As the World Turns - NEWS ROOM

Thoughts on the week of October 19-23.

After last week's slightly more subdued episodes, this week was all about action. Sometimes that means botched action as well. Craig and Rosanna resolved to go public with their relationship at Katie's baby shower. She flinched when confronted with Margo and this made Craig upset. More people did find out, however, including Jack. He tried to talk to Carly about it while she was still in a controlled environment but she was unavailable. Craig and Rosanna kept saying that they were concerned about Carly, but it really didn't ring true. Their passion for each other still reads well, but it's very specific. There's something innocent and amoral about it, which means that it's doomed. It's sad really. The fact that the earnest looks between the two characters are soon to be smashed by some plot cliches makes them all the more precious. Carly will be back in a little over a week and, while that might provide a few fireworks, I'll miss the quiet moments between Craig and Rosanna. There could be some surprises, but it's doubtful. At least it might provide impetus for Craig to get more spiteful.

Things haven't been going so well for anyone else either. Liberty got fed up with dealing with the various parties vying for her child. After discovering that wouldn't be getting her own apartment, she went to Chicago with Parker. She contemplated an abortion again, but he talked her out of it. When she turned around, she was accidentally tackled while walking through a football game in the park. Of course, she lost the child just when she was getting attached to it and immediately began reconciling with her mother. I can't decide if this was too tidy, or too ironic. Either way, the real highlight of this story was having Jack finally admit that he didn't want the baby in the first place. He then ran off to avoid the wrath of Janet.

The end came for Audrey, more or less. She has a few days left but her little criminal run was going to culminate with her murdering Barbara. Henry managed to stop her before that could happen and she wound up arrested. Considering how lacking the show has been as far as real villains go, I had high hopes for Audrey. She was a potentially fascinating and complex character who could have shed a great deal of light on what makes her children tick and caused constant problems. Unfortunately, and in spite of how enjoyable Lynn Herring has been, we know close to nothing more about the character now than we did when she first arrived. Everything she did wound up being cartoonish and psychologically shallow. If she was going to stick around quite a bit longer, that could have changed, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Ralph has fared even worse. Although watching Stuart Damon play a mobster was fun, in a way, it never really gelled. Combined with Audrey and Henry's antics, everything involving them has felt too off-kilter to be dramatic, it just comes off as wonky. I don't object to the show's strategy of bringing characters in for brief stretches. That's fine, especially since they are integrated with already established characters. The problem is that they do it with such consistent superficiality that it winds up making the long term characters look just as bad. Audrey's been around for months. They could have easily delved into her life more in that time and there was no good reason for them not to. She had virtually no interaction with Maddie either. It's really too bad. In the end, it just made a mockery of Henry, a character that so often flirts with camp already.

At the peak of this less than successful plot, Katie wound up being kidnapped and locked in a warehouse. She panicked and gave birth with a little help from the 'spirits', for lack of a better word, of those in her life. It was the most Kreizman-like thing since he came on board as Co-Head Writer. But the really big deal was that Brad spent the week running around, desperately looking for her. He was, as everyone knows by now, heading to his own demise. It will stretch out for a few more days, but since Austin Peck's departure from the role was announced months ago, this has been expected. Even if I've never been a big fan of his character, I do appreciate the unique energy he brought to the show, although he hasn't been given much to do for a long time. He certainly wasn't given much heavy lifting when it comes to the emotional core of the show, which is one of the reasons why the push to his demise wasn't everything it could have been. Setting up the baby situation was so nakedly manipulative that it looked like the writers were in need of giving people a reason to care that he was going. Besides that, he's been nearly unrecognizable as Brad for weeks. It feels like the character was completely redesigned over the past month just so that he would be ready to die and pass off as his child came in. If they are going to kill off a character, can't they at least be allowed to die the way they lived? Why do they have to be redeemed or turned into a hero? Why can't they just be what they are rather than be transformed into some kind of martyr?

Anyway, those were my thoughts about the week. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below and remember that this is all in fun.

- Matt Purvis