Asp Burger

Setton has done some steamy scenes on GH. Oh, never mind. I was thinking of the time she was in the steam room with Chase, wearing the blazer.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "Now, what is a wedding? Well, Webster's Dictionary defines a wedding as 'the process of removing weeds from one's garden'." I guess that's what Sonny was trying to do! Oh, BTW, belatedly, I guess we know why MB in his recent tweet (assuring a worried fan that he's loving the new direction of the writing) only specified that he has complete faith in Elizabeth Korte. That was a few days before we learned that Patrick Mulcahey (who went unmentioned) is out.

Yeah, native English speakers rarely get Italian paired vowels right. Our inclination is to break adjacent vowels into two very distinct sounds (re: titles like Don Giovanni, famous names like Gianni Versace and Jason Giambi, anything similar). I agree. I was a little annoyed that his scene with Liz got interrupted and we never saw them work back to what they were talking about. I don't ship Liason at this late date, but I usually do like their scenes. I said the same thing about Alexis and Sonny a while back. Same. I haven't watched an episode of this show in real time in years, and I don't think I'd be able to do it. Minus commercials, it's about 38 minutes, and most days there's something to help me cut the time down more. One of those cheesy songs, which are so heavily pitch-corrected that the voice doesn't sound fully human, is an automatic skip. Another thought: Lucy, Olivia, and Lois are a lot of "mature but MANIC" energy. All three of them on the canvas at once is a bit much to tolerate. I guess I should count my blessings that Stafford isn't playing Nina anymore.

Young was a hot new name on daytime then, an Emmy nominee for B&B. He was around 20, blond and handsome in a way just right for the era (that "boy band" look). If he was more traditionally hunky than Jackson and had less sensitivity in the way he presented, there was a story rationale to cover some change, with Helena having kidnapped and brainwashed Lucky. So, I can see on paper why it seemed like a coup for GH. A lot of fans on forums I followed were excited to welcome Young. Whether they had seen him on his other soap or not, they liked what they saw in pictures. Most of those fans were very fair about giving him time to settle in, thinking his early stiffness was just...early stiffness. It didn't work out in the long term. Being an acceptable teen Rick Forrester was one thing, but Lucky Spencer was heavier lifting. I have no explanation for the Daytime Emmy he received for his work in the McTavish-written year (the return of Stavros). I'd rather not think about it. Several years ago, Becky Herbst did an article for one of the soap magazines about 20 years of playing Liz, reacting to pictures of herself with past and present costars. She had less to say about a picture of herself with Jacob and Coltin as Lucky and Nikolas than she had about anything else. She said the era just seemed like a blip.

Jonathan Jackson to Jacob Young had to be one of the worst transitions in soap history. Jackson had depth and complexity. Young is a good actor for still photographs. Okay, that's not fair. He might have been fine as some other character (pre-Lucky, he hadn't bothered me as Rick when I watched B&B briefly), but not this one. When Lucky was angry, Young always seemed right on the edge of violence. When Lucky was sad, affectionate, or anything that was supposed to engender viewer sympathy, Young made it sound insincere and manipulative.

Finola is the new Jonathan Jackson! I remember the jokes on TWoP when Liz was pregnant with Aiden and the paternity was still a mystery (NIkolas or Lucky). "If he's crying constantly, he's Lucky's." Seriously, yes, weepy Anna has been the Anna of record for a long, long time now. My recollection is that it started during the "Justice for Dewk" storyline of 2015-16.

I think so too. It's been Kim's apartment more recently, but it does look like the place where Dante and the JMB Lulu interviewed "Stephanie," the full-of-herself surrogacy candidate whose dialogue was obvious meta-digs at Steve Burton. Carly never disappoints with her hypocrisy. When she was whining to Jason, she said Ava acted as if she were the lady of the manor and could order Carly to leave the penthouse. Even when Sonny still disliked Carly, and was just letting her stay there because she was carrying the hate-sex baby (the one Carly ultimately lost in the Quartermaine staircase tumble), Carly did the same things! And she did them much more aggressively and offensively! I'll never forget the SJB version screaming at Liz (whom Sonny had asked to come over) to get out.

If there's a Kate Mansi fan club forming here, save me a number. I was iffy on Lexi for most of her long, broken run as Kristina, and I disliked some stories that prominently featured her (notably the Parker entanglement), but I thought she had improved in her last stint, and I was disappointed to hear she would not be playing the role anymore. Mansi has taken some of the sting out of it. My DOOL time was long before she was on it, so she was new to me, but she's three-dimensional and fairly sympathetic and also seems in line with the history of the character. In tribute to Dominic Zamprogna's Battlestar Galactica character, they can call it "Jammer & McCall"! At the same time, half the town has awakened from the fog they've been in to realize they're in the wrong career. Alexis wants to leave journalism to return to the law, Joss is rethinking becoming a doctor, Willow is having second thoughts about being a nurse, Dex has switched sides from "mob flunky," Dante might quit the police force, Sasha doesn't want to model anymore, and Carly is back to running the hotel. Did I miss anyone? At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Ava casually handed off the art gallery to Trina on the grounds that Trina has more passion for it. Then Ava could start studying to become a licensed pharmacist within two months, to help this medication-tampering plot along.

I'm another who thought Cameron Lewis didn't really work. At the time, I suspected he was an attempt at "three birds with one stone": Fleshing out Zander's history, during a period when Show still seemed mildly interested in Zander. Cameron's arrival in town was initially set up by Zander telling Liz about his surprisingly posh background while the two of them were imprisoned by Rosco in the crypt. Providing a potential new love interest for Alexis after the controversial end of Sexis, and seeing if lightning might strike twice for NLG and LD. Adding another Friend of Jill to the ranks. We joke a lot about FV running into people in the parking lot or the elevator and giving them roles, but in her first couple years at the helm, Jill Farren Phelps was really dotting the show with soap stars with whom she had history (J. Buchanan, Kelker-Kelly, Dano, R. Christopher, Davies, maybe others I'm forgetting). Looking at Davies's duration by air dates, I'm a little surprised Cameron lasted 15 months. If I were going purely on memory and significant scenes involving him, I'd have guessed about six. Anyway, good for him, getting a second chance. I hope his new role goes better, and I'm sure he'll be a completely new face to a lot of GH viewers. It isn't like Howarth starting on his third GH character when the second one's grave was still fresh.

For a character who was on the canvas for a cumulative nine years or so, wreaked a lot of havoc, is a sibling to GH's male lead and had pairings with three of its popular women (all of whom are still around), Ric Lansing has gone down in history as kind of a non-event. I rarely hear him mentioned or even alluded to by characters on the show. If Molly weren't there to remind me Ric had been a thing (by existing, not by talking about visits or calls with him), I might forget him. I'm not complaining, necessarily. Ric's first stint (2002-09) was a mess, and I never felt Rick Hearst was being given a decent character to play. With his second stint (2014-16), it felt as if they had brought a character back without having ideas to keep him occupied and vital. IIRC, he was never really written out. He just stopped appearing.

I looked for a scan to share but cannot find one, so you will have to take my word for it that 25 years ago (with summer 1999 fast approaching) was the infamous "See you tomorrow, Jason" ad campaign promoting Steve Burton. The gist is that it was written from the point of view of a lovelorn soap viewer. She was saying that even though Jason was a character on her screen and she was a real person in her kitchen, in her mind, she walked down the beach arm in arm with the holy hitman. Then there was a dramatic paragraph break for "See you tomorrow, Jason." Even in 1999, there was enough of an online soap fan base for this campaign to get righteously roasted. I remember some funny parodies, like, "Even though you have gone from Quartermaine to Quarter-Brain, I close my eyes and we are walking down the beach, arm in arm. See you tomorrow, Pod-Boy."

Oh, if there were a Sonny exit story taking shape, I'd expect it to be like the Luke exit story: Mo having decided to retire or semi-retire from acting. Not a situation in which he planned to go hard after parts in primetime and on cable/streamers. I don't know what his financial situation is like, to say whether hanging it up at 61 (like Daniel Day-Lewis) is a realistic possibility. But I expect Sonny to be around until ABC shuts off the lights on its last soap. One thing I do know from that tweet is that Mo throws extraneous commas around like they're glassware!

Mo ain't goin' nowhere, he says.

To see that proud, beautiful man having his gift of art rejected...there are no words. Laura is a monster. (Sarcasm/callback to something on social media last decade involving Sonny and Nelle. I bring it back once in a while with the "monster" person and the story details updated.)

Thirty seconds later, Molly made the mistake of using the word "alcohol," and TJ yelled, "KRISTINA WAS DRINKING?!" If Molly hadn't clarified that it was Josslyn drinking, I think TJ was going to make a beeline for Kristina to...who knows? Imprison her like Nikolas did with Esme, maybe. TJ is as quick to get agitated as Sonny is, but we have a story reason for Sonny. I have a hard time figuring out what they (both E-Trick and Chris/Dan) want us to think TJ's personality is. I also wonder how much this actor's delivery is responsible. To me, he always seems a little too intense about whatever the emotional state is.

I'll offer a counterpoint on Gregory. It's nothing against the actor, and it's nothing from which anyone should infer lack of sympathy on my part for ALS sufferers, but I'm not getting much out of this. It's a typical GH medical story of recent times: dreary, drawn out, and less about the stricken character than about someone in his orbit. See also Oscar's cancer (starring the astonishingly resilient Josslyn) and Mike's dementia (how will Sonny cope?!). Also, brooding Easton is my least favorite Easton, and "My daddy with whom I've had a troubled relationship is slipping away" is nothing if not a brood-trap. Finn goes down best when he brings the dry humor.

That reminds me of the Nixon Falls era, when we were getting constant cues, subtle and unsubtle, that we were supposed to see Lenny as a significantly older man than Sonny/"Mike," almost as if Sonny/Mike were the son Lenny and Phyllis never had. Mo is, in fact, younger than Rif Hutton...by three months!

"Astonishingly resilient" is the new "brave and strong and loves with her whole heart." (...not just a part of it!)

Yeah, he's always been big on the gesturing (although I don't know if I'd say it helps him successfully act). I first saw him as Ryan on AMC more than 20 years ago, and I remember his acting when the Gillian character was shot and it was hopeless for her. Some other desperate character needed Ryan to sign off on donating one of her organs (heart, maybe?), and he was all "No! I won't kill Gillian! She might come back to me!" His big move during that storyline—from the shooting through the formal grieving process—was to knit both hands together behind his head, elbows up in the air, and make drumming or massaging motions on the back of his head with his hands, while wincing. He was so OTT with this manic, caffeinated portrayal of grief that it defeated what should have been a sad story, for me. It started to get funny, then tiresome. I think it has to do with the scarcity of daytime dramas. If there were still, say, eight of them in production instead of four, some of these actors would be on other shows. That's especially true of daytime veterans such as West, Easton, Watros. Kelly, Setton, and Howarth, all well known from canceled soaps. Now there just aren't as many places for them to go. I get why they say yes to a regular gig, obviously. On the part of Frank V. and ABC, I think it's just about trying to hold on to what survives of the soap audience, with a point of view that a new familiar face or different face could make the show more appealing to someone. On the other hand, I do count 31 actors in this intro from 2000. Not that all of them were being written for regularly.

By now, whenever I see a guest star who's in the "beloved" category, I know Larry is (probably without bad intentions) going to do something he'll be hated for. He tripped Shaq during a game, accidentally, sending him to the hospital. He mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's, but he was actually just miming playing a violin because that's the replacement present he got his girlfriend's kid. He disabled Lin-Manuel Miranda by shooting him in the mouth with a paintball. And he gave the Boss COVID. He's wreaked havoc across the worlds of sport, music, theater, and philanthropy!

Personally, in the Sarah Brown years and (to a lesser extent) the Tamara Braun years, I always thought the "Jason and Carly as BFFs for life" thing came off as sublimation. It was as if Carly was deeply in love with this guy, and she had accepted that he'd never have sex with her again or entertain the notion of a romantic relationship (especially after Sonny staked his claim), so "my best friend" is the declaration she could make. The vibe I got from Burton as Jason supported that. He was often impatient with her, and yelled at her when she needlessly caused trouble for herself. And there was about 20 times as much of Carly going to Jason for help as there was of the reverse, which isn't the way any friendship of mine goes. But then in the Laura Wright years, for better or worse, it did seem like more of a reciprocal friendship, which was a bummer. I'm a Carly hater, so I'll always prefer it when she's full of shit.

Yes, once the "Return of Eddie Maine" stuff ran its course, and what he knew about Nina's SEC tip became widely known, Ned went back in storage. As far as I can tell from a quick look through summaries, Ned has had one appearance since New Year's week: some ELQ-related squabbling with Michael in the January 17 episode. When he was last seen, Tracy was telling him that the new acrimony between Michael and Drew would only strengthen his (Ned's) position, and Ned looked pleased at that thought. I guess he then went offscreen to enjoy his stronger position. Since then, he's only been mentioned and discussed (e.g., "You let everyone believe Ned was responsible!").

Don't forget the polycythemia vera! I've seen this kind of thing before in long-running shows, both in daytime and in prime time—regrettably, usually with "strong" female characters. The character starts out one way, and then some combination of the writers' room, the producers, and the network decide that "beleaguered" and "emotional" are the character's best suit, even if few viewers feel that way. Then the weepy version of the character, if not the only one we ever see, is seriously overexposed. It's like, "Uncle! We get it! She can be 'vulnerable' too."

No matter who's writing or producing, the holy-hitman dogma never goes away. I can't help comparing the in-show reactions to Jason's return, to the reactions to Nikolas's similar 2019 return. Both guys were presumed dead for a few years, then turned up alive in Port Charles. With Nikolas, we were put on notice very early that one reaction would be "How could he stay away for years and make his loved ones suffer?" Some characters were still saying that after a period of years. But on Jason's behalf, Josslyn insists to Trina that there must have been a very good reason. And of the two of them, Nikolas is the one who wasn't implicated in a shooting as soon as he got back. However: This is the biggest improvement I've noticed. Several times per episode, I react to lines as having been especially good, even in "filler" conversations. An example is Elizabeth's (to Willow) about how raising teenage boys means digging for information, sometimes lovingly and sometimes with a pickax. The pacing is the other big improvement, specifically the new willingness to stay in one place longer and let the scenes breathe, instead of frantically cutting between different locations every 15 seconds.

Sonny can "count on one hand" the number of good people in his life, and Dante is one of them? That was harsh. I was trying to think of who the others would be. Michael is presently excluded from his affections, as are (related story) Nina and Dex, but I'd think he still had enough for two hands and more. Kristina, Molly, Laura, Anna, Olivia, Brook, Lois, Carly, Alexis, Sam, Brick, Spinelli. There are others he has a history of closeness with, even if they haven't had a lot of scenes together lately: Elizabeth, Stella, Curtis, etc. Not that I think all of those are good people...