Episode 131 Morals

In plain English, these are the morals from Episode 131:

Can Olivia's recent past be summed up by a silly "knock knock" joke?

Why is it so impossible to give Olivia a plotline that I want to sit and watch? I just can't figure it out. It is as if her purpose is to annoy Neil. But her actions are so utterly predictable that no matter what they have her do, it's a snore because you knew that the circumstances leading up to it were going to force her in that direction.

Plots with Olivia and Neil and Malcolm have all the drama of a conversation that begins with asking Mary Williams "If you could have anything in the world, what would it be." You know Mary would say "a grandson", right? Try as you may, you're not going to build a cliffhanger over something like that. And Olivia's plots feel the same way to me. She needs choices to mix things up. Maybe in a future episode I'll explore some of those. But for now I wanted to at least say her recent trend toward nearly stalking Neil at least has some much-needed humor in it, and I'm glad for at least that little bit of variation, if not in direction at least in intensity.

And then suddenly along comes Alex. Her problem is that she's so obviously there to "mix things up" that it's hard again to care. She's not connected with any of the other plotlines. She's passionate about a legal case we never hear about, and whose blatantly obvious only plot purpose is to annoy Neil. It's hard to be annoyed, though, because her character is written in such a plastic way. To be believable, she should have first been given a reason to exist and then been allowed to annoy Neil. By going head to head with him on her first day in, it was too obvious why she was there and it's hard to take her seriously.

If that certain someone came knocking, would Phyllis open up for him?

The bug's going to be back soon, and Paul's just twiddling his thumbs. Quite honestly, I don't think a man in his position would be sitting at home doing nothing in his situation. She's gone a long time and his last contact with her was not very promising toward the future. And this is a soap. He should be out looking for some woman to commiserate with his needs for a son.

And then there's Phyllis. Never the fan of the bug, this is an obvious chance for her to return to her life of mischief. I like Phyllis as a character, and I think that finally since the return of Michelle Stafford, the writers are getting back into writing her "sexpot" side quite well, but I miss the "meddler" in her. The closest she's come to that recently was a really reserved intrusion into the lives of Billy and Mac and Brittany at the end of last year. But the part of her that put the octopus in Cricket's bed needs to be revived and played with.

Paul and Phyllis seemed like they were destined to have their day and the timing is perfect for it now.

How else will Diane knock Nikki after first knocking her out?

The answer is "up", by the way.

Am I the only one who found the knife thing between Diane and Nikki unmotivated. Sure, Diane was mad, but I didn't really buy the idea that she would come lunging at Nikki in such an obviously "can't work" kind of pre-meditated way. She might have stealthily plotted to hurt Nikki. Or she might have seen Nikki and spontaneously exploded at her. But carrying a knife over to see her and confront her in a public place was a bit much for my "willful suspension of disbelief" to bear.

So the point of my having her do the surgery on Nikki here was to add some much needed motivation to her having carried a knife all the way over here. Ok, there are better ways to make the scene seem motivated. But parody is parody and I had fun. I hope you did, too.

That's all for Episode 131's morals. Don't miss Episode 132 and its morals!
If you missed any older episodes, see the index.