Dandesun

I think I had watched this show for all of one episode before I was referring to Brady as Big, Dumb Brady. I like him just fine but he's basically an Irish Setter.

When Easton is allowed to exercise some of that dry humor he's not half bad. I think it probably suits him more at this point than the emotionally distant brooder.

So... by accident. It seems to me that early Morgan/Ava wound up being rather like Blair/Eli on OLTL. (*sob!* Eli!) They were so obviously set up to be a skeevy opposition couple to be compared and found wanting next to the Chosen Couple Michael/Kiki on GH, Not!Todd/Tea on OLTL... but they wound up being fun and sexy and interesting and totally outshone the Chosen Couple. One thing you could pretty much count on was that the intended skeevy couple was actually having great sex and orgasms and enjoying their time together while the Chosen Couple was all dreary and Sad Pandas Being Sad because their love was so powerful or something. Seems he hasn't learned that lesson yet.

On GH? Or ever? Had some successes on OLTL -- some on purpose and some by accident but he's really not very good at writing romance. Oftentimes, he's just downright bad at it. He speeds things up when he shouldn't, he lets things languish when he shouldn't, he always, always, always tries for a triangle -- most especially when he shouldn't. I understand people seeing the T&B vibe given that one half is Roger but I also have to laugh because, from what I'm seeing, Nina is basically talking Franco down from crazy places while he froths at the mouth over his beloved Slagbeast... And that was never the basis of T&B. They really did just commiserate together over their lives and became legitimate friends while she was extricating herself from her disastrous love affair with Max and he was, you know, under suspicious for the current rash of serial rapes that were taking place around him. They were both hung up on other people. (Which Franco and Nina both are, I guess, but it wasn't the center of every conversation with T&B the way it is with Franco/Nina.) Hell, she started a completely new relationship while she was becoming friends with Todd. There was a lot more complexity than there is today which is frustrating because all of the ingredients are there today... (I guess except for money and time and the way writers are organized... to save money and time. What a vicious circle.) In one sense, I guess that Franco and Nina have a more 'organic' feel to them because they aren't being shoehorned together the way Todd/Carly and then Franco/Carly were but even that is disingenuous because it's fairly obvious that Ron has a new toy to play with so he's torpedoing Cranco for the sake of Franco/Nina. It's a shame because they just don't have the time to build up pairings the way they used to. They don't let characters have conversations that last more than a minute. Todd and Blair met early in the year and didn't have sex until December... and then married two months later on a desperate play that she made... but even though she conned him into marriage you knew that the friendship, the relationship, was real. The foundation was strong... strong enough to survive a lot of shit that came after... strong enough to last almost 20 years later. There are precious few relationships on soaps anymore that have that foundation which is a real shame. It seems to me that the strongest relationships on GH currently are Dante/Lulu -- which is getting hammered due to Lulu's constant victimization and the never-ending baby cycle; Robin/Patrick -- which is getting shred to bits due to poorly thought out writing and trying to have it both ways; and... I guess... Sonny/Carly who have been off and on for more than a decade? But who are vile and awful despite the fact that they really do kind of belong together in the worst way possible. I know there are other relationships but... Ron's just really bad at developing them or giving them any kind of foundation to work on.

Didn't they have Patrick just going on and on about how fabulous Sabrina was in bed when they finally did it? It was all just overkill on the 'No! Sabrina is actually not a 16 year old virgin! Despite what we portrayed her as immediately upon arrival! She's a grown woman! With lots of sexual experience! So much so that even the womanizer that is Patrick is totes wowed by her! Love her dammit!'

It very definitely had the feel of the original trilogy... that dirty, cobbled together flavor that it had. (I always liked Star Wars' used and abused flavor more than the very sterile Star Trek -- just a personal preference.) I loved seeing the Star Destroyers and the TIE fighters throughout and even though the kid did start to annoy me I also kind of got it, nonetheless. Living under the Empire isn't a great thing for a lot of people and despite the rendering, I always love seeing Wookies. My niece and nephews have recently gotten into Star Wars (they've been playing Lego Star Wars at home) and my youngest nephew, who is four, wants to be Han Solo when he grows up. So, let me tell you... it's not just the Jedi who are cool. I mean, they are cool enough but no one is cooler than Han Solo. Period. Goodness knows I was five when I saw Star Wars for the first time and totally fell in love with Han Solo then, too. (Though I absolutely wanted to BE Princess Leia. She was smarter than everyone, didn't take any shit from anybody and kept her whites white -- something I certainly was incapable of.) That being said, we have a pilot, a bounty hunter, some muscle... a secret Jedi and his secret Padawan. They have definite shades of smuggler in their ranks regarding what they do just as much as freedom fighters. It's funny because the original trilogy banged the drum pretty hard that no one was left. All that remained of the Jedi, according to Grand Moff Tarkin, was Vader. The prequels pointed out very specifically that the Sith only ever consisted of a Master and an Apprentice and they stuck pretty closely to that. Yoda and Obi-Wan went into hiding but a galaxy is a large place and it's conceivable that other Jedi might have gone into exile/hiding as well... despite the fact that throughout the rebellion none of those Jedi ever showed up. Until they started extending the Universe and I get that... Jedi and Sith were so rare (as opposed to the literal armies of them in the Old Republic and army of Jedi in the Republic before the Fall) there's just a huge desire to dig into something that rare and expand it. But it's also important to not forget the majority of other guys out there... who aren't strong with the Force that still risked themselves and fought the good fight. I'm looking at the mood here... it's dark but ultimately I know this leads to A New Hope whereas all of the sparkle of the Republic hid a rot beneath it that led to the fall of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Empire.

That would have been amazing. They have to add in a random old man, too. And, of course, the music.

Todd circa '93 was trying to put all that shit behind him. This whole 'I was a bad dude and now it's time to unleash beast' is more along the lines of when he came back in 2000 and wanted everything back that was his and started writing down lists of people he was going to 'Get.' Yes, that second part was a juvenile as it sounded. But really, the only thing Franco and Todd have in common is that they're played by the same dude who can make the exact same 'revenge' face. What's more, I have the distinct feeling that Franco going 'crazy' again is going to wind up very banal. Unless Howarth's leaving and then he might... MIGHT... go out in a blaze of glory but I rather sincerely doubt Ron can even write that. LW was pretty thirsty for an RH pairing the second he arrived at GH but this seems rather abrupt even for Ron. I mean, wasn't last week Carly insisting how much she loved Franco and giving him Jason's birthday and all that and now she's saying she WANTS to love him because he knows so many secrets so she's basically selling herself to a dude she doesn't want because she was stupid enough to drag him along in her fact finding missions regarding AJ's phone. I'm not complaining... the pairing was shite... it's just weird how quickly Ron turned the worm on this one. At the same time... it does kind of reek with how quickly he sank Eli on OLTL when he needed a scapegoat for stuff.

Bwah ha! I'm so glad I'm not watching this grossness... but the 'Oh God! Sonny don't stop!' shit is HILARIOUS. When Ron is done with a couple, he's done. I don't know what happened to finally make him turn on his blessed destiny pairing of Any Character Roger Howarth Plays and LW's Carly but I'm so glad it did because this is DELIGHTFUL. (What? I can be petty, too.) I did see some gifs of Friday and... has Roger stopped showering? What's with the greasy bed head? Ew. Anyway... this Sam/Patrick stuff... I'm just angry about the whole thing. I think it's a story that would work if it had been handled even remotely properly from the get-go but, typical Ron, it wasn't so it's not hitting the right stride despite the fact that what little I have seen of them shows potential. I always thought that Patrick and Sam should have established a real bond after Robin was believed blown up and Jason got rolled off the docks... two people who were widowed in tragic circumstances with young children... that kind of thing writes itself. But no, we had to have Frank push his KeMo/ME agenda while Ron wrote the shittiest 14 year old girl fanfic tripe ever with Patrick/Sabrina and a side dish of Britt. Of course, NOW that Robin is alive and everyone knows it, Ron continues pissing all over it while making Patrick look like a douche with short term memory issues, Anna looks moronic and what could have been a really delicious mess with Patrick/Robin/Jason/Sam is now 90s rom com hijinks "OMG! We have to stay in the same room?!" (to be fair, this is a long term trope but Ron can't seem to hit any note right) while Sam remains completely in the dark about everything and Patrick thinks he knows stuff but if he actually engaged his brain for two seconds might actually go 'Hmm, none of this shit is adding up quite right... seriously, who Skypes in a CAR?! That's not normal at all!' The Sonny/Carly/Franco stuff makes me infinitely joyous that Todd/Blair were removed from Ron's hands completely. The thing is, Carly IS the type to behave in this way so while I do continually insist that Carly wouldn't have spit on Franco if he were on fire much less start fucking him and declaring she loves him (gag) I can totally buy the spin that she found herself caught in a mess of her own making and, very true to form, is running to Sonny to help her out of it. She did that very thing when she was fighting with Jax for custody of Joss. The only real difference here is that Jax is a good guy. Franco is NOT. So I will enjoy everything he does to make them pay. And then Franco can go right to hell immediately afterwards. Michael can send him there. That would be fitting. I'd also suggest Sam but she's stuck in hotel rooms with Patrick so I'm not expecting anything to come of that.

Or will he be all 'Robin lied to me! She lied to me about Jason... what else has she lied to me about?' without considering that maybe things aren't what they seem?

Is it possible to do something that's not the Olympics? What would happen if the nations just went 'Yeah... not so much with this shit anymore' and did a completely different sort of Games... giving the athletes their chance to shine but giving a gigantic Fuck You to the IOC... who has more than earned it over the years. (FIFA's in the same boat.) My mother, sister and brother in law went to Norway last year and they loved it so much. To me, it seems that if you've become so demanding and annoying as to make Norway go 'This isn't worth it' time to rethink... especially if the only two remaining options are China and Khazakstan. Those are not good options. And don't the Olympics wind up being rather like FIFA where the Olympics benefits from where they are held rather than the city they are held in? The Civil Forfeiture depressed the hell out of me... although the stuff with L&O and Jeff Goldblum berating a pile of money were funny. But not nearly funny enough to take away from what a mess Civil Forfeiture is. Legalized robbery. Awesome.

The Interwebs were very much around during this time. It was those archaic things called newsgroups back in the 90s where people would talk about the shows. I remember well someone used to do recaps and referred to Sonny and Jason as Joe and Frank Harvey (tongue firmly in cheek) and called out GH in general for trying to paint Jason as the perfect Baby Whisperer... Some coment about AJ taking Michael home and the sound crew feverishly punching the baby cry tape recorder because, lo and behold, the child didn't burst into immediate tears upon being held by AJ. That was the period that ran me off of GH and I've never been back for any length of time since then. It was fucking rage inducing.

I am utterly and completely delighted that Sonny and Carly lived down to my expectations of them... hell, they exceeded them by fucking on their son's couch! Magnificent! What's more, the Nutbar Twins know so, hopefully, there will be none of Roger Howarth's trademark Torn Woobie Face as he struggles to trust Carly. Just go whole hog psycho on the Slagbeast, Franco. No reason to hold back. It wasn't like this relationship was written in stardust or anything (no matter how Ron tried.) I mean, I'm still not watching any of it but this just makes me happy. (Probably helps in being so happy when you don't have to see the grossness.)

What it comes down to is that Salem is a town populated entirely by assholes. Assholes of every variety, certainly, but assholes nonetheless. So what it comes down to is... which asshole do I prefer on sometimes shallow levels, or because they look good that day, or because the show isn't trying to insist that they're actually really super awesome rather than acknowledging that they're an asshole. Oh, and they're pretty much all stupid assholes, too. I'm more convinced than ever that Salem is an experiment that Marlena thinks she's in charge of but there's some overseer scientist that is actually making her a part of the experiment, too. Sometimes, it's the only way to get through it.

In the 90s, I had my youngest sister on my lap as we played "Mixed-Up Fairy Tales" "Pepper's Adventures in Time" "Eco-Quest (1 & 2)" and both my younger sisters would play 'The Island of Dr. Brain' with me. I do feel I was an integral reason why my youngest sister grew up to be a gamer herself... she loves MMORPGs and has gotten into FPS games as well. My other sister is something of a scaredy cat (we all are actually but for one who seems as tough as she is, she's really not) and refused to watch any more of 'The Colonel's Bequest' after I went outside and the caption was something along the lines of it being dark and forbidding. She tried again with 'Phantasmagoria' and I didn't blame her one iota for walking out of watching me play. That one scared the crap out of me (again... weenie) but the thing about that one was that you had to behave like a dumb-ass character in a horror movie to even proceed in the game. We're digging around the basement of this old, creepy home that our character has bought with her husband... hey, where is that wind coming from? A hole in this bricked up wall? Let's tear it down and go in. What's this book that has rocks piled on top of it on this crazy altar? My sister was like "DON'T OPEN THAT BOOK!!" I mean, I didn't want to, either... obviously something horrible was in there (spoiler: there was) but I was like "If we don't open the book the game doesn't continue." And she just goes "I don't care!" and walks out. I can't blame her at all. I slugged through that game and still have nightmares about certain things that happen in it. It's the only game I've ever return. I traded it in for Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within -- which has it's own level of horror when one discovers the den in the woods but, overall, the story in far more interesting and not as grossly gory.

Not enough "foot five!!" For my taste.

Ron and Frank thought they had a new Todd/Blair in Todd/Carly... and then Franco/Carly... now they're trying to do it with Franco/Nina. Again... this is rather the same thing that chaps my ass about their treatment of Robin (did she ever have an unsuccessful pairing? Nope! But who gets the shaft repeatedly?) -- apparently they think if they have the "hot guy" then the woman character is interchangeable. "Let's replace Kassie DePaiva with a troublesome blonde in Laura Wright's Carly! That's totally the same! Everyone will get on board! Oh... we can't use Todd anymore, let's change him to Franco and keep him with Carly and we'll still have that great T&B dynamic! No one's going to notice! Soap opera audiences are sheep and they only care about the hot hot men anyway! Oh, Carly was a little too establishment... we need a REAL outcast to play opposite Character Roger Howarth Plays in order to recapture that T&B vibe! But start casting around for another tall, willowy, preferably blonde woman just in case this doesn't pan out." Because the problem CLEARLY isn't with Howarth's Franco, is it?

I'd be torn, I admit. I've been torn about the possibility, all along. KDP's a recast from a much beloved character of 20 years ago which is difficult enough and I think there are some still torn regarding it. That being said, no one but no one can say she isn't giving it her all. The biggest black mark at the moment is that her current story line is absolute shite. Would I like to see RH and KDP sharing scenes again? I have to say I would... but I followed the person I knew would jump in and give 120% as opposed to the one that I believe skates on rep and also acts out when he's bored so I'm already there. Selfishly, a part of me kind of digs the idea of RH heading to Days in a last ditch effort to salvage his soap work by being paired up with the person most people dismissed completely for her part in their extremely popular pairing. But I'm funny that way. RH wouldn't get any better writing there than he is here, in my opinion. soaps all across the board have shoddy writing on a good day and absolute abysmal, cobbled together dreck the rest of the time. I expect it wouldn't take him long to start phoning it in all over again. Besides, if he did go over to Days he wouldn't be seen until midway through 2015. Their schedule is ridiculous.

It will be Franco because Kiki probably doesn't cost as much and I fully expect Howarth needed to be fucking wooed to stay on. Howarth will cost more to keep and so if Ron and Frank fight to hold onto Franco, that's what's going to cost them. KA seems to have little ambition outside of soaps thus far. Hard to blame her, it's an easy gig for her when all is said and done but you know she doesn't command the dollars that Howarth does. So, yeah, it will be Howarth's Franco that FrankenRon will make their stand on... presuming they do. It really is a question of how hard they'll fight. It could very well be that Frank is done crunching numbers to justify Howarth's presence as a blight on the show. Ron is trying to build something for Franco but you can't tell me he was ever interested in Easton. I don't think he was interested in him on OLTL. Easton is Frank's pet project and he seems to have cashed out on that one. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Frank did the same with Howarth no matter that Ron keeps trying to squeeze water from a stone with that one.

The soap DA has always been a thankless role. That's the nature of the beast. If a person is innocent, then the DA will send them to jail unjustly and if the person is guilty, the DA will fail to convict. My mother commented on that back in the 80s when Herb Callison was the DA in Llanview. The only time the DA gets it right is if a person is leaving the show.

It should bring up the reason Michael went to jail the first time. That was another instance of a killing that Michael would have walked away from if the Triumvirate That Ate Port Charles didn't view everything through mob goggles. And, by all means, let Franco remind everyone of what happened to Michael in jail that time... and then ask Sonny and Carly why they'd do anything that would risk him going back by, again, covering up a situation that never needed covering up in the first place. And can Dante get in on that, too? If he and Lulu can be torn away from the state of her uterus that is. It's one of Ron's greatest weaknesses as a writer. He molds characters around plots... especially long standing characters with very solid backgrounds. Carly would never crawl in bed with Jason's tormentor. Ever. Seriously, at this point... Ron would have Carly fucking Faison (the dude who killed Jason... temporarily) if he came up with a plot he wanted. Jason has always been Carly's priority... more than any of her children or Sonny. Jason is the top of the food pyramid and everyone else is several levels below. So... her relationship with Todd was bullshit. Her relationship with Franco is ten times that. It's just not in character. And I fucking loathe Carly, you know? What's more, he's never really managed to come up with a plausible excuse for it all. Carly didn't even fuck Franco until it was revealed that he wasn't Jason's twin. So... what? I mean... what? And the shit with the hitman just shows what a complete and utter mess Sonny, Jason and Carly have made of Michael's life. A full on self-defense situation and he immediately calls them to clean it up. Why? Because no matter what they did, they called Jason to clean up their mess. They're all a bunch of damned morons. I recall the judge reading them all the riot act for their behavior when he sentenced Michael. When will anyone point out that their reactions to... everything... are purely moronic and cause more damage than if they had just accepted what it was in the first place. This lot is a never-ending Greek tragedy.

No, but he did steal Jason's son... which, if Carly were ever written true to form (something Ron just doesn't do), she would never forgive and consider a lifelong blackmark that deserved death at the very least. I still say that Todd and Carly didn't make sense. Todd Manning wouldn't go near Carly blah blah Whogivesashit on a dare. He's never had any use for the mob or their molls much less anyone who has children with them and is, therefore, deeply tied to said mob guys. In too many ways, Todd and Carly were too much alike... in all of the worst ways... to be able to deal with each other. Carly, for her part, may like expensive things... but she is trash through and through. She has no use for 'legitimate' power (and Todd is not a powerful man -- he does go to jail and he doesn't have fancy lawyers (for the most part) to get him out of trouble... he skips town instead.) Carly will always want the power that Sonny and Jason wielded behind her. She wouldn't give two shits about a legit business man. How many times did she cheat on Jax? With Sonny? All that aside, Franco is utterly perplexing as a choice for Carly. That's not how she rolls. It never was. Franco is a psychopath. Just full on psychotic. He has looked into the eyes of Cthulu type crazy and Carly, for all that she's a fucking wrecking ball of a human being has never been remotely attracted to that. She's empty inside rather like Sonny, looking for a means to fill the void with power even more than money. Sonny can generally be reasoned with. Jason was/is brain damaged and that's the only excuse there as to why he put up with the other two. Sonny and Carly want the same kind of thing, the power and money they get by destroying anyone around them that has 'hurt' them or possibly insulted them or, even worse, has something they want and feel they deserve. Franco's just nuts. He had his Art... which was killing people and didn't pretend there was anything 'noble' like an alleged code. He's just a fucking lunatic. And Carly would never be a party to that shit. Her freak flag flies on a far more mundane level. So, you know, by all means... jettison her right back to Sonny, it's the only thing that makes sense for her character. What's more, she gets off on pretending that the life she screeches to Sonny about keeping from their children is the very same life she firmly ensconced them in and would. not. budge. EVER. Why? For that same power and control... she's got no finesse so mob 'power' is exactly the kind she wants and desires. Which is not anything Todd Manning would have ever given her (he wanted to get back to Blair and his kids and live their creepy, spooky, ooky Addams Family life.) And it's not something Jax would have given her, either, because Jax was a good and decent man -- a fallible man -- but not one to set off car bombs and get involved in firefights. Jax was legit and he treated Carly well... something she clearly couldn't handle or reciprocate for any length of time. And it's certainly not anything a complete nutbar like Franco can ever provide. The weird thing is, Carly went and handed so much power to Franco with the information about Sonny shooting AJ that now she's completely stuck. If she were remotely human I might feel bad for her in that she was her own worst enemy setting all of this in motion... stubbornly latching onto Franco as some bizarre Jason substitute and then digging her heels in whenever anyone questioned it. But, as I said, she's such an atrocity of a person that I really don't feel bad for her at all. It's not even enough to make up for the way she's devoured a show I loved and shit out the remains to what it is now. (She and Sonny and Jason are all responsible -- character-wise -- as far as I'm concerned.)

I will forever be bitter that this didn't become real. Forever.

Johann Schmidt/Red Skull probably was smart enough to come up with life support -- human or otherwise -- but that never seemed to be his interest. It was all about taking over and considering that Hydra's motto is 'Cut one head off, two will take its place.' I don't think he was particularly interested in healing people.

I wish they'd done more with Max and Roxy.