“Backlight” - The Final Year, Part 6
As I sit down to write this final Backlight installment highlighting Misguided, I’ve made a promise to myself not to use too many sad/goodbye cliches. I think I’ve cried, mourned, and grieved enough already all over the internet leading up to the release of this season and I don’t think I need to do it again here. A promise has been made, but we’ll see if I can hold true to my word.
I think it goes without question: I adored Jackie Zeman. From the moment she came into my life, I felt instantly connected to her. When news broke about Jackie’s passing, I was getting ready for bed and had just popped onto Instagram for a brief moment, as I am inclined to do. There was a DM from someone I knew, but we weren’t sending each other messages or memes on a regular basis. “I just heard about Jackie. I am so sorry, Paul. Are you doing ok?” What was he talking about? I had a friend staying with me at the time, and I walked out of my bedroom (having just confirmed what the DM was referring to) and told my friend, “Jackie Zeman died…” I was so numb in that moment, I definitely took an extra melatonin to help me fall asleep. I also called out of work the following day; I just needed to sit with this feeling. Thankfully, I also had a therapy appointment that morning where I could talk about all of this.
When writing this season, I needed to separate these two individuals: Jackie Zeman the actress, the real person, my friend; and the character Mo, my fictional mom, played by Jackie Zeman. They were not the same person, but I had just lost them both at the same time. Once I was able to say my goodbye to Jackie… and I was so pleasantly surprised and touched to receive an invitation to her Celebration of Life… I was able to create space and move a little bit further from my grief. Then it was time to tackle the script and figure out how I would say goodbye to Mo.
I watched General Hospital and how they were able to say goodbye to Jackie’s character, Bobbie. I got the chance to talk with actress Laura Wright (Carly, GH) at an event and told her about my connection to Jackie and playing her son. Watching those scenes was so beautiful, heartfelt, and honest. Tears were welling up in both our eyes as we posed to take a photo together. I had tried so hard (and Stephanie had tried so hard) to have Laura come to set and play the character of Sandra in this episode. Even though it didn’t work out with Laura, I left the scene in and didn’t change a thing because I really enjoyed Koko’s audition tape that was submitted. Originally, I put a casting call out for the teacher role, and Koko was in the top spot for that role, but when Aris came through, I thought maybe I could figure something else out. But the words that Sandra says: how she lost her daughter and how she was a completely different person at the time, all refer back to Guiding Light and Laura Wright’s character, Cassie (or CasSANDRA). Her daughter, Tammy, was played by Stephanie, but when Tammy died on GL, it wasn’t Laura Wright in the role of Cassie anymore; it was Nicole Forrester. Hence, being a completely different person.
If you were to go back through and watch the season, but this time in timeline order (so starting with Episode 22, traveling back 10 months, four months, one month, and then picking up at the start of Episode 17) you’ll notice a small shift in Paul. His world became a little more gray after that conversation with Sandra. He started to crack a bit. It’s most noticeable in his wardrobe, where I did my best to reflect this. The tie in the Celebration of Life scene is black, as is the watchband he wears throughout the first part of the episode. After that conversation with Sandra, and picking up in Episode 17, the tie is grey, and the watchband is also grey. The shirt also shifts colors from blue-grey to black/brown when it’s revealed who Bennett is.
Oh, the Bennett of it all… did you catch it? Did you figure it out? When I was casting this role, I used the example, “It’s Brad Pitt from Fight Club, but my character’s in love with him, because it’s a soap…” I hope that the payoff with Bennett was a shock to you, and if you haven’t watched, I won’t go much further, but know it might have been my favorite twist in all four seasons, merely for the fact that I truly had to think and plan exactly how it would play out; from his sudden appearances in all his shots to changing the voice ever so slightly at the beginning of this episode.
During the Bennett reveal there’s the car scene that wasn’t in the original script for the season, but I knew I needed it because how else would we reveal Bennett? It was through writing this scene that I had the hardest piece of dialogue to write: “Why was it you? Why couldn’t I have been seeing and talking to her this whole time?” I know Paul’s talking to Bennett at this moment, but Paul the writer/actor/real-life human being is pleading with the Universe at this moment, too. This scene breaks my heart into pieces and then explodes those pieces into a million more when the Jackie Zeman monologue plays out. I had looked for a moment in past episodes when her character tells me “I love you.” That was going to be it, but shockingly, I never wrote those words for her to say. I never wrote the character of my mother, every simply saying, “I love you.” (I may need to unpack that in therapy at some point). Instead, I gave her a huge monologue to tell Paul how much she loves him.
So what else can I say? I’ve gone through the episodes, I found the moments I wanted to highlight and share a little more detail on, and gave Misguided a new platform to live on, because why not use all the social media tools I have… And now what? I suppose I can get back to my other creative writing, I’ve got a script idea for a short film I may want to write, but at the end of the day, I think I may just lay back, turn on an episode of classic The Bold and the Beautiful, and escape to a land of pure imagination for a bit.
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