Is the vampire story line just another way to tell a good old fashioned morality tale – you know the kind soaps have been based on since the dawn of the genre – virtue vies with vice, right with wrong, good with evil, love with hate and in the end good triumphs and everyone takes home some sort of obvious lesson.  Nowadays, that kind of black and white is pretty scarce on soaps.  We deal most of the time with mixed motives, ambiguous resolutions, dubious outcomes and confusion over just exactly who or what is the good and who or what is the bad. Precisely what makes it so much fun.

PORT CHARLES is no exception, we’ve spent the past arc and three quarters wading through all the aforementioned twists and turns of this morality tale, some believable, some not and now find ourselves in the homestretch of the last chapter of SURRENDER, an arc that promised “all is not what is seems” and “all will be revealed”.

So far, all is exactly as it seems - no mistake about it, we know who the good guys are and we know who the bad guys are.  No ambiguity left at this point, regardless of any ruse at creating a more sympathetic Caleb through his bond with Tess (come on that one isn’t lasting).  Caleb symbolizes pure evil.  Rafe, our ex-angel with ties to heaven still, pure goodness.  Every other character on the canvas has and is in one way or another rallying around and behind the point Caleb and Rafe make. 

Good vs. Evil. 

Sure the lines blur every now and then, Rafe had no problem threatening to kill Reese, ends justifying the means and all.  And both Tess and Caleb succumbing momentarily to the power and darkness of love, their own versions of it anyways.  But in the end, the characters should be true to who they are, the story line resolved with some sort of confrontation between good and evil, whether it’s between Rafe and Caleb directly or between their two camps, to surely end this mixed bag of an arc.  Please.

According to Producer Hope Harmel Smith, SURRENDER is “building to the apex of the battle between good and evil and (the determination of) who will surrender to whom.”  Soap Opera Digest

Unfortunately all this good vs. evil balance is not leading to that explosive rematch between Slayer and Vampire (sorry Lucy doesn’t count) that I have been so eagerly anticipating since NAKED EYES, or at least not yet. Rafe’s slayer instincts may be in overdrive but he’s going nowhere fast with them.  We deserve the powerful payoff Brian Gaskill and Michael Easton would undoubtedly provide; the characters deserve it and the actors deserve it.  But alas that’s best left for another musing, I’m still holding out hope the writers will let these two go at each other full force.

The all will be revealed part is what’s got my musing all in a twitter.  Aside from the revelation that Stephen Clay was really Caleb, which of course came as no surprise to anyone, and that Rafe and Alison were not brother and sister, again which came as no surprise to anyone, what exactly is left to reveal.  The secret to the liquid in the little blue bottle?  Ok, the premise of a healing spring conveniently placed under Caleb’s abode (or wherever it is for that matter) from where we are to assume his endless supply bubbles forth makes perfect PORT CHARLES sense. It also makes sense in that throughout history there have been many references made to mysterious waters and miracles performed at various hot springs around the world.

But was this pool the gateway to hell, from which Caleb rose?  And will it ultimately be both his undoing and his salvation (and if we’re very lucky, a way to get us out of this arc)?

I can see the last episode of SURRENDER now, all the vampires, make that actors who are to stay on the show will have their unholy baptism in the waters and be healed and/or cured – reemerging as mortal once again.

Could the battle of good and evil actually take place in those waters?  Hmm, a wet Rafe and Caleb. There’s a thought to hold on to.   Short of killing Caleb for good and closing the immediate door on Michael Easton’s tenure, something none of his many fans relish, the healing spring/mouth of hell bit is not a bad concept – kills two birds with one stone so to speak.  Keeps Caleb around for as long as the actor agrees to stay and transforms the  vampires putting an end to what has become a very one dimensional plot.  At least that’s my take on it after what I saw this week. 

I’m not sure what to make of the manipulations of the first five notes of Naked Eyes except that it served its purpose in the discovery of the healing spring and provided a clever little way to trap Ian, Lucy and Kevin, ba boom, together.  Who knows why it aggravated the slayers to such a degree, though I must admit it was fun to watch Rafe at Ian’s throat (not that I’m advocating violence here ok).  Kevin’s little connect the dots game just didn’t fly but then again leave it to his twisted personality to figure it out in a flash.  Sexual tension, albeit one sided, between Rafe and Alison from those five little notes -  at this point any tension between them to create some sort of drama, anything to produce a rise out of either one of them together is a welcome device.

Rafe and Alison did manage to provide a small dose of much needed humour, something that has been seriously lacking throughout this arc - a bit of playful relief to cut through all the turmoil and angst as Rafe tried to make up for rebuffing Alison’s advances caused by those five little notes.  Catching vampires by their fangs is serious stuff.  Believe me we get it.  Humorous interjections every now and then would make all the darkness a little more tolerable.

Enter Elizabeth and Joshua.  The character’s antagonistic give and take, crossing the line back and forth between hate, lust, greed, desire, need and back to hate is completely amusing and makes them the most fun couple to watch on the show right now.  They strike that perfect balance between great chemistry and humor in their power struggles with each other and as they move the plot, such that it is, forward.  Each has their own agenda in wanting to bring Caleb down, each using the other for their own gains but enjoying the game more than either would care to admit.  A partnership hatched in hell.  Not only do Rebecca Staab and Ian Buchanan shine together they infuse Elizabeth and Joshua with just the right touch of comic relief to remind us all not to take this fantasy too seriously. 

So, morality tale or not? Hey PORT CHARLES is a soap opera after all - good will always win out over evil, and if it can’t it will simply turn evil back into good.  It just may take its sweet time getting there, but get there it does.      

…until we muse again Port Charles Fans….