Asp Burger
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On 11/22/2019 at 3:20 PM, Linny said:
What exactly was the intended message of Nina's circular conversation with Jax? "I'm not actually marrying Valentin because he's an incorrigible liar and I want to break his heart EXCEPT maybe I won't because I love him and he's family." Fucking WHAT? You can't simultaneously sell me that Nina knows her worth and knows Valentin is beneath her while also having her pathetically admit she'd take him back because it's easy.
What I'm getting from it is that she hates/loves him, but his hole card is Charlotte. The abduction of Charlotte gave her second thoughts on her revenge plan. His sincere devotion to Charlotte (and vice versa) is the side of him that hasn't been tarnished for her, and Charlotte's presence in Nina's own life would end if she severed things with Valentin.
Ironically, he did "give her a daughter," even though she has to share the daughter with Lulu.
So it's convincing as enmeshment. It puts them in the same line as other soap couples who have schemed and transgressed (on one side or both) but stayed painfully connected, even with women who were more psychologically healthy and independent than Nina. I thought Watros did pretty well with the scenes, but I like her in this role more than many here do.
What I wondered about was Jax's line "You know who else is a good father? Sonny Corinthos. That's how Carly rationalized going back to him again and again. And now one of her kids is dead and her life is in a mess. I don't want that to happen to you." I understand the emotion of it, and the part about Morgan being dead (until the probable recasting) is true. But isn't Carly's life presently about at her baseline? She's not entirely on board with Dev living there, but what mess is Jax seeing? Bifida's birth went without complication, things are fine between Carly and all of her other kids, she's practically absconded with Avery, and most of the town loves her. (Ugh.)
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Picking up on Alexis's romantic history from the News thread:
53 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:And, to be honest, I always thought Ned/Alexis was boring as hell, too.
Same. So many of their scenes were smug self-congratulation about how they were the only sane people in their respective families. We kept hearing (out of the mouths of the characters themselves) a writing-room pitch for why they'd be a good couple, but the good-couple chemistry and writing never materialized. Two people apparently having a lot in common is a good justification in real life, but not as much for drama.
Then, their complications, like the "Eddie's Angel" would-be comedy (Alexis having her photo snapped in lingerie and becoming an unwilling pin-up sensation), were pretty bad, even though NLG attacked everything with her usual neurotic intensity.
I did like Sexis at the time it was ramping up and happening in 2000-02. It's not that I was a Sonny fan even then, but there had been almost 20 years less of him, and much of the worst was still ahead. So I wasn't as vehement against him. Also, Sexis threw a roadblock up for Sonny/Carly (a coupling I've hated from the first) and made their fans unhappy. Anyone who remembers what the worst of turn-of-the-millennium S/C fans online were like will at least understand how I could be that petty.
53 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:But again, that probably had a lot to do with NLG knowing Sonny was a front-burner character and wanting her character to remain relevant, so...
An argument could be made that that's also why Wally Kurth liked the Nexis pairing. In fan-favorite terms, NLG was and is a bigger fish than he is. Without her, at the time, all he had was squabbles with his family, and his subsequent pairings (e g., Big Kristina, Faith) didn't do much for him.
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I'll add some things in the history thread.
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I don't know. If André Maddox is able to accomplish The Procedure™ in the couple days before the Thanksgiving show, and it all goes beautifully, and Franco is having Thanksgiving at the Q mansion with Liz and the boys, that will be faster-paced storytelling than this saga so far has led me to expect. Especially with the other stories that will have to be serviced in the same episodes.
Yes, I know that Franco got Drewed in a single episode. But my spec is that this is some "Monica's one Thanksgiving with Drew before he makes the ultimate sacrifice" angle.
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That's the kind of CDL article I believe, because they're reporting on an interview someone else did, with actual quotes that are sourced.
Braun was asked about Kim drugging Drew Cain (Billy Miller) and trying to force him to make a baby with her. She admitted that was a negative turning point, and she knew it’d be hard to recover from. Braun said, “Yeah, actually that was the first time that I was like, ‘Oh, they’re going to write me off.’” She explained that she shared her suspicions with co-star William deVry (Julian Jerome), who tried to shut down her concerns.
He probably said, "I held a knife to my wife's throat and I'm still here!"
I wonder how he feels about her exit.
Other news: I wasn't going to give this its own post, but here's a fairly recent story on the controversial Nikolas No. 2 and his attempted reinvention as a country singer. Pull quote: "When RFT persisted in questioning Martines about the allegations of fraud and harassment, the call was terminated."
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On 11/22/2019 at 3:04 PM, Happywatcher said:
I had an unkind thought watching Anna in the barroom kissing drama scene. About 30 years ago when Finola started they had Anna wear scar makeup around her eye. Now the wrinkles look a little like the 'shocking' scar back then.
Seriously, I was thinking the May December pairing was a bit far fetched, then I remembered we wouldn't think twice if it was the other way around. And this plot/triangle isn't the worst thing on the show, the last 7 years or currently.
May-December meaning Anna and Finn? With all due respect to Michael Easton, his "springtime" was a while ago. Finola Hughes only has seven years and a few months on him. I don't think Finn is supposed to be considerably younger than the actor, either.
My idea of May-December would be if Robert Scorpio and, oh, Willow were in a relationship. But I realize that the popular idea of the phrase has been contracting for a while.
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I can understand not liking NLG, even though I do like her. Like Michelle Stafford, she has a strong, distinctive style. I usually find Stafford crude and amateurish in the way she uses that style, whereas NLG has more finesse and her characters are plausible people. But if someone just doesn't like what NLG does, the opinion likely won't change. She's nothing if not consistent.
With regard to Julexis, NLG has always been a bit mercenary and changeable about her pairings. She likes to be part of popular ones that keep her in the vicinity of the front burner, and Julexis has more of a fan base than some of her earlier pairings. But she did say in an interview a few years ago that while she appreciated the support for "Julexis," if there wasn't any "Ju-" anymore, she hoped people would stick with Alexis.
I also remember her trashing the Ned pairing when she was pushing for Sonny/Alexis. She didn't hold back about finding it boring. There was nothing negative about Wally Kurth, but if he saw her remarks, they couldn't have made him happy. (He liked Nexis.)
On 11/20/2019 at 11:03 PM, jsbt said:off the top of my head probably Nikolas, but bear in mind I have no idea if the new guy can act and I only occasionally watch clips these days so I have virtually no clue what is going on.
Marcus Coloma has done a solid job with what they've given him. I was impressed enough with him to watch a long interview that's up on YouTube (from well before he was cast as Nikolas), and he has an interesting story that's probably a common one. He's been kicking around Los Angeles for 20 years. Ironically, his first screen credit was in 1999, the year they recast Nikolas the first time. History might have been different. In that time, he's appeared in all sorts of things, including guest spots on very popular shows like CSI, short-lived series remembered by few, pilots that didn't get picked up. In lean times, he's had to take regular jobs to get by.
So even though he's a new face to a lot of GH viewers (including me), and he looks young for 41, he's a veteran who's used to hitting the ground running and fitting into the tone of different shows, and I think that's apparent in his work. That's why you're not seeing a lot of comments about his acting being terrible. What negativity there has been about Nikolas has mostly been about the way the character is being written, or from Tyler fans disappointed it isn't him.
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15 minutes ago, TeeVee329 said:
it's always so awkward when soaps stop to have a cast member sing a song. They've been doing a little of that with Joss and Cam, and Frank of course did WAY too much of that with Starr on "One Life to Live".
I remember when they were trying to make Big Kristina happen in 2001, and Jaime Ray Newman was getting opportunities to show off her pipes. My memory is that she was good, but even so, we had just got rid of VH-Juan, and I was thinking, "Come on, show, enough with the singing."
General Hospital viewers enter into an implicit agreement that we'll put up with the Nurses' Ball once a year. That should be plenty.
Ned as a musical idol with a big youth following was good for some laughs. Those teenage and twentysomething day players mobbing him, squeeing over "Eddie Maine," trying to find out about his personal life...
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More interesting to me than the thinness of WdV's skin, or that he showed some of it in a picture, is that he's ahead of us on story. What this tells me is that Julian and Brook must be a pairing they're at least exploring, and he's hoping people get behind it. I don't think he'd bother to point out the exact number of years between them if her first scenes being opposite him were just a fluke. Most likely he was casting around for reaction to the chemistry, having already filmed their passionate kiss against the dumpster behind Charlie's.
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1 hour ago, Gam2 said:
Do y’all think she’s on some kind of drugs or something? I mean, Kelly Monaco in real life, not the character of Sam.
I will apologize if she makes public that she really is battling a condition with symptoms of fatigue and somnolence. Until then, my read is that it's just point-of-no-return burnout with a side of passive aggression. She's giving "I hate my job" performances, the dramatic equivalent of factory work.
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11 hours ago, TeeVee329 said:
I don't remember a ton about Brook from before, but while she was definitely reminding me of Kim (particularly during her mysterious phone call, curious to find out what that's about), nothing I saw really counteracted the image I had of Brook - someone a little no-nonsense, a little pushy. It's not like she was giving that kinda of attitude to her dad or even Olivia.
I'm another who really had no fixed idea of what Brook was like, which any returning version could conflict with. I was watching in all of the years she was on as a young adult, but I just remember her being another face in the crowd during a dismal time for the youth set on GH.
I don't have anything against the new actress or the character, but I also don't have a history of liking this actress on other shows, and as first days go, this didn't knock me out. I thought Brook came off as obnoxious, and we already have so much of that in the female characters. Carly all by herself would be more than enough.
Re: The mysterious phone call. She was telling someone that they "owe" her, she took the trouble of spelling "owe," and then she said they obviously had her confused with someone they could push around. Then "Oh, go to hell" as a sign-off. Just based on the character's history and what else is going on at the moment that they could conceivably tie her return to, I was assuming she was talking to Nik-Manuel Miranda.
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After being spoiled by comments here, I was expecting to hate the Sonny/Cameron scenes more than I did. The only really bad part was Cameron acting all nervous and calling Sonny "Sir" constantly, but whatever; William Lipton was taking one for the team. We have to buy into the idea that the domesticated stutter-barker who hasn't had an actual mob storyline in years is the terrifying godfather of PC. Maybe if we all put on long black floral skirts and chokers, it'll be easier to persuade ourselves it's still 1994. (Yes, even the male viewers. )
However, I didn't mind Sonny's actual lines that much, and I liked the callback to the Sonny/Liz friendship, as well as Sonny telling her that she's a good mother to the boyz. I do wish Sonny had referenced Zander. It would have improved the scenes.
I really hate to say this about a character I liked for a while, but Kim, we can't miss you if you won't go away. It seems she's been threatening to leave for about six weeks.
The Olivia/Julian issue over the deposit is a classic example of bad soap. I know it's a red herring, in that Olivia isn't responsible for dead rats, but they still keep bringing it up, and we can't care even a little when one of the two characters in conflict isn't even onscreen. If we were seeing scenes of Olivia back at the Quartermaine mansion, fuming to Ned about how Julian was screwing her over and he wasn't going to get away with it, then maybe. It's possible that people would still be saying it's a waste of space, but at least there would be potential drama.
The two Rebeccas are fantastic soap sisters. Much better chemistry than Rebecca Herbst had with either one of the Sarahs.
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At least Sonny and Carly can be fun to hate sometimes, and Maurice Benard does try to give effective performances within his means, and Laura Wright always shows up. I don't see how anyone can get any pleasure out of watching Kelly Monaco anymore. When I watch an old clip from 10 or 15 years ago -- mind you, I wasn't a Sam fan then either -- I see a remarkable difference. There used to be some kind of energy level. Now she just sulks and murmurs and seems to want to be somewhere else, no matter what the scene is.
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I don't know if it was planned, but they had a mini-theme n the Wednesday (or Thursday) show with people softening toward their enemies. Sonny and Ava are getting the most comment, but Valentin's gratitude toward Anna for rescuing Charlotte got a little weird when he said "You're hurt!" and caressed her face. Then when Chase started to get offended about hearing secondhand that he had a niece, Robert actually stuck up for Finn, telling Chase that Finn had just found out himself.
I could see someone interpreting Hayden's behavior as using Violet to get Finn back, but then, she was around for weeks and was claiming Violet was a dog named Honey Bunny. As written, he still wouldn't know if the kid hadn't become sick. So it wasn't the standard soap play of the old girlfriend showing up at the church with the kid on her hip in mid-wedding. Hayden has been written in a vague and contradictory way, and they've been depending a lot on Rebecca Budig's charisma to pull her together.
I might be anti-Hayden if I thought her return were causing trouble for an actual couple. Finn/Anna always just seemed like one of those pairings that happen when two actors are on contract and there's no better place to put them.
That Sonny/Carly manufactured tension came in right on schedule.
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I remember starting to like the JMB Lulu when Dante/DZ was brought on. A lot of the time before that, I did find her annoying, but I thought maybe I was supposed to. I felt they were writing someone who had growing up to do and was supposed to be perceived that way, and that JMB was doing a good job of playing it.
I did prefer her, as the Lulus go.
All of you who are going to be seeing Wednesday's episode a day late, steel yourself for more of Josslyn talking about how much she misses Oscar.
There's also a Carly speech about the perils of excessive drinking that is either awkwardly or extremely well timed, depending on your point of view on Wednesday's news.
I think Coloma is fine for Nikolas, age-wise and looks-wise, but I have to admit that when Jax gets up in his face and yells at him for leaving the house and all that, it's a little like I'm watching a father and his unruly son. Dude's a young 41. It's hard to picture these two duking it out over SWSNBN all those years ago.
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Nancy Lee Grahn has commented. "I say this with love but I can assure you that Tyler wasn't out having 'birthday fun'. He has a horrible disease. Tyler is at risk of losing his life if he doesn't get help, maintain treatment & work a program and there's nothing fun about it. He needs help not exposure."
There are also statements of support from Greg Vaughan and Michele Val Jean.
http://tiny.cc/jru8fzIt was apparent to me from TC's social media that he hoped to be rehired for Nikolas's return. He was signalling like mad by posting when the character was mentioned on GH, saying the door would never be closed "from [his] side." I'm not claiming that the recasting of Nikolas was the catalyst here -- obviously, these are longstanding issues -- but I can't imagine it helped.
Unfortunately, whether or not GH considered him when they were planning this story arc, it would seem they made the smart decision for the good of the production. I hope he can turn things around.
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37 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:
On a lighter note, Martinsville, IN, is close to where my mom grew up. I wonder what he was doing there. It's not exactly a hotbed of activity.
Some of the reports say he was arrested near his "residence," and according to Wikipedia, he and his second wife do make their home in Indiana, even though his Twitter has his location as Los Angeles.
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Oh, Tyler. I had heard rumblings for a long time, but getting all the ugly details in one place like that, with that gruesome mugshot, is worse than I thought it could be.
I hope he can find some happiness and stability. It's hard when you remember someone as a fresh face.
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Of course there was a point to Donna! Now Josslyn has two little sisters upstairs who worship her!
Well, I still like Nik-Manuel Miranda. Stupid story beats are going to be stupid no matter who's in the role, as we saw when Jonathan Jackson came back as Lucky. The bad recasts are the ones who give me that sinking feeling on their first day, no matter what they're being written to do. We've all been there, where you hope that with more experience, the person is going to be less awful, but it usually doesn't work that way. MC (hey, we just had those initials for a GH guy) seems to be a good actor.
And truthfully, I don't remember Nikolas ever being very effective in his scheming, even way back when Coltin Scott Martines was playing him and he was trying to get Gia out of her drunk-driving predicament. He's always schemed as though he doesn't really have it in him, and whatever he tries to do usually comes unraveled. Maybe they're writing him a little more impulsive than used to be the case, but I think it works with the younger-looking actor.
I had a harder time believing that Anna couldn't put Cassandra out of action in some way that would leave her alive but unable to get to a boat within five seconds. It wasn't a shining moment in the WSB annals.
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Ava/Nikolas/Brook Lynn triangle. I'd bet on it. Then they can "do" two newbies while having a fan-favorite actor involved in it, and they have options open if the chemistry is lousy between Marcus Coloma and one of the women. Plus, they seem not to want Maura West/Ava to have an uncontested claim to a guy on this show for any length of time.
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Ghost-Tony...meh. I'm glad Brad Maule's fans got to see him again, but perhaps because I started watching when Tony was in the process of being wrecked, he was never a favorite character of mine. I've never found Lucas anything but bland in his young-adult and adult incarnations, so his graveside turmoil wasn't grabbing me either.
And the show has gone back to the well too often with ghosts appearing to their loved ones in difficult times. Ghost-Alan, Ghost-Courtney, Ghost-Dewk, Ghost-Stone, Ghost-Kiki (she broke the pattern a bit, in that she offered the opposite of comfort). I'd be expecting Bry-Dawg to make a victory lap as Ghost-Morgan, dropping in on Sonny and Carly, Michael, and Ava, if I didn't think they were going to bring the character back with a recast eventually.
I still think the woman playing Cassandra is miscast. I just never believe for a second that this person could be a threat to anyone, or could be heavily involved in illegal and dangerous things. It's a weird role that might be hard to play (a ruthless mercenary-villainness with neurotic tendencies), but she just doesn't work for me at all.
So Friday's episode didn't have much to hold my interest except Ava.
Edited: Adding Ghost-Dewk.
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It was odd to me that when Laura and Sonny were discussing Ava and what her present mental health means for the custodial situation of Avery, only Laura's wig-on-a-stick period was explicitly referenced. When Sonny said he had sympathy for Ava, I was making subtext of his own breakdown, but only because I had been watching in spring/summer of 2006. It should have been more overt. He was more unbalanced and potentially dangerous to children than Ava is presently, and certainly just as much of a candidate for inpatient psychiatric care. He was guzzling alcohol as much as she does, calling Emily "Lily," digging a garden in the middle of the night, going into constant rages, menacing his employees with a carving knife...I'm sure there was more, as the story continued for months. Didn't he also start ripping a dress off of Emily, a then-recent rape victim, because it looked like something Lily had worn?
The people who tried to use his condition against him were the villains in the story.
They (Sonny, other characters, the writers) do bring up Sonny's bipolar disorder from time to time, but in a very selective way.
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1 hour ago, perkie1968 said:
Jason just happened to wandering around Rice Park, because he knew she was on work duty there. It was "take the thug to Mom's work" day!!
Yes. She told Jason the location and asked him to keep Danny and Scout away so they wouldn't see her as a prisoner. Also, so she wouldn't have to double her 2019 interaction with them.
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7 hours ago, tvgoddess said:
The only thing that I'd keep is her relationship with Elizabeth, because that's worked incredibly well, surprisingly. The Rebecca's really like playing sisters, it's obvious.
They do, and what I dread most about where this "Nikolas returns" story is going is all the relationships it might screw up. In addition to the people who will be furious with Nikolas for keeping his survival a secret for years (and his other misdeeds), Elizabeth may be furious with Hayden for not telling her that her best friend was still alive, even when she was living under Elizabeth's roof. Hayden may resort to that soap-opera standby, "It wasn't my secret to tell!"
8 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:- . I just can't help think how Stefan would have handled this, and too bad he's most seriously dead...oh, wait...hmm...no, never mind. HACKFRANK would ruin any return of Stefan.
It would be hard to ruin him any more than the Gooze did last time around, when he was skulking around in the tunnels trying to rape a woman, and was the butt of a joke for Jason and Sonny ("No wonder Alcazar's still breathing!"). That was the worst part somehow. He wasn't just written as evil; he was written as ineffectually evil.
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GH In The News: The PC Press Club
in General Hospital
Yes, they've been a pretty low-interest couple. I haven't even seen them get a couple name like "Pex."
Peter sort of has a story, but they hit pause on it last week. He had been on a decent amount leading up to that, but the story was just his trying to stay ahead of all his secrets coming out, and Robert, Jason and Sam getting more and more suspicious of him.