A fan site dedicated to As the World Turns’ Luke Snyder and Dr Reid Oliver and their quirky, endearing, and captivating romance. An ongoing work in process.
Maddie: Excuse me. I have been helping my dear friend Noah.
Henry: Oh, that is — that is a good deed, considering the situation.
Maddie: Why? What do you mean? ‘Cause he left me for Luke?
Henry: No, not at all. I mean because of his neurosurgeon from hell, this Dr. “It’s all about me,” Reid Oliver.
This liveblog will be in chronological order today (newest post last). To skip to the latest post, click on this link and then refresh for the latest.
UPDATE: 8.51pm GMT/3.51pm EDT
Pretty much the only scene in today’s episode worth watching. Heartbreaking. (courtesy of smuchshypush
[tubepress video=gs6Tc48eV4I description=false title=false]
*This article is as spoiler-free as I could make it, but caveat reader.
For starters, I owe everyone, myself included, an ENORMOUS apology for raising any hopes with th Thu Sep 2 pre-episode blog. I have written elsewhere that I am privy to NO INSIDER information, so any views expressed here are 100% speculation and (in this case, not so) educated guesswork.
In the September 2nd live-blog pre-entries, I wrote that I would be “completely and utterly gobsmacked’ if I were wrong, and those words don’t even begin to express how completely stunned and disappointed I am at how this storyline is playing out.
[spoiler]I have been following published spoilers (and spumors when ubiquitous and unavoidable) and have held out hope that even Reid’s death by train might possibly be played out with respect to the characters and emotional resonance. So far, I’m underwhelmed.[/spoiler]
To date, instead of being moved by the ending, I find that I am overcome with emotion directed at the behind-the-scenes process (writing and marketing) guiding these last three weeks of scenes, not the on-air scenes themselves. I have watched ATWT off and on for approx. 25-30 years and tend to be easily emotionally manipulated by TV and movies. For me to have completely lost focus on the last on-air scenes, of the show’s storied 54-year run, to the point of lacking any real feeling for the stories themselves, is in and of itself a tragedy.
In the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard goes out of his way to create a magical illusion – all the way to the end – only revealing the nuts and bolts when clever Toto discovers his secret and he can hide it no longer. Even then, he blathers on about “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain….”
However, in the case of As the World Turns, it has been just the opposite.
Beginning with endgame spoilers leaked as early as June 18th – nearly three whole months before the final episode on September 17th – this show has been plagued by a steady leak of mostly true rumors followed by mind-boggling spoilers in official interviews.
[spoiler]June 18th is the earliest reference I could find on LRO, which references the Luke/Reid/Noah triangle and one of them dying on a train. The source was DataLounge, and though it was not quite accurate, it seems too close too the truth to be the result of wholly uninformed speculation. Similar and increasingly more accurate spoilers have continued to leak unabated since.[/spoiler]
Things have been insane in LuReland for the last 72 hours or so with the 90-minute delay in Thursday’s livestream, and technical glitches at Facebook yesterday preventing fans from Commenting or Liking posts on the Reid Oliver fan page wall pushing many frayed nerves to a breaking point. UPDATE: Sep 5 – The technical gremlins in LuReland continue to wreak havoc as the server for this site has been up and down for the last several hours; sorry about that! FYI, a few people have asked me about this – this site will be up for as long as people continue to discover and enjoy Luke and Reid, so it’ll be a LONG time before it goes anywhere (if ever).
First of all, I am no longer going to try to keep this site a spoiler-free zone. I tried, and I know I probably personally slipped on a few posts, and the comments all allude to what we know is coming. So while I will try to minimize my focus on spoilers, I can’t hold back this tidal wave any longer.
In the meantime, I am so excited to report that fans are indeed channeling grief through positive action. As of this morning, donations to the Doctors without Borders campaign in honor of Eric Sheffer Stevens have reached $11,320. To make a donation in honor of Eric, or to Van’s alma mater, the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, please visit:
Last week, I found some great items at CafePress that seem to summarize how many of us are feeling. They offer T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, posters and all sorts of things with appropriate slogans. I couldn’t make the pictures any bigger, but the Love is Love one features three pairs of icons – boy-boy, boy-girl, and girl-girl; the Straight but Not Narrow one features rainbow fish – an intended jab at the symbolic Christian fish. My favorites:
Straight But Not Narrow Women’s Long Sleeve Dark T |
got equality? Large Mug |
Love is Love Organic Cotton Tee |
UPDATE, Sep 6: This poll appears to be closed. I have emailed for results, but don’t expect to hear much. Last I saw, “Furious and annoyed” was well in the lead, followed by “It’s so stupid.” Meanwhile, over at Soaps.com, they have a new poll up (wish I’d thought of this one myself). How do you feel about Reid dying to save Chris? You need to be a registered member to vote, but it’s helpful to have as many venues to rant as possible. The options:
Fans looking to actors Eric Sheffer Stevens and Van Hansis for vindication against TPTB will still be looking following two new interviews released this week.
Last week I posted two new pages that I hope will eventually serve as tribute pages. Both pages have had steady traffic, but few posts. I understand some people want to watch through the end before summing up their thoughts. While a tribute to fictional characters is a bit futile, the words have been comforting to fellow LuRe fans, so but I hope you’ll take a few moments to add your voices to the tribute pages:
Last, I will leave you with another chance to rewatch the bittersweet but keenly anticipated scene from Friday’s episode, courtesy of smuchshypush:
[tubepress video=pxCGr6g6Hq0 title=true description=false]
Hi, everyone, given the content of this episode, I’m going to reverse the chronology so it reads in sequence top to bottom. I’ll eventually get around to doing this for all the liveblogs, but this one just kinda warrants the treatment. STAT.
In the meantime, still raising funds for Doctors without Borders in honor of the incomparable Eric Sheffer Stevens….$8900 $9725 $10,025+ as of Friday evening, with a goal of raising $15,000 by show’s end.
Saturday 9/4 12.37am GMT/7.37pm EDT
The videos are up, courtesy of ADL. Part 1:
[tubepress video=Q8ZLOY-BKB0 title=false description=false]
Part 2:
[tubepress video=dO15_xBR5BM title=false description=false]
and Part 3:
[spoiler]Warning – last scene contains potentially disturbing images beginning at 5:50[/spoiler]
[tubepress video=g_Iqw61yyG8 title=false description=false]
10.09pm GMT/5.09pm EDT
Okay, the videos are starting to appear on YouTube. The only parts worth watching, from smuchshypush in HD:
[tubepress video=zG7urE_0gNw title=true description=false]
and
[tubepress video=38S6bF995yA title=true description=false]