A long time ago I was a college student; wow, so long ago. I remember setting up my class schedule so that I'd be home each day at 2:00. Why?
Sonny and Brenda.
God, the tears I cried over Sonny and Brenda. Maurice Benard is, like, male perfection. And Vanessa--she's just so beautiful it hurts.
They were amazing together, so adorable and electric and happy.
She betrayed him and he cut her loose. (It wasn't a sexual or emotional betrayal but really something contrived, a plot device. Brenda would never actually do this thing, there was no benefit for her in doing it, but the writers made her do it so that Sonny would have a reason to leave her.) Literally, he tore her clutching hands away from his legs as she lay on the floor sobbing and begging him not to go. Oh, how I cried for her broken heart. Shoot, I think I cried more over her broken heart than I ever did for my own. Maybe not.
She would not let it go. He married a Puerto Rican chick, Lily, who was also beautiful, of course, but Sonny and Lily were not Sonny and Brenda. Not even close.
She followed him around, begging him to take her back. One night she waited for him in the parking garage, standing by the wall. When he saw her, whoa! there it was, that magic ZAP! that happened between them when they looked at each other. Sonny took three long strides toward her and grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her. Oh my fuck, how he kissed her. When he pulled away, she was crying and smiling, she thought she had him, he was hers again, but no. He shoved her back and walked away. And my heart broke for Brenda again.
She revenge-fucked Miguel (and that one was not contrived, Brenda would actually do that) to make him jealous, and that it did--Sonny nearly killed poor Miguelito--but it didn't bring him back to her, it only pissed him off more.
Plus, he did love Lily. He was an honorable kind of guy, he'd made a commitment, and now she was pregnant as well. He could not leave her.
But he thought of Brenda late at night. He thought of her a lot.
Well Brenda finally picked herself up and stopped stalking him. She started dating a goofy-looking dude named Jax, whose obnoxious Australian accent caused him to say 'Brender' when he said her name. They were alright together, but they were not Sonny and Brenda. She married Jax on a boat in the Caribbean, and as he slipped the ring on Brenda's finger, at that same moment, Lily (and Sonny's unborn baby) got blown up by a car bomb. Oh, the tragedies that soap opera characters must endure.
When Brenda returned from her honeymoon and heard the news, she went to him. With no manipulations or intentions, she went to him and held him while he cried. She did not try to make him want her, and she didn't see this as an opportunity. She was a friend to him. I recall cheering while I watched this episode--'Yay! Our little Brender has finally grown up!!' She had moved on now, and he had rejected her so many times that she'd given up hope.
But as time went by, Sonny was haunted. Not by memories of his dead wife, but by memories of Brenda. He decided he had to have her back or his life would remain empty and meaningless forever.
I can't quite remember...but I think he went to her and they talked, and Brenda did the happy dance with spasms of joy, and then she went off to break the news to Jax that she was leaving him for a real man.
Next thing ya know, she drove off a cliff. (It was an accident, not suicide.) Wouldn't you know it, just when her dreams were coming true.
GH is good at bringing dead characters back to life. I heard they brought Brenda back this year so I thought I'd check it out on YouTube and see how it went for them. Ugh, would you believe I watched for less than two minutes before I was bawling again? I'm pathetic.
Anyway, the scene in this montage where Sonny's standing in the rain looking like he just swallowed a live toad--that's the moment when he saw her, his Brenda, alive, after fifteen years. They haven't changed a bit.
Incidentally, the Relentless Tease happens to look exactly like Maurice Benard. Maybe that's why I used to lose all sanity when he was around. I think I have an old picture around here somewhere, let me see...
(young picture, add about 7 years to it).
Here's Maurice Benard. (His real name is Mauricio Jose Morales, by the way.)
God save me from Latin men--but on second thought, no don't. Just keep sending more.
