shut him out makes up for his lack of expression.

Lily enters the farmhouse, says she’s looking for Faith who might have “misinterpreted” seeing her in Damien’s arms, which sets off Meg’s “Ho-alarm” and they start bitching at each other until Emma tells them to put their coochies in park and think about Holden until his body stops sizzling like bacon.

My guess is there's going to be a lot of "misinterpreting" going on.

Damien answers Lily’s phone, and it’s the Kentucky police, saying they’ve got a corpse, they’d like Holden’s dental records to make an I.D. Damien says he’ll provide them, and offers his cell phone number, so Mrs. Synder “can be spared any more pain.” Are we seeing the emergence of good ol’ bad Damien?

Previews tells us there’s going to be some question about the body. Until we come back, let’s think about:

• Should Van submit his tape for Daytime Emmy’s now?
• Why can't Meg stick to a Paul storyline on alternate days so I don't have to watch her?
• Would anyone sign a petition to ban plaid shirts on soap actors? Noah's shirt was awful much like Chance's have been.

Llanview

• I’m loving Todd’s kid, though he seems kind of young to be ogling Tea
• Does OLTL know it’s audience for Kish, or what? A locker room full of muscle guys? Bravo!
• Rex: “I don’t get you Rox – why is being straight with me so hard for you, but screwing me over is so easy?” Did he just make a homoerotic joke with his mother, or is it just Rex?
• I’m totally loving Kyle, and not liking Fish at all at the moment, which is what they’re going for, so I guess they’re doing it right.
• Stacy: “I am so not having unprotected sex with billions of guys.” I’m glad all that abstinence education over the last 8 years of Bush has paid off after all.
• Unless this conversation occurred in the locker room of a gay gym, I don’t know how they got away with it without the management getting involved. Straight dudes can be weird about locker room etiquette.