170: We Finally Do Soap

Content warning: In discussing plotlines on Soap, we do bring up suicide and, very briefly, sexual assault.

"Episode 4.1" (November 12, 1980) *

Finally! It's one of the biggest cult favorite sitcoms of all time *and* it's also a show famous for having a LGBT character in the main cast. The only reason it's taken us this many years to tackle Soap is that it's so much more serialized than mostly anything else we cover, so while we focus on one particular episode, we're also discussing the entirety of Billy Crystal's gay character, Jodie Dallas. Good thing we have longtime Soap fan and TableCakes' Katherine Helmond correspondent Gwynedd Stuart on hand to discuss the show in general and the awesomeness of Jessica Tate in particular.

Check out our sponsor, Spaces! And join our spaces for Gayest Episode Ever and Cartoons That Made Us Gay.

Also check out Gwynedd's work on Sporked.

Listen to Gwynedd’s episode of Monday Afternoon Movie about The Legend of Lizzie Borden.

See the full text of “the Soap memo.” And then read the full piece on Newspapers.com (subscription required).

The Susan Harris quotes in this piece come from this 2018 Yahoo interview.

* By some counts, this is actually episode 3.22.

Episode artwork by Ian O’Phelan.