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Energizer Love or, Still Crazy After All These Years?
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The serial nature of soaps means that core characters — like Adam and Liza
on “All My Children” — either have lots and lots of relationships, or the
writers have to find some way to make one love affair twist and turn and
twist some more, offering enough surprises to last years and years and
years.
I’ll be honest with you — it sounds like a nightmare to me. I get to write a book, create two characters who are both incredibly attracted to each other and incredibly conflicted, solve the attraction by heaping on the passion, solve the conflict by overcoming whatever it is that keeps them apart (Can she get past the fact that she swore revenge against his family? Can he put aside his pride long enough to see that she’s exactly what he needs? Will that storm ever blow out of town?) and then sending them off, happily-ever-after into the sunset (or at least the bedroom). Yes, that’s right. My task is to write one go-round on the carousel of love.
But when a soap couple takes up residence, takes root, and stays awhile,
poor soap writers have to create Energizer Love and keep it going and going
and going. That means layers of obstacles, layers of passion, and lots and
lots of tricks, deceptions and betrayals. Especially if it’s Mr. and (the
current) Mrs. Adam Chandler. Both Liza and Adam came on the show as troublemakers, and they’ve never
really changed that. So we have not just one dynamic double-dealer, but two
pitted against each other, offering lots of opportunity to up the plot ante. Back in the beginning, Liza was a snippy rich girl who wanted nice guy Greg
and didn’t mind stepping on nice girl Jenny to get him. Then she fell for
Tad the Cad, who broke her heart when he two-timed her with her mother.
Ouch! As
I recall, Adam entered during the years of the Business Tycoon, when soaps
borrowed from the “Dallas” playbook and suddenly added all kinds of big,
brash, bold men to the canvas. Instead of the Land of Matriarchs and Divas,
where we could spend years watching fights between Phoebe and Mona, suddenly
we had Asa, Adam, Victor, the other Victor, Alan... Forget the have-nots.
These were all guys who had it all and still wanted more. Adam Chandler cut a wide path though Pine Valley, marrying and battling with
Erica and Brooke, marrying and shipping Dixie off to the looney bin, and
tangling with Gloria and Arlene and assorted other winsome and wacky women
I’ve forgotten over the years. He’s got kids with at least four women,
showing a major obsession with creating and controlling little Chandlers,
and he has no compunctions about trying to drive the women or the children
crazy to achieve what he wants. Liza returned to the show as a strong, fiery woman, still scheming, quite
capable when it came to career and money, not quite as chilly and certainly
not as girlish as she’d been before she left. Still, she and Adam seemed to
strike sparks almost immediately, and they butted heads — and more — in a
well-drawn, feisty romance that gave us the classic elements. Yes, they were
very attracted to each other. Yes, they had major conflict, based on strong,
internal factors like her bad past with her distant father and cheating
mother and Adam’s need to control everything, as well as external factors
like her continuing problems with her mother, mom hooking up with Adam’s
twin brother, and Liza’s connection to Tad, who has hated Adam for absolute
ever over the whole Dixie-and-the-nuthouse thing. So when Adam and Liza have
battled, it has most often grown out of those very things — Liza and her
insecurity and bad choices due to dubious parenting, and Adam and his
outrageous need to control, especially when it comes to offspring. Plots,
counter-plots, back-stabbing, betrayal... And it all fits the characters
beautifully. When the drama arises from the internal conflict, voila! It works! But
how do you keep it going again and again without making everyone in the
audience kvetch about the same-old-same-old and turn away in boredom? Part of the success of this long-lasting couple is, I think, the power of
the performers. Marcy Walker and David Canary have worked hard over the
years to keep the sizzle in spicy spouses Liza and Adam, to make sure both
characters are invested in the relationship, and to make it clear it’s a
battle of equals. So when Adam pulled the sperm switch and Liza stole all
his money, when he tried to gaslight her just like he had Dixie all those
years ago, it still worked for me. It may’ve been business as usual, but
Walker and Canary gave it such panache, I found myself holding on and going
along for the ride. Now that we’re up to crazy marriage counseling with that
wackjob Lysistrata, things are really humming along. How refreshing to see
long-term lovers try to work on their problems instead of just destroying
each other! What a concept! The
only bits that have not worked for me are the ones where Liza gets too nice.
She has always given as good as she gets, and when she starts to be a
sweetie pie, things begin to drag. I was also not incredibly find of the
brain tumor, which struck me as plot device. Luckily, we haven’t had much of
that. Stick with the fire and brimstone and plot arising out of conflict, I
say, and Liza and Adam will do just fine. I
think my song choice this week illustrates what it is that keeps Adam and
Liza clicking.
We’ve been together since way back when
Sometimes I never want to see you again
But I want you to know, after all these years
You’re still my favorite pain in the rear
You’re still the one I want to tie to the bed
Still the one that messes with my head
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one Yes,
that’s the key — fun. Don’t you get the idea that Adam and Liza are having
fun every day they’re together? He may set out to drive her insane, they may
make each other nuts on a daily basis, she may embezzle money from him, they
may each plot to run off with their kid, but there’s still some level of fun
and games going on here. Again, I think that comes from Marcy Walker and
David Canary, who seem to be enjoying playing the characters and butting
heads, making it believable that the Chandlers are still crazy in love after
all these years. They’ve
still got the passion, they’re still striking sparks, and I give them a
toasty 80 degrees on my sizzle-o-meter. Long live Adam and Liza! And let’s
keep them on our screens, okay? Next week,
we’re going to celebrate Valentine’s Day with full-on romance and the best
couple going right now on ABC daytime. Who will it be? Sonny and Carly? Cris
and Natalie? Rafe and Alison? Bo and Gabrielle? David and Anna? Erica
and...whoever? Send me your votes, and stay tuned to see who I pick as the
hottest, sweetest, sexiest pair of lovers across all four shows. X
O X O
The
Queen of Hearts
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