Marland Monday: Help Is The Sunny Side of Control.
Last Monday of the month and it’s…
Marland Monday!
Yep, you know the drill. Every Monday I look back at the career of Douglas Marland, one of the GOATS of daytime. Today we’re going back to the early 90s. So grab a Crystal Pepsi, put on those parachute pants, and Rico Suave back to 1991!
Susan Marie Snyder had been playing Julie Wendall Snyder for a year. Julie had so many issues she would’ve kept resident therapist Dr. Samuels busy for years. She had maried before and had two children, Pete and Jenny. She left them with her first ex husband, then decided she wanted to be a model. Where else can you be a model than Oakdale, Illnois! (Just go with me, please) She modeled for Barbara Ryan’s line Simply Barbara. Lucinda bribed Julie to sleep with Duke, John’s long lost son (they dated back in Seattle) She lived with Andy (Scott DeFreitas) but slept with Tonio (Peter Boynton, who SMS married in real life) then she ended up married to Caleb Snyder (Michael David Morrison) Oh yeah, she also had an abortion the year before. I’m just tired writing all this down.
One fall night, she got drunk. Her brother in law Holden (Jon Hensley) was drunk himself. One thing led to another, clothes were shed, and when Caleb found them, they were looking guilty. By then she knew the marriage was over, and she ran away.
Flash forward to May 1991. Andy had gotten his life together. He had a new girlfriend Courtney (Hayley Barr, now Sparks) He was sober. He had made amends to people he had hurt. Things were going well. Enter Julie, with a baby bump. It was Holden’s, she was having it, and hey, could Andy pay for her medical bills? Andy did. Oh Andy. Someone send this boy Codependent No More. Caleb and Holden’s sister Iva (Lisa Brown) made a decision. She would move from the Snyder farm, then adopt the baby, saying a friend of a friend couldn’t keep him. Then Lily and Holden would never know what happened. Never mind that Lily knew Holden slept with Julie. Or that eventually, they would figure out the baby-a boy named Aaron-would look like Holden and Julie.
This was when I graduated high school. I was so busy my senior year I didn’t watch the show. So when I planned my college schedule, I made sure I had afternoons off. I went to school in the mornings, then I’d go to the local Denny’s to write. When I got home around 10–11, I would read for the next day’s assignment (I was taking English classes and one Political Science class) Afternoons I watched As the World Turns and Guiding Light. Three days a week, I went to work at the library as a student shelver.
But I have a confession: The Aaron storyline frustrated me.
I think it was because I couldn’t understand it. Why was Andy going out of his way to help Julie after she hurt him so badly? And why did Andy put his name down as the father? Why was Iva lying to everyone about Aaron? Couldn’t she let Holden, Lily, and Julie figure it out on their own?
And it just got worse. Holden did find out about Aaron, but traveled to New York for business. He decided to tell Lily what was going on, but was mugged and hurt. He ended up in a hospital with that soap opera go-to, amnesia. Lucinda went looking for him, but lied and said it wasn’t Holden, thinking that Lily would be better off without him.
When Holden was finally found, he was brought back to a warm family he couldn’t relate to, a wife he didn’t know, and was very confused. When Lily did find out, she was furious, then left the country. Oh I forgot to mention: Lily had a heartbreaking miscarriage that summer. The same day, Iva found out she was pregnant. With John Dixon’s baby. Yes, Lucinda’s ex husband. What a soap!
The storyline was resolved sadly after Marland’s death. Holden got custody of Aaron, but realizing being a father was too much for him, gave Aaron to Julie. Julie went off to Washington state remarried to Caleb. Andy finally realized how dysfunctional he was being, made amends to Courtney and they got married. Then divorced. Iva had a baby boy named Matthew John, then Lisa Brown left the show when she found romance with a FBI agent.
It took me thirty years to understand the damned storyline: it was about control. And it brought out the worst in everyone.
Andy wanted to help Julie, because, as Anne Lamott once said, help can be the sunny side of control. Courtney couldn’t control Andy’s attention to Julie, and it brought back an eating disorder Courtney had. Julie couldn’t control the fact her marriage and career was over, so she let herself be controlled by Andy and Iva. Iva didn’t want Lily and Holden to get hurt, she had to take control of the situaton by adopting Aaron. Lucinda never approved of the Snyders, never approved of Holden. There was simply no way Lily could be saddled with a befuddled husband, so she took control by lying and saying she didn’t know who Holden was in the New York hospital. It was such a dysfunctional waltz. You knew it wasn’t going to end well, and it didn’t.
Sometimes I wish I could’ve asked Mr. Marland what did he want with the storyline-was it to show how control made things worse? How much damage not simply telling the truth could do? I’ll never know. I do know I have control issues (this is when you say No, Jennifer! You’re perfect!)Thanks to therapy, Melody Beattie, and 12 step work, I had to realize I wasn’t really helping. I was overwhelmed and feeling sad. The first person I had to help was myself.
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This was also Lisa Brown’s last big storyline on ATWT. This Friday, Alan Locher will be having a tribute to Brown featuring Maeve Kinkhead (Vanessa Chamberlain-Lewis on GL), John Wesley Shipp (Kelly Nelson GL/Douglas Cummings ATWT), Martha Byrne (Lily Walsh-Snyder, ATWT) William Fichtner (Josh Landry, ATWT) and Anne Sayre (Mitzi Matters, ATWT) writer Patrick Mulcahey, and Emmy-winning producer Michael Laibson. It looks like it’s going to be an amazing tribute so check it out at 3 p.m. EST / 12 p.m. PST.
Turn in next week everyone…
