The Final Episode #27: Passions (1999 - 2008)

 

The American Daytime Soap Opera has its roots in radio, with the first one being Guiding Light which has been a thing since 1937. That's 84 years of soap operas. It transitioned to television in 1952. It was canceled in 2009. That's one long ass time for a TV show. If I can ever find some episodes and the last one I will probably talk about it because damn that's a good life for a show. That's gotta be the longest lasting TV show period.  Anyway Guiding Light may have had a long ass life but it sure as hell wasn't the greatest soap opera because that honor goes to our show today Passions. One of the greatest tv shows ever, maybe even one of the greatest things ever. 

Passions was absolutely insane. I'm sure every other soap opera went over the top and crazy but Passions made insanity the name of the game. Okay here's one example. There's a witch named Tabitha and her doll who comes to life Timmy (they are the BEST characters on the show along with Julian Crane but I will get to how great they are later) they have to leave town because I guess people are getting antsy and wondering if she's a witch and that's probably gonna get her up on a pole being set on fire or something. They go to a motel which is ran by Norma Bates in a Psycho parody. Norma Bates became a reoccurring character from time to time. I believe she ends up marrying a 70 year old character who was the mother of another character named Beth. I think Beth ended up dead but that means dick all in a soap opera. Or the story where Chad who was in love with Whitney Russell but ends up having an insane amount of gay sex with a man named Vincent who well became one of the bad guys on the show. I loved how he was all like "I'M NOT GAY I JUST WANT TO FUCK HIS ASS". Dude that makes you at LEAST bisexual. This show was insane and I loved it. Oh and Norma Bates was played by the FIRST Sarah Conner you see in The Terminator. Clearly the greatest actor who ever lived.

The characters on Passions were great. They were one of two things, actually genuinely likeable characters that you wanted to see win or crazy off the wall lunatics. I loved the evil mother-daughter duo of Gwen and Rebecca. I loved Tabitha and Timmy. I loved Julian Crane. The actor who played Julian Crane was wonderful, Ben Masters I believe his name was. That man should have been on every single solitary tv show and movie ever. Watching him be a saucy sleazy drunk is literally the greatest thing you will EVER see. I love him and I hope his marriage to a co-star who played Eve Russell is going great. I also loved the guy who played Vincent, holy moly that dude was dedicated to his crazy ass performance in this insanity.

I would watch this show daily for a good amount of time. I can't tell you how fucking happy I was when I found that a channel showed an episode a day earlier than it should have. THEY WERE A DAY AHEAD! Holy shit! That was great! Sadly NBC cancelled this show in 2007 and it moved to Direct TV The 101 Network for like one year between 2007 and 2008. The show ended sadly in 2008 and as of 2019 it's the last original soap opera made for daytime television. Personally I think that's pretty sad but I guess that's how it is. Everything ends sometime man.

Uh with that depressing note out of the way, let's get to the Final Episode of Passions... entitled episode 2,231. Yeah It didn't actually get a name just a number. I wonder how many damn episodes Guiding Light had. The Final Episode is exciting and wild. Rebecca and Gwen are finally found out after like a decade of being behind all of the shit. They had sent the proof that Ethan wasn't really a part of the Crane family but really the son of Sam Bennett, and got it blamed on Teresa. They also worked with a damn Mexican mob member to keep Teresa away from Ethan. Juanita was gonna kill the damn Lopez-Fitzgerald family. They stupidly didn't realize a tape was playing when talking about all of there schemes. When in a soap opera you REALLY need to check for that kinda shit ladies.

Oh and that's not it, Tabitha needs to be baptized or Harmony will be destroyed by a Volcano. Yes the Dark Ones want Harmony destroyed and I guess it was built around a Volcano. Damn that's good for them. Uh, Father Lonigan doesn't want to baptize her until he finds out that she's gave up her witchy powers to save everyone from the poisoned mushroom soup made by Vincent and Vicki. I'm not sure who Vicki was but damn if she's working with Vincent I want too. She gets baptized which saves Harmony for some reason. I guess God wants another good witch on Passions (Passions if I didn't mention had a lot of magical stuff within it). Everything ends up happy for everyone. Julian gets his penis back from when someone cut it off and reattached it... I don't know the whole story there but damn it's gotta be a doozy. Even Gwen and Rebecca get something. Some prison guard says he's big on bad girls gone good and to talk to him after she gets out on bail. The show finally ends with balloons being dropped on all of the cast and crew. It was a sweet way to end this wild adventure. I liked it.

FINAL VERDICT: I don't care about Breaking Bad. or Mad Men. or Lost or any of the massively popular streaming shows but if NBC starts streaming Passions on their little Peacock channel I will get it and binge watch Passions until I pass out. I will totally check out some of the soap operas left on the air (all 4 of them) and talk about them in some kind of thing because man I should have done that years ago. How can I say Passions was the best if I've never seen All My Children or Days of Our Lives