'One Life to Live' has tearful finale

Tears, proposals, more tears, (more proposals), and then the abrupt, odd, inclusive final scene. Yes, 43 years of a beloved soap didn't quite "end" Friday as much as set up another cliffhanger.

But then, "One Life to Live" probably wasn't supposed to go out quite like this, with deranged Allison Perkins (Barbara Garrick) reading the finale's script -- a breach of the fourth wall -- before throwing the pages at a man tied up in a bed.

That would be Victor (Trevor St. John). He was supposed to be dead. He apparently is not. "Things are rarely as they appear," she said with rapturous understatement, while flinging the pages.

No indeed they are not. In fact, "OLTL" and "All My Children," which ended last September, handed fans puzzles in the last seconds instead of conclusions, in the expectation that there'd be another life to live online. But talks to move "OLTL" to the Web collapsed late November. And so, puzzles . . .

Nevertheless, Friday also gave fans a few answers -- and gifts -- too. Victoria Lord -- Manhasset's Erika Slezak, who won an unprecedented six best-actress Emmys for this show and would have celebrated her 41st anniversary here next month -- got an on-bended-knee proposal from Clint Buchanan (Jerry verDorn), who also found out that he was indeed the biological father of Jessica Eugenia Buchanan (Bree Williamson) and her twin sister, Natalie (Melissa Archer.) Then, there was this: Destiny Evans (Shenell Edmonds) gave birth to a baby son, named Drew, in honor of the dead brother of Matthew (Eddie Alderson), who was the father.

Satisfying to fans -- certainly some of whom have stayed with the twists, turns, births, deaths and marriages (half a dozen alone to Slezak's Victoria) over these 43 years? Almost certainly not; the death of beloved soaps is never satisfying on any level. There remains, at the very least, this consolation prize of sorts: Characters Todd Manning (Roger Howarth), Blair Cramer (Kassie DePaiva), their daughter, Starr (Kristen Alderson) and dogged lawman John McBain (Micheal Easton) are all jumping to "General Hospital." Now all fans have to do is hope, or pray, that "GH" survives.