Gays Of Our Lives Theater: Aaron Learns Jackson’s Dark Secret on "Emmerdale"

Good Times, Bad Times

The coming out drama of Edwin continued in last week’s episodes of this slick Dutch soap. Edwin’s father Anton continued to believe that Edwin wasn’t gay and was simply being indoctrinated by Lucas. Everyone tried talking sense into Anton, but he refused to accept the facts and the rift between father and son grew. Eventually though, Anton was made to realize that he would lose Edwin if he didn’t have a change of heart…

Readers of last week’s Gays of Our Lives column know that I prayed that the show wouldn’t go the route of having Lucas gay bashed as part of this story arc. After all, Lucas had already been assaulted last year, and it would be nice if at least one cliché in this storyline could be avoided.

Of course I should have known this show wouldn’t have an ounce of creativity because that’s exactly what happened. And the entire incident was not only a show of bad writing, but had the characters behaving in ways that go against simple logic.

It absolutely made no sense for Lucas and Edwin to decide to have sex in Anton’s office. After all, they’d just had a very tense evening with Edwin's family (and don't get me started on the hard to believe dinner conversation about gay promiscuity and public sex) and they knew there was a lot of healing to be done between Anton and Edwin. For them to chose that place and time to hook up defies credibility.

Yes, Anton should accept his son’s choices, but even if he did, the boys having sex in his office would still be unacceptable, in poor taste and utterly out of line. Of course, no matter what I’m certainly not excusing Anton’s actions. He should be made to pay for his crimes.

Lucas should have followed his better instincts…

Of course, this all comes down to the writing, which has these stupefying, shocking events to ratchet up the drama and lead to cliffhanger moments like Anton attacking Lucas. Clearly whether it makes sense or is plausible apparently doesn’t matter. This kind of nonsense (as well as ridiculous scenes like Lucas running to Edwin’s ex-girlfriend to whine about his problems) are in stark contrast to the few well done moments. For example, Edwin and his brother Sjeord’s scenes following Edwin’s coming out. If we could only have more heartfelt and realistic storytelling like that and less of the outlandish and over-the-top antics, this would be a much better storyline.

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