Linny

Let me start with the good today: an hour without Jason/Carly/Sonny/Nina really flew by. Not even Peter could spoil the mood (of course, it helps that Victor was there to treat him as the pathetic hanger-on he is; don't stop doing that, Victor). Drew and Valentin had a really nice conversation (always love Drew in dad-mode) AND we got Robert on the case with Anna in search of Drew. Finally. And then Sam had to open her mouth and spew a bunch of nonsense that's frankly super insulting to Drew and I won't stand for it. She doesn't know who he is? The man who tried to shield her and the kids from the business, who made their family his top priority, that man wasn't real?? Absurd. So what if Sam doesn't know the nitty-gritty details of his past and so what if he once believed he was Jason. Sam sure as hell knows the strength of this man's character, regardless of what name he was using at the time. Pretending otherwise is a slap in the face of the Drew/Sam relationship and a pretty transparent method of carving emotional distance between the two of them, and I don't like that at all.

We spent 9 months in Nixon Falls and Sonny made it home in the span of about 15 minutes today. This is the pace we should always be working with, show. I expect Carly and Jason aren't home and today's scenes were misdirection, but man, I want Sonny to catch them with their pants down. Their bliss has been completely unbelievable and deserves to end in messy, humiliating shambles. And it's not just Carly and Jason who are going to be red-faced here; the entire town has preached the gospel of how perfect this union is, and it's going to take some serious acrobatics to reconcile those feelings with Sonny's return. He's been usurped in every aspect of his life and I don't see any easy way to restore the old status quo. I highly doubt that GH is willing to go there, but honestly, this should be a moment of self-reflection for Sonny. Living the better part of a year as Mike should alter his perception of the world and how he fits into it. He was genuinely happy with a simple, normal life, so does he even really want to get right back to business as usual? That the conflict that needs to drive the next arc of this story. It's not enough that everyone else has moved on, how has Sonny himself changed and how will he choose to move forward?

Michael's little talk with Jason today might be the most egregious case of Jarly propping we've seen thus far. "I always wanted you and mom together," get the fuck outta here. Michael grew up worshipping Sonny, there's no way he'd root for Jason to be with Carly over Sonny. He could have just said he was happy for Jason without hammering us yet again with how they're meant to be. Poor Maxie's dress made her look like the mother of the bride. Why do they cloak her in such ugly, matronly attire? I think she and Austin kind of have a nice rapport, though holy hell, anything's nicer than Olivia's instant, unbridled hostility. Tone it down, lady. He's talking to you in a professional capacity and he wants to help. Mike and Nina exchanging "I love yous" instead of hustling for the exit while a freakin' FIRE rages around them was so eyeroll-worthy. Save it until you're safe and have the breath to spare! But whatever, you know they had to have that moment because after that smack to the head, Mike's surely going to die in that fire and Sonny will rise from the ashes. And after the long hard slog that was the Nixon Falls storyline, I'm more than ready.

...They really crafted the perfect off-ramp for the Jason/Carly relationship and chose to blow right past it and keep us on this highway to hell. Are you kidding me?? I mean, I knew this was happening, ever since the dance when Jason leaned in for a kiss. But are we supposed to ignore that he's spent 99% of this engagement looking as if he's passing a kidney stone? Or that he's given tremendous brainpower to Britt and how she's doing and what they might have been together? Jason catching feelings is beyond abrupt and contrary to what we've seen unfold. And you know this is only happening because we're at the precipice of Mike learning his true identity as Sonny, which makes the whole thing even shittier. Who needs authentic storytelling when you can have manufactured drama, right? And it speaks volumes that Carly had to ask if Jason was telling her the truth about his feelings or if he was telling her what she wanted to hear. The fact that she'll never be able to distinguish between those two viewpoints with Jason is exactly why they shouldn't be a couple.

Wait a second, Jason and Carly nearly kissed today and JASON was the one to initiate it?? His Stockholm syndrome finally has full grasp of his faculties, clearly. Hasn't expressed attraction to Carly in decades but two seconds of dancing and he's ready to go! It feels like most everything that's happened with this "relationship" has been filtered through Carly, so Jason suddenly getting demonstrative is just weird. Ugh, this whole situation is agonizing and September 17 can't get here fast enough. Nikolas and Ava's goodbye conversation was absolutely heartbreaking. Maura knocks it out of the park every damn time, I swear. These two better find their way back to each other, show. It's a pipe dream but man, what I wouldn't give to see Liesl live her best life by attending her conference, fucking Scotty, and murdering Peter with plenty of time to spare to hit the beach of St. Lucia. He has got to GO (for real this time, no more playing possum allowed).

It's straight-up killing me to watch everyone take turns wagging their finger in Nikolas' face and yelling at what an awful father he is while Spencer cries crocodile tears and plays the victim. And the thing is, nobody's reaction here is particularly wrong. Laura's correct that Nikolas resorted to cheap theatrics rather than confronting his kid, and Spencer should be pissed at what his dad did to him. But as the audience, it's infuriating that Spencer is using his dad's stupidity to gain sympathy and absolve himself of crimes we know he's guilty of committing. We saw him breaking into the art gallery, and we can assume from the lies he told about the cockroach that he's responsible for it, too. He's certainly not an innocent here yet Nikolas handed him all the ammunition he needs to shift the blame off his shoulders. (Side note: wasn't there some exclusive designer shoe print found in connection to Ava's break-in that would be concrete proof of Spencer's involvement? Has that not been mentioned again?) I fucking loved Drew and I loved Drew with Sam and I'm on board for Cameron Mathison in this role. Letting the memory of his daughter be the driving force for his survival was the exact right way to reintroduce the character. Drew was so warm, respectable and just good and he definitely deserves another shot at life on this show.

"We should probably teach Donna to call me Jason." Holy crap, I am DEAD from this line, y'all. What a sick burn. Jason will do a lot for Carly but embracing fatherhood ain't it. He's not going to be Sonny and pride himself on his children and consider himself father of the year. Spending five minutes feeding Donna cheerios is about as good as it's going to get for Jason (and certainly more interaction than we've seen him have with his actual kids in quite some time). I thought Laura Wright and Steve Burton did good work here; Carly so clearly wants to cut-and-paste Jason into Sonny's role (he even made her precious coffee correctly!) and Jason is pretty much full-body rejecting that concept. He's given his word to Carly to go through with this sham marriage, but man, you know he'd run for the exit if he could.

Y'all, Roger Howarth really got paid today to handle Michael's empty condom wrapper, I caaaan't. I'm so glad Chase knows what's up and it is nice that Austin was there to help him through it, but that whole scene in the bedroom was skeevy. The camera angle putting the viewer watching Austin and Chase examine the sex-rumpled sheets from the window felt very voyeuristic and invasive. Two people just fucked in that room and I'm surprised GH went into the nitty-gritty details of the aftermath. I'm guessing that based on Chase's furious look at the end, we're heading towards him hatching some sort of revenge on Willow and Michael. Which I think would be out of character for him, but I'm expecting it to happen so that he becomes the bad guy here. Can't have the anointed "perfect" couple feel any more guilt for their actions than they already have, and pivoting to Chase as a schemer is a tidy way of cleaning things up. The show will throw him under the bus in a heartbeat to keep Michael happy, let's be real.

For fuck's sake, I am SO TIRED of watching Willow and Michael writhe against each other. Does nobody else on this show have sex?? And to abandon Wiley's birthday party to do it is trash, I'm sorry. Brook Lynn and Valentin shouldn't have to pick up Michael and Willow's parenting slack here. "What are you doing, Nina?" Good damn question, lady, let me know when you figure it out. Her over-exaggerated look of terror at the mere suggestion of a video call was hilarious. The only way I can tolerate any of the Nixon Falls mess is just to accept it as farcical and stop stressing over how unbearably stupid it all is. It clearly bothers Carly something fierce that Jason has regrets over hurting Britt, which delights me to no end. May that flicker of independent thought survive as long as it can despite all of Carly's attempts to smother it into the ground.

...Does anything even happen on this show anymore? I think we're officially in the summer doldrums because all these stories are making me drowsy as fuck. Spencer half-heartedly matchmaking and Portia wringing her hands over Curtis today was not the least bit interesting. Stella tearing Shawn a new one was lively, I'll give her that, but yelling at people is kind of her gig so it didn't make that huge a impact. And congrats to Chase for standing on his own but I'd care more if he knew the truth about Willow and was using his feet to get the hell away from her. The thing is, GH has like seven major secrets on the stove currently and none of them are close to boiling or even slightly simmering. Stuff's unbearably stagnant and it's definitely past time to get some forward momentum going somewhere, 'cause this ain't cutting it.

Excuse me, Jason, but where do you get off asking what Carly did to Britt? Put that aghast look aside, you know EXACTLY what she did. Britt should seriously never speak to either of them again, I swear. And Jason's remarkably coming off worse here than Carly, IMO. It's no surprise that Carly's shellacked herself to Jason's side and invented fanfiction that he's been pining for her this whole time. Jason's "I don't have a choice" routine combined with "I'll be there for you Britt...except not" act deserves a kick in the pants or at the very least a whopping dose of STFU. As for Jason and Monica, I think she did the right thing by smiling and going with the flow. Her words wouldn't change anything anyway, so why get tangled up in that ish? It's times like these when I really, really miss Drew, the son who wanted Monica in his life for real and gave her so much more than these perfunctory gestures of affection we see from Jason.

Cheers to Sam declaring her independence from Jason! I'm so used to hating on Sam but this was a good episode for her. She's earned the right to express pure, unadulterated bitterness that Carly always, ALWAYS usurps everything else in Jason's orbit. Loved that Liz was there encouraging Sam to let it all out, too. It's like the Carly/Jason engagement is finally the moment where the blinders come off and Sam can recognize that all the shit this dude put her through was just. not. worth it. It's incredible how Jason looks so pained giving Carly that gaudy-ass ring and parading around the Metro Court with her and she doesn't seem to pick up on it at all. She's too busy having the time of her life celebrating their union and plotting her total domination of every aspect of his life (leave the bridge alone, lady). She's next-level insufferable right now but I admit I'm into this story and want to see how far they'll push it. Jason holding back his vomit through this charade and getting a face full of what might have been with Britt is schadenfreude at its finest and I'm here for it.

Ugh, fucking Spencer is still the fucking worst even with a new actor. Aging the actor/character up actually makes his motivation here even harder for me to swallow. He's a young adult, good looking and well-spoken, with his eye on girls like Trina, so why's he wasting his time messing with Nikolas and Ava? I don't buy the "protecting Father from Ava" angle; Spencer's been gone for too long to be that invested in his dad's marriage. And he's old enough now that he doesn't HAVE to have a relationship with Nikolas or Ava at all if he doesn't want to. With the scare tactics ramping up in intensity (burglary and vandalism are not insignificant crimes!), Spencer's really coming across terribly in his return. Ava, much as I love her, is bugging me with her reaction to the whole situation, too. I fully understand her need to protect Avery but immediately and irrevocably upending her entire life isn't the way to do it. I get that she's too traumatized from the past events with Ryan/Kiki to respond rationally now, but man, it sucks to watch her push Nikolas away.

I found it really galling today that Carly expressed concerns over the "optics" of this marriage arrangement with Jason, as if she's ever had a whit of care about the obvious parasitic relationship between the two of them. She's never been shy about her claim to Jason so I don't know why the show won't just let her be real and admit that this situation is giving her the keys to the kingdom. Mob power AND Jason's wife, that is undeniably Carly's personal pinnacle of success. She doesn't need time to "think things over" or "worry about what this will do to them as people." These fake moments of humility never land because that's just not who Carly is and we all know it. I'm also pretty pissed that after such a nice foundation was laid for Jason and Britt, he's going to ruin things by choosing the mob over everything else. It's no surprise that he's on board with this plan (much like Carly, Jason is who he is, without doubt) but dammit, Britt better not sit on the sidelines and wait for him. Girlfriend has been so confident about living her life while she can and I don't want to see her waste a minute of it by mourning Jason Morgan.

Dammit, Liz, why did you have to go out of your way to apologize to Carly? Making amends with Jason was absolutely necessary but she doesn't owe Carly anything. Good for her for being the better person I guess but man I'm tired of Carly receiving treatment better than she'd ever give. They're really just gonna chain Chase to that hospital bed in order to drag out this Chase/Willow/Michael hell for the next eternity, huh? BLQ should really just expose the whole charade herself and be done with it. She's the only one who seems to respect Chase enough to be honest with him and the only one with the guts to put the other two chuckleheads out of their misery. Britt and Jason charmingly flirting only to be interrupted by Carly sure feels like a bad omen for their future relationship. Come on, show, prove me wrong. Let Jason stand up for his right to a personal life independent of Carly. It's going to be so pathetic if he indulges her shit at the expense of the good thing he's got going with Britt.