Asp Burger
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Week of January 20:
Willow grows increasingly frustrated.
Gladys is impressed.
Laura has her sights on a new project.
General Hospital spoilers for Tuesday January 21:
Nelle is shaken.
Martin stays close to Valentin.
Michael finds Josslyn on the docks.
General Hospital spoilers for Wednesday January 22:
Michael defends Sasha.
Sonny tries to comfort Mike.
Finn confronts Nikolas.
General Hospital spoilers for Thursday January 23:
Jordan fears for what is to come.
Finn delivers an ultimatum.
Sasha is shaken.
General Hospital spoilers for Friday January 24:
Sonny arrives at the ER.
Nelle tries to appeal to Brooke [sic] Lynn’s senses.
Nikolas goes to see Laura.
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"Nelle tries to appeal to Brook Lynn's senses"? Literally, her sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell?
Sonny is doing stuff with Mike through the week, and then on the Friday show he "arrives at the ER." As a patient? Mike forgets who he is and stabs him with a letter opener, thinking he's Joe Scully?
Interested to see how they're working Finn into the Nikolas story. I guess over his role in Hayden's last exodus.
Michael finds Josslyn on the docks. Unconscious? Post assault? Or just weepy over Oscar?
I have to say, that I'm going looking for spoilers lately is a credit to the new head-writing team.
Does anyone know if the returns of Bradford Anderson and Vernee Watson are short or long term?
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I do think the various writing regimes have been consistent with Carly. Her world revolves around (1) Iason and (2) Sonny. She hates women who threaten her supremacy in their lives. She made exceptions for Courtney and Sam. Courtney was Sonny's sister and her own BFF, thus a perfect proxy. It took Sam many years to get a similar exemption, but she shows Carly due deference and was preferable to other options.
She starts despising other women the minute she sees them as a threat, and it lasts until she no longer sees them as a threat.
Remember how sweet and solicitous the Sarah Brown Carly was with Liz until Liz became more to Jason than Emily's best friend? Remember the LW Carly's gushing at first over Kate Howard, because Kate was a magazine editor/fashion doyenne she had admired?
Carly backed off her hatred for Robin and Liz when they were firmly off the playing field for Jason. Robin is just where Carly wants her: apparently happily married to someone else and across the country. So of course she could wish her well on her way out of town, and now say she had an "incredible story."
Now she can squeeze out a compliment for Liz as a nurse or a mother, but she'll still occasionally throw in a comment like "Now I have to talk to Elizabeth Webber, one of my least favorite things to do" or "She's far from my favorite person." Liz is too close at hand, and she committed the unforgivable crime of having Jason's child without going through the proper channels. So she'll always have a claim on Jason's time.
She'll never really be okay with Alexis, either.
If this current Sonny/Carly tension actually goes anywhere, I'm interested to see how Carly reacts at the first sign of a new relationship for Sonny. I don't know where they would put either one of them, honestly. With new characters?
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So, Nikolas and Liesl are having a conversation, which we saw beginning that morning, minutes after Ava woke up. Meanwhile, Alexis is in Carly and Sonny's kitchen and hears that Nikolas is alive and at Wyndemere. It distracts her from telling Sam and Jason that they're stupid (shame), and she says she's going to Wyndemere. She does so...arriving while the Nikolas/Liesl conversation is still going on. And what they're saying when she walks in follows naturally from what they were saying in the prior segment, so I doubt they continued talking for another hour and a half.
That PC wormhole is miraculous. Land, sea, space and time are as nothing before it.
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Codicil revelations leave Valentin dazed and confused.
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I would have thought she stopped auditioning quite some time ago; she had so few screen credits in the 2010s (besides GH). Maybe she was doing stage for longer?
received a hand written note from Kyle MacLachlan
I wonder what that was about. Congratulations/appreciation on the episode of his sitcom she directed? Not surprised if so. He has always seemed really sweet.
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I enjoyed yesterday's episode. Genie was particularly great. I don't have the history of the Cassadines, but it was interesting nonetheless. And reading Alexis' history above, I wonder why she isn't showcased more. It's gothic horror at its best.
NLG does not like the Cassadine stories. She dismissed them as a Dark Shadows knockoff in an interview once, in which she was talking about being relieved she was getting other material. She's been peripheral to the Cassadines for quite a while now, just doing bits like Helena's will and the dagger. In her first five years, she was really in the thick of it with Stefan, Nikolas, Helena, Stavros, and Big Kristina, but she's rarely had scenes with ValenTEEN.
I don't think she gets her way on everything, but I do think she has enough pull that they listen to her and try to accommodate her when they can. And she prefers the down-to-earth material like Alexis's screwed-up love life, alcoholism, therapy sessions, relationships with her daughters and their fathers, best-girlfriend scenes with Diane, etc.
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It would be a bold move, but I don't see GH making both of the teen male characters gay (or bi and exploring a relationship). The ranks are too thin. I could see it if they had some other young characters on hand who were well established.
Joss is still the member of that quartet I enjoy the least. I love Cameron and Trina. The Dev actor is more awkward than they are, but I find him more endearing than I ever found wet-blanket Oscar.
I thought the followup to the Nikoas/Ava dramatic entrance was a satisfying resolution of the cliffhanger. I still really like Marcus Coloma, and I thought he was especially good in the quieter scenes, listening to Laura. They really found someone who could pass for the son of the RKK Stavros, didn't they? Fortunately, he doesn't copy the mannerisms.
I was glad both Laura and Lulu were there to play different possible reactions to Nikolas's return.
The impending marriage to Ava was good because it wasn't hinted at before. So they've come up with good surprises in this story for two consecutive episodes.
Now I just wish we could play this Maxie/Peter story at a faster speed. No matter how good an episode is, it goes limp whenever we have to get through another of these scenes where she talks about people in relationships with liars, or how difficult it is to forgive deception, and we're supposed to think "Oh, he's suffering under the weight of his guilt."
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9 minutes ago, Melgaypet said:
It's worth pointing out that Kristina was a retcon, Alexis discovered her real lineage in 1997 and the never-previously-mentioned Kristina didn't show up until, uh...2002, I think. I also think at that point they changed Alexis' age at the time of her mother's murder from 5 to 8.
They did, on the retconned age. But Kristina was introduced in '01. Megan McTavish's Year of the Sister on General Hospital. Everyone either got a previously undisclosed sister or the return of a sister who had been off canvas. I remember either Guza or Pratt mocking it in an interview when they took over in '02. Big Kristina was one of their first casualties in thinning the ranks. She got blown up not quite a year after she had come to town. She made a couple of ghost appearances later.
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1 hour ago, Melgaypet said:
I had to mute these scenes as I watched, and because of good acting, not the usual reasons! Lucky is just so cruel and cutting and Laura so hurt and blindsided, it's hard to take.
It was a brave story that asked hard questions and showed everyone in an unflattering light at times, either in the present or in reexamination of past behavior. It was the Gooze under Riche, right? I hated most of his second tenure (in the JFP/Frons years) so much.
Jonathan still must have been 15 when those scenes were shot. Heavy lifting for a young actor, but he's so good.
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Twenty years ago on General Hospital (January 6, 2000), abbreviated from a long recap at Soap Central:
* Edward threatened to oust AJ as CEO of ELQ, and told him that the only thing he had going for him was Carly. Monica and Alan defended AJ.
* Mike's feelings for Tammy complicated his plan to pretend to romance Gertrude to get information for Chloe.
* Chloe hired Liz as her new assistant.
* Juan's singing impressed Ned, who warned him about the pitfalls of the music business. Juan told Emily he had no interest in a music career.
* Liz wanted to be with Jason in spite of all the danger, but he said he had to stay away from her for her own good. Liz ran away in tears.
* Hannah believed a bomb had been intended for Jason rather than Sonny. Mac advised her to put her feelings for Sonny in the past.
* Helena gloated that she would soon have Faison right where she wanted him.
* Carly bemoaned her estrangement from Jason and envied that Sonny still got to see him and talk to him, while she was a prisoner in the Quartermaine mansion. Sonny told her she was only a victim if she let herself be. She revealed she had a plan.
Mentioned characters still on the show in 2020: Sonny, Carly, Jason, Liz, Monica, Mike, Mac. Five of seven are still played by the same actors.
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2 hours ago, ByaNose said:
It was funny that the left side of the room had no reaction or acted it horribly. Whereas the right side of room had the biggest reaction and did the heavy lifting. It was like there 2 different directors for each side. Very odd.
I thought that that worked. The left side of the room had super-villainness Liesl and detective/investigative types Curtis and Jordan. It makes sense they would not be as easily rattled, and none of them was close to Nikolas. Also on that side was Jax, who knew Nikolas was alive and would show his face eventually, although soaking wet with Ava in his arms is a little extra.
I thought both Ingo (whose reaction I read as "Yeah, that's about due") and Kathleen Gati (who is glowering) made good choices. I guess Briana Henry was going for a "hardened" version of a WTF face. And Donnell processes the sight and then (another good choice) looks in the direction of ValenTEEN to gauge his reaction.
The right side had Nikolas's sister, mother, and stepfather, plus Charlotte, who thinks he's her secret bodyguard. So that side got the open mouths and wide eyes.
I wish Franco and Liz had been there, just to fill out the ranks. I think Nina and Franco stayed on good enough terms to make an invitation plausible.
Anyway, it was a great Friday cliffhanger. Coming right after that soppy Jasam scene with the sign language and the dumb song, it was like the electrical pads shocking the show back to life.
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Well, that was nice.
Rademacher replied further down that he hopes they have more stories together.
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15 hours ago, TVbitch said:
Valentin maybe should have checked on the impressive survival rates of Wyndemere falls.
Seriously. I think the only person that method has ever taken out is Katherine Bell, and even that required a practice run.
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I have called him Droopy Dog sometimes, so we're getting to the same destination by different routes!
Giving Michael a baby was a strange decision. It definitely wasn't something Duell was pushing for. In fact, he was clear about not wanting it. While Nelle was pregnant, he said he didn't think a baby was something Michael needed in his life at that point. I'm sure he'd have been relieved if the story had ended with Nelle's fall down the stairs.
Not that I have any idea what he'd rather Michael be doing. "Supporting" his family members, alluding to offscreen ELQ things, and having a romantic story that mostly consists of sitting in restaurants and talking?
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11 hours ago, ulkis said:
Sonny is on edge.
It's all that Corinthos Coffee.
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My opinion on all things Sonny is probably the most common one around these parts (it can be summed up with an "ugh"), but I don't miss the days when there was a new rival mobster gunning for him every year or two, and battles for the all-important "territory" were at least half the show. I hope we never get another installment of that.
That's not to say this defanged version with vague criminality in the background, family issues and the pushing of Corinthos Coffee in the foreground, is great, but I find it preferable. I have nothing against organized crime as a subject. I love The Godfather movies, Once Upon a Time in America, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, The Sopranos, etc. I didn't love Guza's poorly considered "soap antihero" version, with Maurice Benard at the center.
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1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:
Be careful what you wish for! A bunch of us loved Chloe Lanier as young Pat, and then she got saddled with Nelle, a finalist for the title of world's worst schemer. Nelle only now is fun to watch, IMO, and I don't expect that to last.
Not necessarily "another role on General Hospital." Shiloh was too prominent for too long, so if they brought him back, it would either have to be a "Shiloh's good twin" cheese-box or something like they've done for Easton, where they try to lampshade it with people bringing up the resemblance to the last character.
But I could imagine McLaughlin doing well in an action/adventure-type series or as a romantic lead or a lot of things. He has a lot of charisma, and was often the most interesting person to watch in his scenes. (Oddly, Lanier was one of his best scene partners.) The role was so vile, with the drugging and raping and all, that it could have made the actor irrelevant.
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People I enjoyed watching in 2019: Maura West, Nancy Lee Grahn, Rebecca Herbst, William Lipton, Vernee Watson-Johnson, Rebecca Budig, Chloe Lanier, Jon Lindstrom (more for Ryan than for Kevin).
Even when I did not like their material, I liked their performances.
Honorable mentions: Max Gail is usually sharing the screen with people I don't want to watch, but credit to him for courageous, believable work in a tough story. I'd also love to see Coby Ryan McLaughlin in a different role somewhere.
Josh Swickard is likable and charming, and that usually is more than enough for what he has to do. I'm just not sure I like him enough to see him carrying a story.
I would add Donnell Turner, but so many of Curtis's scenes are with Jordan. I tried to give Briana Henry time to settle in, but while she does not bother me, she and Turner don't have chemistry. He did have that with the original Jordan. I can't care much about their couple issues.
I consider Cynthia Watros and Marcus Coloma very good recasts. They are very different from the actors we most associate with the roles, but they bring some pluses too.
Everyone else was somewhere on the spectrum between "Eh, fine" and "Go away." This includes some people I have a history of liking, such as Finola Hughes, who just did not in this year win the battle with lackluster material the way some of those at the top did.
The test I apply: Would I be unhappy, indifferent, or thrilled if the news broke that a particular character was being written out or recast? There are some of all three.
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Anyway, the off-contract people seem to be Gati, Shen, Elliott, Charleson, Kurth & Rogers.
James Patrick Stuart was the first one. He was placed between Amanda Setton and Kathleen Gati, rather than where he would be by duration with the show.
He's on so often that he seems like a contract player, but he is recurring by choice. He has said it allows him to take other roles and vacations. Not that I can recall any periods since 2016 when we've gone long without seeing ValenTEEN (tm Curtis).
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I am catching up. All I have to say about Thursday's episode is that they are making Maxie look terrible. I'm not talking about her being snowed by Peter's "reform," because that's fair game for a soap. I'm talking about unnecessary collateral issues. I've never thought she was the brainiest or most sensitive character on the show, but I couldn't believe how she kept trying to nudge more of the detail out about Peter's "heroics" and a gunman trying to kill André and/or Franco, while Cameron indicated like mad that he didn't want his little brother (who has a history of psychological trauma) hearing it.
Yes, that's where we are. Maxie, thirtysomething parent of two, looked worse than Cameron, who's doing an apparent lifetime of community service for not-buying pot.
In other news, I still like Convict!Nelle. I was iffy on Chloe Lanier when she was being run ragged playing the confused, zigzagging good-or-bad version that Shelly and Jean were writing, but now that a direction has been committed to, she's entertaining.
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Mixed feelings about a potential Nik/Liz 2.0. There is character history there, and the present young-looking Nikolas would work cosmetically with the perennially young-looking Elizabeth. Personal chemistry, or lack, we would have to see about. I don't remember any cheering section for her and the Coltin Scott version when they were teased in 1999-2000.
And Franco really has never had to compete with anyone in that pairing. She has had past love interests in town while Friz has been going on, but they've been in the friend zone by then.
But I don't want the bus running over Liz to prop up St. Franco. That means I don't want Cameron, Jake, Obrecht, Scott, Epiphany, and even Laura shouting at Liz that she must be insane to even think about straying from her loving husband after she fought so hard to get him back.
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It sounds as though the show not to miss is Thursday, January 2, because on that day "Sonny feels betrayed." We've never seen that. How on earth will he express it? Will he yell "You betrayed me!"? Will he throw something?
Some "2020 spoilers" from SOD:
It’s a fight for Ava and Nik to best Valentin.Nik’s return will have a surprising impact on Liz and Franco.
A wedge could be driven between Anna and Finn, due to her pursuit of the truth surrounding Peter.
Finn and Robert may have to join forces to make Anna see Peter for who he really is.
Anna and Jason could be the ones to expose Peter.
The Quartermaines will be forced to come together to save their legacy or else face the family’s downfall.
Laura will take on a leadership role when Port Charles is faced with a crisis.
Carly’s secrets continue to put a strain on her marriage.
Sonny’s actions, in order to alleviate Mike’s declining symptoms, could have explosive results.
Shiloh’s reach beyond the grave will loom over Jason and Sam.
Nelle is released from Pentonville. Michael, Sasha, Chase, Willow and others, including Carly, will feel the fallout from Nelle’s next move.
The truth about Wiley’s paternity will explode.
Sparks fly between Julian and someone unexpected.
Neil has shocking news that could affect a possible future with Alexis.
Jordan learns an old colleague has died and has suspicions about his death.
Just as Dustin and Lulu’s relationship is about to go to the next level, a blast from one of their pasts appears.
Though Obrecht wants to turn over a new leaf, she can’t outrun her past.
The teens are in for heartbreak, and Trina finds out about a mystery relative in Port Charles.
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I greet any soap episode like this one with a small groan. They just aren't my thing, these stand-alone whimsical holiday episodes, fan-fantasy episodes, dream episodes. It did look better than it might have as production design, but there was not one scene I enjoyed, and it had nothing to do with anything I thought I understood about Finn. Easton might as well have become the central actor in it by having his name drawn out of a hat.
Admittedly, many soap episodes could be called "time-wasting," in that they don't move things forward appreciably, but at least there's a chance of some kind of progress in the stories.
I'm surprised it's as well received as it is on certain sites that are full of people who want exactly what the show wants them to want (Michael reunited with his son [and Sonny getting to hold his latest grandchild], Sam getting out of prison, Julian's latest nefariousness uncovered and punished). I thought they would be even less patient with it than I was.
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Yes. Martina was Carly's divorce attorney; Margaux was the D.A. who was under Shiloh's spell and had the convoluted story about Sonny's involvement in her father's death.
He never really did anything with Margaux, but his ten-minute affair with Martina had such an effect on Martina that she was giving attitude like she was someone important. Didn't she have an argument with Carly and say that she (Martina) understood him better? Then she just vanished. That was such a weird dead end that I was surprised they brought her up recently in an argument.
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Spoilers and Speculation: Clink Boom and Cheese Fondue
in General Hospital
· Edited by Asp Burger
"Nelle is shaken." "Sasha is shaken."
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.