Last week, fans were relieved as CBS daytime soap As The World Turns decided to end the Sophie Duran, Paul Ryan and Meg Snyder triangle by writing the Sophie Duran character out of the show. Sophie Duran was a poorly conceived and badly written character who added nothing to As The World Turns. It was often painful to watch the bad acting by the actress who portrayed Sophie, and unfortunately, As The World Turns seemed to build a great deal of the show around that character.
Even though I'm against violence on television, I had to cheer when it was clear that Sophie Duran would no longer be on the show even if that meant the death of her character. But this relief at the demise of Sophie was short lived. I am disgusted by the way As The World Turns handled the death of her character and what they are now doing with the “who killed Sophie Duran storyline.”
As The World Turns: The Death of Sophie Duran
The whole Sophie Duran storyline, and how the show is handling her death, seems a particularly low point for As The World Turns. First we have Sophie, a pointless, badly acted and poorly written character who sends a terrible message by falsely accusing another character on the show of raping her. Then she pretends to be carrying his baby. Finally she is murdered…who killed Sophie Duran?
As The World Turns sinks further in my estimation by having Paul Ryan find Sophie and hide her body (he was the man she accused of rape, then tricked into thinking he was the father of her baby.) When Paul arrives in Sophie's room she is still conscious with a syringe near her body, and she murmurs something about Meg doing this to her. (Is it just me, or is As The World Turns somewhat fixated on syringes as murder weapons--remember the fate of poor Dusty Donovan?)
Paul panics, and after Sophie dies, he wraps her up in a sheet, and stuffs her in the laundry cart. He cleans up the hotel room of all incriminating evidence, then takes her to his house and buries her in the backyard garden there. It was very disturbing to me to see Paul wrap up the lifeless Sophie and shove her in the laundry cart. When he took her home and buried her in the backward I was shocked by how gruesome that felt (of course, CBS is the network that brings us CSI and similar shock TV.)
As The World Turns: Disturbing to Watch
It only got worse on As The World Turns today. Paul and Meg decided to get married at the urging of Barbara Ryan (played by the sensational Colleen Zenk Pinter.) They tied the knot in the backyard garden; you guessed it…right next to the body of poor Sophie Duran.
The callousness of Meg and Paul getting married over Sophie's dead body really removes all sympathy or likability for their characters, especially when you consider that they believe she might have been carrying Paul's baby at the time of her death. Both of them just want Sophie out of their lives like excess baggage, and they don't even care that Barbara is acting very suspicious about Sophie's disappearance.
As The World Turns: Who Killed Sophie Duran?
Who do I believe killed Sophie Duran on As The World Turns? I don't believe that Paul or Meg had anything to do with her death. I read some soap opera gossip that serial killer Rick Decker (played by John James) is coming back to town soon to make trouble for Susan and the Stewart family. Could Sophie Duran's death be the work of this serial killer?
I don't think Barbara Ryan did it. I love the scenes on As The World Turns where Barbara has some bite and is a bit more menacing (remember she was Mrs. James Stenbeck.) My money's on Cole as Sophie's murderer. He's a minor character on As The World Turns and he won't be missed if he's written off the show. It makes sense that he murdered Sophie to get rid of their child and to steal whatever money he felt Sophie was hiding from him.
In the preview for tomorrow's episode of As The World Turns, Paul is digging up Sophie's body because Mike Casnoff is hot on the trail. How gruesome it was to see Sophie's face peeking out of the sheet as Paul is digging up the rose garden to move her body. This is not how I thought the Sophie storyline would end. Remember the Swiss spa storyline on As The World Turns a few years back when they tortured Emily, Rose and Carly? I recall Rose being buried alive and the characters were disfigured.
This type of gruesome storyline is disturbing to me and not what I want to see on As The World Turns. I hope As the World Turns will bring this storyline to a swift conclusion and offer us other stories that have more humanity; this is certainly extremely unpleasant to watch as summer viewing.
