Put Up Your Dukes
CBS Soaps In Depth Cover Story
Sept. 26, 2000
Mac just about loses it this week, and who could blame her? After seeing a scantily-class Brittany straddle Billy at the Jabot Glow pool house, Mac tells Phyllis that she's got to book. Will this ugly chapter end her fairy-tale romance with Billy?
A Sympathetic Ear
At home, Mac turns to her grandmother. "Katherine is extreamly sensitive to Mac's feelings," says headwriter Kay Alden, "but there is little she can do. She sees that Mac is decasted, but she can't do more than listen."
In The "Afterglow"
Meanwhile, Billy is still asleep at the Glow house. "He'd been exhausted the night before," Alden notes, "but Brittany helped things along by spiking his cofee with sleeping pills."
In factr, Brittany has constructed the evening in question so that everyone but Billy will think they know what happened. "She has set things up with raul and Rianna, so that they know she and Billy will be alone for teh all night Web site cast. So later,"Alsden explains," When Mac asks people question, their answers will confirm that what she knows she saw did, in fact, happen."
Whuzzup?!
Later, while chatting with Raul, Billy relizes that something occured that he doesn't know about. "He has no idea that anything weird has happened," Alden points out. Yet!
At the same time, Alden continues, "Kay is trying to get to the bottom of Mac's hurt. Billy's behavior jus doesn't seem to ring true with what she's heard from Mac about him. But Kay realized nothing will comfort her granddaughter - at which point, Billy calls."
Trouble On Line One
After Mac hands off the phone, refusing to talk to Billy, he makes a beeline for her place. Unmoved, she refuses to speak to him.
After Mac leaved him alone, Kay hapens upson the boy who has broken her granddaughter's heart. "He doesn't get it all," Alden says. "He only knows that Mac's upset."
Seeing how distraught Billy is, Kay avoids the urge to blast him and instead tried to draw him out. All that he can offer her is his own set of questions.
"Did My Eyes Deceive Me?"
Thought toughed by Billy's sincerity, Alden says, "Kay tells him, "I think you know all you need to," Thus, he leaves, still mystified.
"Billy has no idea what has happened," Concurs his portrayer, David Tom. "He has no idea anyone thinks he slept with Brittany. She was gone when he woke up. He's completly baffled. He's not alone. Katherine too is confused. She tries to talk to Mac and in fact, makes some in- roads. "We get to the point where Kay asks Mac if it is possible that she didn't see what she things she did," Alden explains. "It's a hard sell, but Mac too had to admit that Billy seemed completly clueless."
Later, Mac sis moved by a sentimental gift, and hopes that she has made a mistake.
Good Advice
"Mac feels complely betrayed," says her portrayer, Ashley Bashioum. "I don't know what Billy could say to make her feel better. He has some real explaing to do."
At Kay's urging, Mac finally decided to let Billy do exactly that. But while registering for school, she bumps into Brittany. "Brittany drops another bombshell on her rival," Alden teases.
The Last Straw
Has Brittany finally broken up the teenaers in love? Her portrayer, Lauren Woodland, admits that that is the last thing that her character is worried about. "She doesn't care that they're feeling hurt. She only knows that she feel socmpletly hurt and embarrased by these two."
As the kids continue to thrash about, becoming more entangled in their messy love lives, watch for Phyllis to sit on the sidelines, not pulling the srings, but not cutting them, either. "She sees the potentional to add some spice to the Web site," explains Alden "and she's not above using these kids to get waht she wants." Heaven help then!
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