Asp Burger

Well-done soap physical fights are rare, in my experience. The legendary room-destroying catfight between Vivica A. Fox and Jonelle Allen on Generations was one exception. It was one of the lowest-rated soaps of its day, and still the scene is famous. I'll never forget Jonelle's "Come and get me, bitch!" Not long ago, I looked up on YouTube the slap exchange between Sarah Brown's Carly and Lisa Vultaggio's Hannah from 1999. I'd remembered it as good, and it was one of those days when I needed to see Carly, even a prior Carly, getting whacked in the face. But it was better in my memory than it was in reality. It was obvious they weren't close; it was all sound effects and recoil.

They just keep going back to crying scenes with Valentin, and it's what JPS is worst at. It's puzzling. He's a good actor otherwise. As Cassadine male actors go, I'm glad it's been seven years and counting of him rather than, say, Robert Kelker-Kelly (not even for all the #metoo stuff, but because I thought his Stavros was a camp embarrassment). I just wish they'd stop writing to his weaknesses. I don't know if I'm going to be able to watch much more of this story about the SEC charges. It's everything that's bad about the writing for Carly and her circle. Like Carly would have considered it cruel and vindictive if Michael had done it to some business enemy. She'd have thrown in the person's face whatever bad deed they'd committed in the past, then smugly told them if they can't do the time, don't do the crime. She's showing more outrage over this than she did the time Sonny got Jax deported. (And also, on that subject, Sonny can fuck off with his "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us." I don't remember him being very conflicted about the ramifications for Josslyn at that time. He saw an opportunity to stick it to an enemy, and he did it.)

I normally try to keep daytime and primetime in very discrete cells, not to be compared, but the return of Succession in the last few weeks points up how much more interesting Michael could be if he were written with humor and pathos. That show does privilege, ambition, and daddy love/hate relationships right. Michael Corinthos III: Putting the "Suck" in Succession since 1997!

I hear you, but in GH modern times (last ten years or so): AJ, Rafe, Dewk, Silas, Morgan, Nathan, Oscar, Neil, Dev, Dustin, Julian, Franco, Jason, Brando. Some of those were bad or forgettable characters, and the two whom Carly cares about will almost certainly get resurrected eventually. But none of them got the benign write-outs they could have had. I was surprised when they let Griffin leave under his own steam. Just because I had the sense that he was seen as a failed character and hadn't brought whatever they were hoping he'd bring to the ensemble, and there was a good setup for his murder. (He was in a depressed state on the hospital roof, and Ryan, while pretending to be Kevin, was going to shove him off.) I think they're pretty popular. More so than the Cameron/Josslyn pairing was. Hofer just knows he's not as secure as some. The Josslyn relationship and playing double agent with Michael and Sonny are all he has, and the latter is time-limited. He's not, as yet, connected to other characters, and if there are plans to do that (say, by revealing he's the product of a Courtney teen pregnancy before she got to Port Charles), they probably wouldn't let him in on it. So, he's hustling, fanning the flames a bit. I'd probably do the same.

Alexis too. They loathed each other in the days of the Sarah Brown and Tamara Braun Carlys. There isn't a hint of it now, on the rare occasions they're in the same scene. (Gosh, what's the common denominator here? They were a threat to her with Jason, Sonny, or both.)

Most of that period of the past five years was tied up with the slog of the Heinrich/Peter story, culminating in Maxie's endless pregnancy. I know there was a COVID production shutdown that tacked three months on, but even so, it seemed GH tried to make the pregnancy last as long as possible. Since that ended, she's been doled out in small doses, as you say. The pairing with Howarth's Austin didn't go anywhere, and I never saw anyone anywhere clamoring for them to get more scenes. She's mostly been a talk-to in the Sasha/Gladys/Lucy corner of the show, and more recently stressing over the nurses' ball. I do think the dark hair is a better look for the actress at this point (reminding me a bit of Betty Draper's brunette phase in a later season of Mad Men), although I agree with someone upthread that a shade or two lighter might have been better.

Re: Liz. For one of the soap sites, Rebecca Herbst did a look back at her GH years on one of her big anniversaries (20th, I think), commenting on photos of herself with co-stars. Her comment on a picture of Liz performing with Lucky, Taggert, and Dara was that performing at the NB was something she didn't enjoy. She said she did a few NBs when she was starting out (I also remember one with Juan and Emily; he sang "Footloose" while the girls danced), but now she prefers to be a spectator. Maybe being able to opt out is a perk of seniority. Here's that number from the 1998 ball.

While we're waxing nostalgic or anti-nostalgic for Ron, the amusing side of his pettiness was that interview Lulu and Dante had with "Stephanie," a potential surrogate. She was written as full of herself, condescending, and avaricious, saying things like "Don't wait too long. People like me don't come along every day," and talking about potentially moving her family to another state. Burton's final air date had been a few weeks earlier. The scene played like a thinly veiled version of his contract talks, but with a gender switch. I laughed, and I still do, thinking back on it. But I'll admit, it's largely because it's Burton. I don't dislike him as much as some do, but I was not considering him or Jason a great loss in 2012.

I'm neutral on Carlivati. I liked a lot of what he did early in his tenure, but I tuned out for a while when it turned into OLTL plus the vampires of long-cancelled Port Charles, with a side order of pickle relish. I think when I returned, the female duo was in charge of the writing. However, didn't he slam Sean Kanan on social media for being thin-skinned and petty when Kanan complained (justifiably, I thought) about AJ being reduced to having panic attacks and being the butt of fat jokes? So being thin-skinned himself is an especially bad look.

The best thing about Monday's episode was Sam tripping on the red carpet and nearly falling, having to be caught by Dante. That's only because "Sam can't walk" is one of my favorite amusing GH things going back years and years, and she hadn't fallen in a while, so it's nice to see she hasn't been cured. I need a super-cut of all of her falls and stumbles.

"He looks like his father. My husband." But in the episode before this one, the Thursday show, I rewound three times and couldn't understand a line from Violet. It was something she said to Liz, and then Finn said, "That means..." and Liz said, "I know what it means."

I thought the Epiphany tribute episode was good. Becky Herbst and tele-Leslie were the MVPs. I am glad they used a lot of clips from the older episodes. I never disliked the character. Yeah, she was a mob apologist and one of those characters the writers use to let us know what we're supposed to think of the other characters, but that's just it: she wasn't really a character who was at the center of stories and driving them. I liked her because of Sonya Eddy, who was always great onscreen and off. Remember that story about Eddy pummeling Suge Knight when he laid hands on GH Night Shift actress Angel Wainwright at a Vegas event? So I'm happy SE got a nice send-off. And really, being touched by an episode like this doesn't always mean you loved the character. Maybe you just remember how long she was around, and it makes you think of changes in your own life since 2005, other people you've had to say goodbye to in that time.

What is Ace's relationship to Spencer again? Is he his baby brother? I wish they'd clarify that in the dialogue.

We just disagree about Lenz. I thought she was by far the weaker of the two, not outstanding for a younger daytime performer, and that PAS was doing all the heavy lifting. I even remember her having trouble keeping a straight face and staying in character in a group scene in which a bomb was going to go off and they were trying to defuse it. I didn't see her on One Tree Hill, so maybe she improved.

That's true. Weirdly, in most cases I recall in which fans were sure a young soap actor was going to go on to a huge career in movies or prime time, it didn't happen or hasn't yet. The most favorable outcomes I can think of in those cases are DOOL's Jensen Ackles (who went on to Supernatural, which ran forever) and Jonathan Jackson (supporting youth parts in big movies like The Deep End of the Ocean and Insomnia, a prime-time series, but he's arguably still best known for playing Lucky). NAC reminds me a little of Paul Anthony Stewart on Guiding Light 25 years ago. Stewart was older at the time (playing younger), but there was a lot of excitement about him, and he had a similar onscreen intensity. Like NAC, he was playing the troubled heir apparent of a dangerous family. He was paired with a younger costar who was a shakier actor, and they became a popular couple largely on his strength. But the response to him didn't lead to a lot of movie and TV parts, and he stayed with GL until a few years before the lights went off, no pun intended. Since then, most of his work has been on the stage.

Kari was also a minor Gen X sex symbol in the late '80s. She was the "Vanna White" figure on MTV's game show Remote Control and had a following among teen boys. Not that that fan base was likely to follow her to General Hospital 17 years later.

They took "my daughter!" for a spin there too, when Nina first found out.

Since then, we've been getting young guys starting out on a secret mission to take Sonny down before seeing how great he is. That was more or less Dante's story (with a paternity twist), and Dex seems headed in that direction. At least they're still brunettes! I don't think Angel Ellis fits the pattern of Hannah, Reese, and Claire, though. The other three were on the side of the law. Angel was a mob daughter who hated her mobster father, Joseph Sorel, because he had killed her never-seen husband. Angel never had an agenda that was against Sonny's interests. She took care of him after he was stabbed at Lily's grave, and she seemed to want a relationship with him from the minute they were in each other's orbit. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" + the fabled dimples, I guess. It seemed as if Megan McTavish were trying to make her mark by creating a new beloved heroine, and it flopped, and she (Angel, not Megan) was in and out within about four months. The Carly/Sonny/Alexis triangle was such a hot ticket with the fan bases that a third woman vying for him was superfluous.

Before I expanded that to see the clip with it, I thought it was going to be Emily and Zander. They had a fantasy dance sequence to her "I Deserve It" from Music in late 2000 or early 2001.

The writing is always telling us that one of Sonny's kids is like him...and expecting us to forget that we hear that about all of them. When Sonny was "dead," we had that scene of Dante visiting Carly and hearing how much he was like Sonny. We heard a lot about how MoreGun was the most like him when the bipolar story was going on. And didn't Willow recently tell Mykill that even though they aren't biologically related, he and Sonny are so much alike? Today it was Kristina's turn. "Of all my kids, she's the most like me."

I wonder if Laura Wright and Becky Herbst are friendly and want to work together. That's plausible, although it's equally plausible that Carly just has to make an appearance in everyone's story. I actually do think they're good in scenes together, but doesn't it seem we've had pretty much this same one several times over the last few years? At the graveyard (just post Franco), at Liz's house, at some sit-down place where they talked about their history, now at the hospital? Even the dialogue is the same. "I know we haven't always gotten along..." "I know we've said a lot of terrible things to each other..." "I know we're not friends..." Even Carly knows, because she said, "I know I've said this before" in yesterday's remix.

I've seen mentions here of the Sasha actress making words sound weird, but I've never personally been socked in the face with an example until Friday's episode. When Sasha was confronting Gladys about lies, it sounded as though she said, "I'm talking about your lice, Gladys!"

They did get off to a rough start when Michelle Stafford was playing Nina. Nina was at that time involved with Valentin, and she thought Willow was being unfair to Charlotte because Charlotte was "strong." In fact Charlotte really was being a brat and was one of the kids bullying Aiden. But almost from the moment Cynthia Watros took over the role, that was being put in the past. Nina apologized for her past behavior and was supportive of Willow during whatever Willow drama was going on (Shiloh, etc.). They had a pretty good relationship until the grandmother angle came in with Wiley, especially with Nina telling Wiley about Nelle.

Gregory's medical mystery reminds me that Alexis has the worst luck with new friends. Either they're only buddying up to her to further an evil agenda ("Liv" Jerome, Kendra Bauer, Harmony Miller) or they're marked for death.

I think she really is getting the Carly Jr. writing, where what looks to me like an entitled attitude is "knows her own worth"; what looks to me like rudeness is "speaks her mind" and "can't remain silent when she knows something is wrong"; what looks to me like being a shitty fickle friend is "expects those she loves to live up to a high standard," etc. For the purposes of someone like Dex, whatever negative quality you see in Josslyn gets a funhouse-mirror distortion that makes it something good. And she is clearly a writers' pet at this point.