Soap triangles can generate unmatched heat and excitement as they set out to manipulate our attentions and play on our emotions.  The best of them have you bouncing back and forth between the participants, changing your mind over who should be with whom a million times. You have your favorite but good writing and a plausible story can make you buy into the confusion over and over again. It’s a kind of sweet torture that causes frustration and aggravation but always, always keeps you coming back for more.  PC has chosen to go this route with Alison, Rafe and Livvie.  But the question here is can they pull it off.  Are they pulling it off.  Yes and no.

The center of the triangle, be it male or female, has genuine, legitimate feelings for both that we can see and feel.  My preference, being the romantic dreamer that I am, would be romantic entanglements or leanings, if you will, to both parties, but the being torn between heart and head thing that seems to be going on here can work too. The tension and anticipation that is created by all this is what keeps us tuned in, interested, eagerly wanting to see who will be that day’s recipient of the love and affection, secretly wishing we could face that delicious dilemma of being torn between two lovers.  We may not always agree with the final match, but the road to it is what makes soaps so much fun. 

The PC version of the “love” triangle has not exactly been a fun journey so far.  It has certainly been unconventional and true to the unconventional nature of the show.  It has been an interesting journey for Rafe so far, the beautiful, amnesiac angel whose true hearts desire has been overshadowed by his desperation for love and belonging.  This desperation to know himself  has allowed him to be deluded and manipulated into thinking he once loved another.   Classic  soap plotline. Classic human condition…the search for self, love and truth.   But true “love” triangle… sorry, no can buy.

We got seven weeks of the most beautiful, romantic soap love story to come along in well, forever, played out by superb actors who made us completely fall in love with love again.  By the time Rafe was snatched back to heaven we were all reduced to blubbering, lovesick fools, heartbroken over the breakup of this larger than life, most perfectly magical couple.  Then we get treated to wonderful scenes of Rafe in heaven, pining away for his beloved Alison.  Again our heartstrings are tugged, through Brian Gaskills incredible skills, we can feel Rafe’s unbearable sadness, its palpable, he must get back to his love at any cost.  And once again, PC proves why they are a notch above the rest.  Then boom, he’s literally dropped on his behind into the world of Livvie’s misguided and misplaced emotions of anger and revenge. And Rafes buys every sick morsel of it.  Ok we say, lets give him the benefit of the doubt, he’s scared, confused and here’s this beautiful woman offering him shelter and a lush body. Spouting just enough truths to sway him.   Enough to sway any red- blooded male, angel or not.

And then, all believability goes out the window.  He proceeds to digest every lie, every stupid evil manipulation and guilt trip Livvie can lay on him.  At this point there is no chance we can invest in this coupling.  It’s painful to watch.  Sure we had two episodes of heat and lust that were played out masterfully by the actors, but we want this duo over.  Now more than ever.  There is absolutely nothing likeable or believable in this pairing.  Now throw the baby into the mix and poof, we are supposed to have a triangle.  We don’t want Rafe torn between his true love and that incredible chemistry that shines on screen, and a lying bitch with no redeeming qualities, impregnated by what can only be described as the devil. We have no sympathy for Livvie.  We can’t fathom Rafe with Livvie, even for one second. Rafe knows he doesn’t want her either, he told her he doesn’t love her, he knows he loves Alison. And furthermore he knows Alison is the key to his salvation.   We can’t invest in this triangle to any degree at this point.   Its difficult to even  consider Rafe being “torn” between these two on any romantic level.  He has no choice but to feel great responsibility to the child Livvie is carrying, he thinks its his, and we would expect nothing less from him, but you can be responsible to a child and not have a future with its mother.  No child is happy in a loveless home.  As Lucy said, no one wins here. 

The triangle I have come to expect from soap storylines doesn’t exist here.  In order for a triangle to work on its most basic level we have to have some degree of empathy for both parties.  We absolutely have none for Livvie. If we ever had a smidgen, it”s completely gone at this point.   All we can see is the futility and stupidity of it all.  Which brings me to what appears to be the entire point.  Good vs Evil…Alison vs Livvie with our poor, deluded angel caught in the middle.  Why the writers feel they have to use a sledgehammer to drive home the point I’m not entirely sure but in any case, there it is. 

Where this triangle does work, at least for me, is within Rafe himself.  Here is a man truly torn between his heart and head, between what he knows and what he thinks he knows, between what he senses he knows and what he can’t remember, between what he knows he feels but doesn’tknow why,  and between the soul he lost and the soul he feels now.  His heart knows the pull to Alison is the most powerful force within him.  His heart knows Livvie is not his destiny.  Yet the search for truth and for self and for honor is what drives him, misguided and brainless at times he may seem.  As it drives us all.

What is also working is you can feel the raw emotions bubbling just under the surface of all three characters.  Each actor is playing this out to perfection.  When it all erupts it will be stronger and more forceful than any earthquake we’ve ever felt, it will be an explosion that rocks our emotional world.  There is something for everyone to relate to in all this, triangles aside.

Because in the end what’s life without love…for Rafe and Alison, and even Livvie.  What is it about love that makes us want it so much, even though we know it can hurt so bad, or hurt so good. Again, brilliant   PC, through all the shaky writing, ups and downs and twists and turns that make us cringe and swear to shut it off for good, we follow every wonderful, beautiful, painful, aggravating, stupid moment of this show and will hang on to the end, whether the triangle is working or not.