It is ironic that they cast Mary Gordon Murray here as Delilah's psychiatrist with her longevity as Becky Lee Abbott Buchannan (one of Asa's many wives), a veteran stage actress as well, having been in several musicals, on Broadway and on tour. She is there to counsel Delilah Buchannan (ironically the name of another character on "One Life to Live", also married to Asa AND his son Bo) who has discovered that her positive pregnancy test is in error and that she may never be able to conceive. It is even more ironic that Eileen Heckart played two different roles on "One Life to Live" (first in 1986 as the mother of Allison Perkins who kidnapped Victoria BUCHANNAN's daughter!) and later right before she started playing Emma BUCHANNAN as the mother of Mortimer Bern, the look-alike of Asa BUCHANNAN's enemy, Carlo Hesser. The six degrees of soap-a-ration and sitcomming takes a new meaning with this tongue twisting description that only a typewriter can tell without making me sound like I've lost it.
This plotline has Delilah discussing with her sisters-in-laws the possibility of one of them being a surrogate mother. Vivian Buchannan doesn't want to have to go through child birth again, and uses a pillow as a fragile prop in describing why that even men will feel pain in watching. Of course, this was Bree's pillow, so she's more in shock over that than by the idea of volunteering, so Alex agrees, even using another pillow to remind herself how she looked over a decade ago when she had her own child. It's an opportunity for the women to truly be there for each other, and while their reasons for agreeing to be surrogate or not agreeing are sound, it still shows them bonding two months into all being together. "Delilah was made to breed!", Mother Buchannan proclaims, yet has settled on Bree to be the last of the daughters-in-law to give her another grandchild. She also moves in on MGM's therapist with bribery to get her to spill the beans on her session with Delilah, even offering to buy her dinner AND a frozen yogurt, apparently a novelty at the time, much like Cronuts were just a few years ago.
This is a powerful episode from the dramatic side of watching Delilah's joy that she may be pregnant to her breakdown when she returns to Alex's house to find that a baby shower is being held in her honor. She bursts into tears upon having to tell her family and friends the news and later again with Murray, and it is touching briefly to see the show avoid the wisecracks and cut-downs and focus on real drama, and especially Delilah's blaming her past on her being unable to conceive. In the end, this leaves her future out there in the open, so while Delilah doesn't get good news here, there is hope that somewhere out in TV fan fiction land, Delilah did end up successfully pregnant and become the wonderful mother than it was obvious that she could be, certainly being the most lovable of all the five women.
This plotline has Delilah discussing with her sisters-in-laws the possibility of one of them being a surrogate mother. Vivian Buchannan doesn't want to have to go through child birth again, and uses a pillow as a fragile prop in describing why that even men will feel pain in watching. Of course, this was Bree's pillow, so she's more in shock over that than by the idea of volunteering, so Alex agrees, even using another pillow to remind herself how she looked over a decade ago when she had her own child. It's an opportunity for the women to truly be there for each other, and while their reasons for agreeing to be surrogate or not agreeing are sound, it still shows them bonding two months into all being together. "Delilah was made to breed!", Mother Buchannan proclaims, yet has settled on Bree to be the last of the daughters-in-law to give her another grandchild. She also moves in on MGM's therapist with bribery to get her to spill the beans on her session with Delilah, even offering to buy her dinner AND a frozen yogurt, apparently a novelty at the time, much like Cronuts were just a few years ago.
This is a powerful episode from the dramatic side of watching Delilah's joy that she may be pregnant to her breakdown when she returns to Alex's house to find that a baby shower is being held in her honor. She bursts into tears upon having to tell her family and friends the news and later again with Murray, and it is touching briefly to see the show avoid the wisecracks and cut-downs and focus on real drama, and especially Delilah's blaming her past on her being unable to conceive. In the end, this leaves her future out there in the open, so while Delilah doesn't get good news here, there is hope that somewhere out in TV fan fiction land, Delilah did end up successfully pregnant and become the wonderful mother than it was obvious that she could be, certainly being the most lovable of all the five women.