Is Bianca still a lesbian? That's the question many All My Children viewers have been asking themselves lately. In a genre where serial-dating and bed-hopping is de rigueur, AMC's resident lesbian Bianca Montgomery (played by Eden Riegel) has seen little action in the love department for the better part of a year--and the outlook doesn't look likely to improve anytime soon. The November 30th episode brought about the end of an era when Bianca's history-making relationship with girlfriend Lena Kundera (Olga Sosnovska) ended with a whimper via transatlantic phone call.

Technically speaking, Lena and Bianca's relationship ended last April when Sosnovska left AMC to join the cast of BBC/A&E spy drama MI-5. But on the show, Lena merely left the country and continued her relationship with Bianca from a distance for the next seven months; she was mentioned every few weeks as Bianca's (off-screen) girlfriend who'd left Pine Valley to care for her terminally ill mother back home in Poland. There were one-sided phone calls, plane tickets to Poland, and lots of talk about why Bianca was still in Pine Valley when her girlfriend wasn't. There was even talk for a brief moment of re-casting Lena in keeping with daytime's long tradition of recasting roles, but the sizeable fan support for Sosnovska as Lena made this an un-popular option.

There seems to be a new rumor almost every other week regarding Bianca's love life, or lack thereof. Many viewers hoped that with Lena off the screen, Bianca just might get a second chance to hook up with her best friend, the maybe-bisexual Maggie (Elizabeth Hendrickson). The guerilla kiss Maggie planted on Bianca back in the Winter was supposed to herald the beginning of daytime's first lesbian triangle, which soon proved to be non-existent aside from a few subtextual moments here and there. Then a mid-summer's declaration of love by Maggie brought another ray of hope, soon dashed by Bianca's insistence that although she loves Maggie, she was still very much in love with Lena.

The spectre of an actual Bianca and Maggie pairing continues to be another unrealized promise to keep the lesbian viewers watching, as Bianca continues to pine for Lena and Maggie is glued at the hip to her latest love, Jonathan Lavery (Jeff Branson). AMC head writer Megan McTavish does suggest (warning: spoilers ahead) in an interview in the upcoming January 2005 issue of ABC's Soaps in Depth magazine that this may change soon, when "Bianca finds herself falling in love--or at least having feelings that feel like love--for Maggie" but McTavish immediately follows this with the comment, "whether it means they end up together is a big question and a big part of the story." This is exactly the kind of enticing but noncommittal statement AMC has made before about Bianca and Maggie, with nothing to show for it so far. In the same interview, McTavish also mentioned that although Lena is not coming back right now, she would "never say never."

Aside from the numerous rumors involving Bianca and Lena or Maggie, speculation around possible love interests for Bianca have also included Erin, a not-yet-cast member of the show's Lavery clan, and Babe Chandler (Alexa Havins). Focus on the latter was fueled in part by a late summer episode showing Bianca and Babe in bed together (a ruse to trap Babe's husband), which spawned a whole new subset of fans rooting for a Bianca-Babe pairing.

But speculation aside, where does the end of Bianca and Lena's relationship leave us? With Bianca in a coma, a Christmas reunion between Bianca and her kidnapped daughter Miranda on the horizon, and no relationship likely anytime soon.

The baby-switch story line, which has stretched on for months, is about to come to a miraculous end, and while that could free her to actually have a romantic life again, if history is anything to go by, it will instead limit Bianca to the clichéd role of lesbian mother. This will likely manifest itself in Bianca being too wrapped up in bonding with Miranda and plotting revenge to even think about a romantic relationship.

For many of AMC's lesbian and bisexual viewers, the continued possibility that Bianca might someday find happiness with another woman has been enough to keep them watching. Saddling Bianca with an ongoing, off-screen relationship has been the perfect way for All My Children to have its cake (and all those GLAAD awards) and eat it too. What better way to have a gay character without having to deal with the political ramifications of having that character really BE gay?

But perhaps this time AMC will finally follow through with a love life for Bianca, and reward lesbian viewers for their patience. As always, we'll just have to wait and see.