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Unfortunately they've foisted the deathless cyborg upon him, because the people of color must all be bundled together. I'd rather have seen Isaiah with Lucas (though I'm still not convinced they shouldn't recast him again). I would argue Gio has been far less crammed in recent months. He was a veritable dayplayer for awhile, and Mazza's natural charm ended up shining through more as a result IMO. That made him somewhat less of a spare part to me, though he certainly still resembles one and his upcoming story is likely to be a real mess. But I don't dislike the actor. I blame the material and previously lack thereof. I am just marking time til they insist on bringing on one of the Gannon brothers from OLTL for Isaiah, which will wear me out. My take is the same as the one I had last week: Better late than never. This story had been drained of all character nuance in the fall up until that point.

Lord, let me not make the joke I was about to make. I just feel awful as a GH fan and an OLTL one for all the recent losses. And yes, do watch BTG! It debuts February 24th and I'll be there. Don't worry, Ron Carlivati is only a breakdown writer! (I am very, very curious to see how long he lasts working under both creator/HW Michele Val Jean and the allegedly fearsome co-HW Bob Guza, who is said to suffer no fools in his staff.)

Llanview's own Daphnee Duplaix (Rachel Gannon #4) is starring on CBS' Beyond the Gates, featured this morning on Sunday Morning. So happy for her and for daytime.

Oh please God no lol. I do fully expect them to kill or at least shoot Drew soon, and possibly turn him into a full psycho or attempted rapist before he goes if they do off him. This show has no appetite for more organic heavies or schemers outside of goofy, embarrassing villains like Cyrus or Sidwell. I wouldn't mind Drew continuing as a baddie, but the shame of it as I've said so often is he didn't have to become a full villain if he'd stayed on the much more nuanced trajectory Patrick Mulcahey had him on in the spring - he was a fun, roguish cad with Nina and also getting closer to Willow, but the tone and focus of the story was different, more about Nina getting back in touch with herself/gaining Drew's respect professionally and personally, as well as him being a boor in need of some humbling as the Willow thing got going. He was still at core not a bad man, just an arrogant one. Now it's a much simpler tale that's just about Drew the pervy Svengali taking over Willow's life, and I can rock with that to a point but I do think they're just going to ice him. Which could be a good story, but he could do more. Anyway, Cynthia Watros' reactions to Drew are consistently hilarious. Everyone in that circle is playing it to the hilt (except Mo).

I agree, she's pretty good. I couldn't care less about her suddenly being mischievous. The little girl previously in the role had maybe one gear and Emma being a clone of her mother would be very boring to me. Making Robin's daughter of all people a hellraiser is far more interesting. The problem is pairing her with Gio, and I like Gio. But nobody is here for an all-new Emma and rando Gio together just because she happens to be available and notably not Trina. I don't need her to be WSB. I wouldn't hate Joss doing that actually (or even going into the PCPD and scandalizing her mother), but I am fine with Joss in less story. I think Eden has a couple speeds and a couple things she's good at but she can't carry frontburner story. They've tried many times.

Katelyn MacMullen is doing very good work these last few weeks. All these late in the day deconstructions of Willow's character they've done recently in various scenes are very much trying to rebuild things after their rushed and half-assed execution of this storyline, but at the same time the motives and explanations do make sense. I just wish the dialogue was as smart as it was last spring. It does remind me a lot of what happened to Barbara Ryan on ATWT when Doug Marland came aboard - she went from put-upon heroine to bad news virtually overnight. Willow isn't quite there yet but she is being portrayed as the clueless naif in the clutches of the heavy, and when push comes to shove she often veers towards breaking bad. The setup is Right There for them to do this, same as Barbara did - Willow finds out Drew slept with her mother and she gave everything up for nothing, then turns full vindictive bitch on everyone. It can work. And should be done. She should do what Barbara did, too - seduce Chase again because she can, to fuck with the Qs. It would also be an easy way to get boring Chase off the show. Jane and Laura did very good work together today as well. I would force Carly and Tracy into business together somehow for that reason. We could watch them clash 2-3 times a week. As for the custody imbroglio - no, Tracy should sensibly have no rights to Willow's children. Do I care? Not in the slightest, it's something the Qs would do anyway BITD to flex on their enemies and it's good, messy soap for them all to stab each other in the backs and Jane and Steve were great together. Tracy could easily go in on the cult angle with Willow's fucked-up background (and brainwashing in Drew's) to try to paint her as unfit and mock up some sort of defense with the Qs' legion of high-priced lawyers for her swerve with the kids. This stuff can be written. What I don't quite get is why Tracy and co. in the Qs all suddenly hate Drew so much too, but I guess it's the Michael thing. Tracy and Michael did get closer in the 2010s, along with Michael and Ned at times. Should Nina make Gio her boytoy? I'm just asking questions! Watros would be very funny with him, but Ava once again falling for a barely legal twunk and two-timing Ric with him would be equally so. (ofc if I had my way Gio would be casually bi and sleep with both one of the women and an unsuspecting and mildly mortified Lucas.) Cody with Nina would also work. I would absolutely undo this whole Dante/BLQ child thing as a sad mix-up - they don't need an adult kid to age them up. As others have said: How is Alexis going to fight Scout's sole remaining biological parent, a Congressman in good standing, for custody? How, Alexis? Her only recourse would be to go full Cassadine and play dirty, and then it could be done but they don't do that with her (and they should). Anyway this is all just clearly setup for Drew getting got and probably a whodunit in February so that's merely an academic question.

Not at all. It's hard for anyone who grew up with this show. I have many, many issues with Frank Valentini's stewardship of GH, but I'll never forget what he did for many vets over the years to pay respect to them, starting with the wonderful service he did in John Ingle's final days which was reported in great detail by his grateful family. I never forgot either the seemingly spontaneous applause for Rachel Ames when she appeared at the nurses' station during the anniversary in 2013. I don't believe she knew about it; she looked very surprised. And the tributes for Jackie, for Sonya Eddy, for John Reilly, etc. were wonderful and kind. GH has many glaring flaws but they kept Monica very involved in recent years before Leslie's recent injury and illness, with the Qs and at the hospital. They endeavored to keep her involved any way they could, via voice or by brief appearances in the last couple years. I am grateful to FV and to GH for that. I knew this was probably coming but it's still very sad. Leslie was vital to revitalizing this show and making it a generational force, and to modernizing soaps in general with both GH and Love is a Many Splendored Thing and her work there. I held out hope we could see her one last time. I will watch a '90s episode in her honor tonight, probably the breast cancer story she was so good in. Monica was too real for the room sometimes, and that was all Leslie.

I'm getting tired of reporting these. Leslie Charleson is gone.

It will absolutely be Natalia and her kids.

I will maintain that Cameron was a fine choice for reworking Drew. The problem is they failed to fully do it several times. When he first came into the role he was a heroic character and a deliberate offset from Jason, and was still very close to Monica and the Qs as Billy Miller's version had moved towards. It would've taken nothing for Cameron's Drew to go to work for the WSB or wherever as an ex-military man who was also proud of his family ties. Unfortunately the Korte, CVE/O'Connor, etc. vision for Drew extended no further than being a placeholder for Jason in Carly's life, which is where their inexplicable romance was born. (And today Carly acts like Drew is A.J., even though for a couple years and as recently as last January she still treated him like a god made flesh.) Then when Patrick Mulcahey came aboard, he re-conceived Drew as a kind of Ross Marler type from GL, a rakish, schmoozing handsome politico who was cocky and debonair. Cameron Mathison is very good at this type of character IMO, as he came onto daytime playing the early version of Ryan Lavery on AMC this way. he and Cynthia Watros offset each other well in their love/hate relationship onscreen last spring. Even the Willow thing worked early on AFAIC because it was messy, soapy, scandalous and controversial (something GH has trained many of its daily viewers to be allergic to), the actors all had chemistry and (IMO, anyway) it was probable the long story was going to be Drew ending up back with Nina - the woman who challenged him vs. worshipping him - after being humbled when caught between both women in what would've likely been (and could still be) a major political scandal. That long story is not what's happened since, though. The writers changed again, they rushed and muddled the Drew/Willow affair and made him come off much creepier, which is a fine line to walk in a story like this anyway, and it's clear the current team considers Drew to be a disposable antagonist. But the truth is I don't think any actor could've sold the schizoid writing for Drew over the last few years. I think Cameron may be limited but he's done well and done the job this past year, and I will think it's a bit of a waste even now if he goes because he makes a good scheming heel onscreen. But he could've been more last year, and it's too bad GH has such limited vision. There's mostly good people, cartoon villains and not much else in between. As for Sidwell, this nonsense with Lucy is exactly what I said it would be: Another round of Cyrus or Peter August with the names and faces changed. I have no interest in watching her get rooked by another obvious 2-D baddie who will probably get a full family soon to make us sympathize with him because BTS they don't want to let Carlo Rota go. Zzzz.

It's clearly a bizarre quick change, since they had set up Michael being vengeful over Willow and Drew a la Alan vs. Monica, which would've been great. Then in classic modern GH fashion, they dropped it all for him just moping around lovelorn and now boom, burnt to a crisp. I wonder just how bad off Chad is IRL. They need to recast but I don't think Frank ever will out of loyalty to Chad's long years in the role.

Yeah, some sprinklers would not get Emma expelled.

How exactly did Ava lose all her money? I've been watching and I still don't know. This show is so insanely conflict-averse that they couldn't even stick to Michael returning to his vengeful Q roots for longer than 3 minutes. Now his whole persona is being regretful and moping over his wife. He should've gone full Alan/A.J. on Willow and started working on dropping the roof on Drew and Willow; that's the kind of material Chad is actually still good at. But no, as soon as he completed the Aurora bid he's back to Sad Wife Guy. Ridiculous.

I have always wanted Emma to come back as bad news. She'd be the person everyone least suspects. She probably won't be nearly as bad as I'd like her to be, but this is fine by me so far. There are enough bland 'good' people populating this show, so I have no issue with mixing it up. Emma is also the product of two largely perfect public paragons (Patrick came a long way, anyway) and the grandchild of two local heroes. That's enough to chafe at. Exactly. It's not like we were dealing with Amber Tamblyn's Emily or Jonathan's Lucky (or even, frankly, Bechtel's Spencer who while constantly obnoxious was a clear blueprint for certain elements of the adult character). Emma as a child was not a fleshed-out character.

I knew they were doing Martin and Tracy with that scene last week. Ugh. They just slot these cheap recurring players in with anyone (a la Robert and Diane) and call it romance. First Lucy, now Tracy. And don't get me started on more of Arr, Me Jewels! with poor Lucy.