GH History Lessons: Because History is Always Repeating Itself

[ulkis]

Two random questions: Why, in Sam's dancing twin story, did the lady tell Sam the twin was dead?

And was Carly's best friend in high school that she took the name Carly from always named "Charlotte", or was that just a retcon they made up for Reese?

Edited September 28, 2017 by ulkis

[dubbel zout]

I can't answer the first question, but the second wasn't a retcon. That all came out during Carly Roberts story with Kari Wuhrer.

[TeeVee329]

And didn't our Carly screw Kari Wuher Carly's dad or something?

[dubbel zout]

Per Carly's Wiki page: 

Quote

In her teen years, Caroline becomes best friends with Charlotte "Carly" Roberts (Kari Wührer). Carly's father Dan Roberts seduces the young Caroline destroying Carly's family and the girls friendship.

Edited September 28, 2017 by dubbel zout

[nilyank]

2 hours ago, TeeVee329 said:

And didn't our Carly screw Kari Wuher Carly's dad or something?

Carly was 16 and Reese's father was the adult who knew knew her as his daughter best friend and childhood companion. 

[Asp Burger]

Remember this opening, new in 2004? That final shot dated so badly. For years we were looking at a lot of guys who had died or left town.   

[dubbel zout]

That opening was dated practically from the first time it was shown. And super annoyingly, there was supposed to be one with all the women, but of course that never happened. I don't know if it was shot and discarded or never shot in the first place, but it shows how little respect the show has for more than half of its cast.

[TeeVee329]

And stupid Tony Geary being all "rebellious" and "cool" getting up to walk off before it's over.  So dumb.

[Asp Burger]

It might have been better if there had been a female one and it was Jane Elliot getting up and walking out, like, "This is too lame for me." But walking out in the other direction. Symmetry!  

But conceptually, it was always a bad idea. It's enough of a pain in the ass to re-edit openings constantly with a daytime soap. Putting a bunch of people in the same shot was just stupid.  

[HeatLifer]

23 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

That opening was dated practically from the first time it was shown. And super annoyingly, there was supposed to be one with all the women, but of course that never happened. I don't know if it was shot and discarded or never shot in the first place, but it shows how little respect the show has for more than half of its cast.

It was so, so embarrassing. 

I also love how the order of cast was always:

1. Mo 

2. Whoever was playing Carly 

3. Steve 

4. Whoever was playing Jason's love interest.

[Asp Burger]

There was a period, I guess after Jennifer Bransford was let go but before Laura Wright started airing, when Kari Wuhrer (Reese) had the female "pimp spot" after Mo.  We had a Carly-free month there, between her stabbing Emily with sickle/being committed to Roselawn and The Great Train Crash with which the LW version began.  

[Asp Burger]

I was completely drawing a blank on Temp Nik (not the more recent one, the one from 12 years ago, with the broken arm), so I found a clip.  As usual when I watch anything from the mid-aughts, I don't see how anyone could miss that period of GH. It was as bad then as it has been recently, in my opinion.  

Anyway, watch if you want to see a ham-handed scene attempting to get you to feel sorry for SWSNBN because Liz, Busted-Wing Nik, and Dumb-Cop Lucky keep talking about Four Mouseketeers history, and she wasn't part of that, and it's all "Emily, Emily, Emily." Then Busted-Wing Nik and SWSNBN leave, and Liz is all, "I'm such a bitch! SWSNBN did all this work for your sad little hospital-discharge party, and all I did was talk about Emily! I should run after them and beg her forgiveness." But she doesn't, fortunately. Liz and Dumb-Cop Lucky talk about how eventually they will be able to see Nik and SWSNBN as a couple. No hurry, guys. She's got less than 90 days left on her borrowed time. Then Tracy and the JMB Lulu show up for wacky hijinks involving a stolen PDA.  

[ulkis]

1 hour ago, Asp Burger said:

I was completely drawing a blank on Temp Nik (not the more recent one, the one from 12 years ago, with the broken arm), so I found a clip.  As usual when I watch anything from the mid-aughts, I don't see how anyone could miss that period of GH. It was as bad then as it has been recently, in my opinion.

2006 was a decent year, imo. Scrubs, the Markham Islands stuff, when Laura woke up, I liked all that stuff. Obviously there was still a lot of dumb stuff but late 2005 I think was a huge upswing from the years previously. And gotta disagree with you about it being as bad then as it is now. 2000-05, yes, but after that, no. I think the debut of Scrubs finally let the show have some decent focus away from the mob. Before that there was Georgie/Dillon and Nem, but G/D didn't have quite as much focus and while Nem were non mob, they were a cheesefest.

[Asp Burger]

I'm sure being a Scrubs fan helped make that period more enjoyable. I have not liked much of anything Robin has had since she came back from Paris to save Jason. She was a great young heroine in the 1990s (Stone, Jason, the rivalry with OG Carly), but something's been off about her as an adult. The kind of characterization that makes a cute young woman a root-for character can pall into dreariness when it's a chronically fatigued-acting woman in her thirties. And a lot of what KMc was given that time around seemed to me the definition of "thankless," like that endless story with Lisa Niles. MMV.

I do agree that later-aughts GH was an upswing, though. Relatively speaking. The Zacchara family livened things up a little, as did Dante, the Megan Ward version of Kate, the SORASing of Michael, and some other things. Then it became more of a mixed big, and occasionally I watch a clip and see something good. But in the period above (that 2005 clip with SWSNBN et al.) , I got nothin'.  

[HeatLifer]

9 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

chronically fatigued-acting woman in her thirties

Kimberly? Played a chronically supporting character who made the most of her scenes, especially when acting opposite Jason Thompson. Those two enjoyed working together and it showed.

[ulkis]

12 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

And a lot of what KMc was given that time around seemed to me the definition of "thankless," like that endless story with Lisa Niles. MMV.

Well yeah, but that Lisa stuff was years after the original Scrubs story.

[Neptune]

 

where are they in this clip? was carly already in town?

[Oracle42]

I liked the actors together, but some of the stories...

Of course, RC's writing for them made everything that came before look approximately 1 million times better in comparison

Edited October 9, 2017 by Oracle42

[UYI]

5 hours ago, Neptune said:

 

where are they in this clip? was carly already in town?

That's from 1995, when Robin first showed signs of being HIV positive (so Stone was still alive, then). This is still Jason Q.; by the time Carly came to town in April of 1996, he was already Jason Morgan.

[UYI]

Robin's HIV diagnosis. Stone died very shortly after this (and not very many people knew how much time he really had left), and she even struggled at first with whether or not she should even tell him.

[SlovakPrincess]

19 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

I'm sure being a Scrubs fan helped make that period more enjoyable. I have not liked much of anything Robin has had since she came back from Paris to save Jason. She was a great young heroine in the 1990s (Stone, Jason, the rivalry with OG Carly), but something's been off about her as an adult. The kind of characterization that makes a cute young woman a root-for character can pall into dreariness when it's a chronically fatigued-acting woman in her thirties. And a lot of what KMc was given that time around seemed to me the definition of "thankless," like that endless story with Lisa Niles. MMV.

I would agree with this, in that I think most of what they wrote for Robin were situations where she would be exasperated or misunderstood or painted as the scold, and ended up frowning or looking irritated.  I think they wanted her to be the more staid, eye-rolling counter weight to Patrick's arrogant flirt ... but this didn't really work with her earlier characterization.  They also wanted to make a point of Robin being judgmental, forgetting that the only people Robin had really judged harshly in the past were Carly (who was an asshole to her) and Stone's sister Gina (also kind of a selfish asshole).   

Scrubs was both one of the few new relationships that has worked in a long while on this show ... and still somehow didn't work for me a lot of the time, since Robin was sometimes out-of-character bitter or defensive, and Patrick could sometimes go from charming to insensitive for no reason.  

Of course, the entire town has grown more and more miserable and unlikeable over time, and she's certainly not the only character who has seemed "off."  

[HeatLifer]

I actually loved how Robin was portrayed as an adult. She was fun, fiesty, had attitude. I didn't get "bitter and angry." That part of her personality, though, made complete sense to me after all she had lost in her life. She was never going to be the same again after what happened with Stone and Jason, in particular. I thought her 2004 visit was more out of character than anything she did beyond 2005/2006. 

I always disagree with you on all this, @SlovakPrincess. LOL. Have I ever asked you if you shipped Robin with anyone ever?

[Oracle42]

It's weird, I like Robin for the most part, but mostly what I like about her is her relationships with everyone else - except Jason, I was still about Stone when they got together and Rageboy!Jason annoyed the crap out of me

[Cheyanne11]

I always liked Robin and I loved--LOVED--the early days of Robin/Jason.  That was the only time Jason Morgan showed heart.

Then it all went to Hell once The Red Menace was born and Jason moved them all into that damned cottage.

[HeatLifer]

1 hour ago, Cheyanne11 said:

I always liked Robin and I loved--LOVED--the early days of Robin/Jason.  That was the only time Jason Morgan showed heart.

Then it all went to Hell once The Red Menace was born and Jason moved them all into that damned cottage.

Jason and Robin were my freaking jam! I'll always love them in my own way and pretend they ended up together in some version of an AU. 

[SlovakPrincess]

11 hours ago, HeatLifer said:

I actually loved how Robin was portrayed as an adult. She was fun, fiesty, had attitude. I didn't get "bitter and angry." That part of her personality, though, made complete sense to me after all she had lost in her life. She was never going to be the same again after what happened with Stone and Jason, in particular. I thought her 2004 visit was more out of character than anything she did beyond 2005/2006. 

I always disagree with you on all this, @SlovakPrincess. LOL. Have I ever asked you if you shipped Robin with anyone ever?

Don’t get me wrong, she’ll always be a favorite of mine (though I loved her parents more as characters — and do not get me started on how they got destroyed by the writing over the years!!).  I’m mostly reacting to how they had her hate Robert when he returned, and threw her into the Jax/ Carly baby stealing so she could get shit on again, and how she and Patrick had that annoying period of him “not being ready for a relationship” while acting like she wanted too much, and then the whole nobody-believed-Robin-while-she’s-being-nearly-killed-by-Lisa stuff.  (And don’t get me started on the sadistic bullshit RC wrote for her.)  I’m not saying she didn’t have reason to be more jaded, I’m just saying they set it up so Robin had less support from friends and people telling her she was wrong ... and that did affect the character.

I didn’t like the Stone relationship because it was too sad (though he was a nice kid who adored her as she deserved) and didn’t like her with Jason because she was too good for him — although going back to see clips of them before Carly hit town, I do truly get the appeal of them together before he became Jason the Baby Whisperer who wouldn’t say no to Carly because of Michael.  I just didn’t want her near the mob or part of Sonny’s club.  

I wanted to like Patrick and sometimes did, and enjoyed when they laughed and had fun together.  But he cheated and was friendly with Carly even when he knew she hated Robin, and was often an ass.  

[dubbel zout]

16 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

was friendly with Carly even when he knew she hated Robin

Ugh, and he wouldn't tell Carly to STFU when she badmouthed Robin. That was the worst.

[HeatLifer]

8 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Ugh, and he wouldn't tell Carly to STFU when she badmouthed Robin. That was the worst.

That's actually not entirely true.

@SlovakPrincess Got it. I see where you're coming from. I don't necessarily agree, mostly because I think a lot of what you described is typical of soap operas and there's only so much you can do to portray a relatively "sane and healthy" pairing. I've yet to see one, tbh. There's always going to be something X or Y character did that makes them look a certain type of way and "unfit" to be with my favorite. 

[dubbel zout]

Patrick wasn't as firm with Carly as he should have been.

[HeatLifer]

Eh, I think most of Patrick and Carly's friendship centered around him being the medical professional who would stitch her family members back up. It didn't bother me for the most part. And when she did whine about Robin he just looked at her like she was a toddler. 

[UYI]

4 hours ago, HeatLifer said:

Jason and Robin were my freaking jam! I'll always love them in my own way and pretend they ended up together in some version of an AU. 

That's how I feel about her and Stone. :P

[WendyCR72]

8 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Patrick wasn't as firm with Carly as he should have been.

Maybe, but then maybe he figured why bother? Carly hears what she only wants to hear, so nothing would change. And, to be fair, Jason was friendly with Carly, too, knowing she hates Robin. So...meh! I still adored Patrick/Robin and was glad - and shocked as all hell - that they ended up happy together and no one died. For real.

On this show, that's an accomplishment.

[Neptune]

when did carly start to hate aj? she still liked him after she drugged him 

what was the relationships like between keesha, jason Q, and aj? did  aj and keesha become a couple after jason's accident?

[nilyank]

6 minutes ago, Neptune said:

when did carly start to hate aj? she still liked him after she drugged him 

 

Actively hating him? When he realized that she drugged him and he was going to blow her spot with Tony about who she really was and that AJ could be the father of her unborn child and not Tony. I think it just grew as AJ refused to go away and Carly just kept lying and scheming against AJ. Then the years fighting over Michael just cemented their hate against each other.

[Oracle42]

There was also the mistarriage at the Qs house when she and AJ were arguing over Michael

[dubbel zout]

On 10/10/2017 at 9:45 PM, WendyCR72 said:

Maybe, but then maybe he figured why bother? Carly hears what she only wants to hear, so nothing would change. And, to be fair, Jason was friendly with Carly, too, knowing she hates Robin.

Patrick should have bothered because Carly was slagging the woman he claimed to love. You don't allow people to do that. Jason would tell Carly to stop when she started in on Robin. But it's all in the past at this point.

11 hours ago, Oracle42 said:

There was also the mistarriage at the Qs house when she and AJ were arguing over Michael

Which was not AJ's fault in the least, though Carly will never let it go.

[Oracle42]

I don't blame AJ for it, but I know that Carly did, and I actually totally understand being unable to accept that her behavior contributed to that awful accident

[HeatLifer]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

Jason would tell Carly to stop when she started in on Robin.

That reminds me of my favorite Jason/Carly scene ever. 

https://youtu.be/Wf4G4tcdfO4

[UYI]

Since no one answered the other question above:

Yes, A.J. and Keesha became a couple not too long after Jason's accident. 

[ulkis]

 

Sonny throwing money at Courtney's mom.

[dubbel zout]

Ugh, that was one of the grossest things Sonny ever did. He made her crawl on the floor to pick up the money.

[nilyank]

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Ugh, that was one of the grossest things Sonny ever did. He made her crawl on the floor to pick up the money.

As vile as that was, Janine didn’t have to pick up that money. She had just demanded Sonny to take care of her financially now that Courtney was dead and if he refused she was going to take his gambling addicted father on a gambling binge. Yeah, she lost her daughter but she was was there only to get money out of Sonny.  It was just Guza showing his misogynist ways.

[Asp Burger]

Someone in one of the other threads mentioned the tendency on GH for writers to pretend that a character's current relationship is the one and only, the best ever, like nothing else before. One of the most memorable instances to me was when Nem got together. They brutally buried Nikolas's long relationship with Gia. I never cared at all about McTavish's would-be young supercouple of Nia, personally, but they did have many fans who did not deserve that. It was so gratuitous, because Nia was long over by that point. Still, Pruza (or their dialogue writers) went to the trouble of having Nikolas telling Emily about a time he and Gia stopped at the display window of a bridal shop, and Gia was going on and on about a wedding dress she would like to have, and all Nikolas could think about was how Emily would look in that dress. 

So, in the space of one monologue: (1) Gia was never anything serious to Nikolas, despite onscreen evidence to the contrary. (2) Gia was a prattling ninny whose voice Nikolas tuned out. This undermined both Gia and Nikolas. What does that say for him that he stayed with her so long? (3) Nikolas always carried a torch for Emily, even when she wasn't on the show. Nice one, Pruza. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Asp Burger

[tessaray]

Okay, I saw a few minutes of Wednesday's episode in a coffee shop, so decided to watch Wed-Fri to see how they are handling the 2 Jasons.  (So meta, having RoHo in the middle of it.)

It's been years since I've watched GH for more than 10 minutes, so I have a couple of recent history questions.  Who is Cassandra - should I care?  Where are Laura and Kevin these days - I thought they were a couple?  Wasn't Anna being held hostage somewhere at some point?  Was Alex in that storyline? Is Georgie still in Portland with Spinelli and the redhead whose name I can't recall at the moment? 

Also, it was kind of nice to hear a mention of Susan from Scotty. 

[Cheyanne11]

1 hour ago, tessaray said:

Okay, I saw a few minutes of Wednesday's episode in a coffee shop, so decided to watch Wed-Fri to see how they are handling the 2 Jasons.  (So meta, having RoHo in the middle of it.)

It's been years since I've watched GH for more than 10 minutes, so I have a couple of recent history questions.  Who is Cassandra - should I care?  Where are Laura and Kevin these days - I thought they were a couple?  Wasn't Anna being held hostage somewhere at some point?  Was Alex in that storyline? Is Georgie still in Portland with Spinelli and the redhead whose name I can't recall at the moment? 

Also, it was kind of nice to hear a mention of Susan from Scotty. 

Cassandra is tied to Valentin in that she's some sort of "international criminal."  Really, it's dumb and that's all you need to know.

Laura and Kevin are together and just got engaged last week.

Alex had Anna held hostage while she went back to PC and impersonated Anna, all because of Valentin and the stupid old chimera storyline.  She ended up arrested, but escaped.

Yes, Georgie still lives in Portland with Spinelli and Ellie.

[tessaray]

26 minutes ago, Cheyanne11 said:

Cassandra is tied to Valentin in that she's some sort of "international criminal."  Really, it's dumb and that's all you need to know.

Laura and Kevin are together and just got engaged last week.

Alex had Anna held hostage while she went back to PC and impersonated Anna, all because of Valentin and the stupid old chimera storyline.  She ended up arrested, but escaped.

Yes, Georgie still lives in Portland with Spinelli and Ellie.

Thanks!  I thought Cassandra was giving off obsessed patient vibes when she was sitting with Dr. Michael Easton., not criminal mastermind but oh well... And sheesh, how could I forget Ellie's name?  

[GHScorpiosRule]

This will NEVER get old for me!

 

[SlovakPrincess]

18 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

This will NEVER get old for me!

 

Heh heh.

It's so long ago now, I forget what gross thing Carly said that made Robin finally slap the snot out of her.  I remember vaguely that Carly sneered loudly about Robin having HIV, because Carly is a nasty cruel witch.  But that might not have been right before the slapping.  

[HeatLifer]

17 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Heh heh.

It's so long ago now, I forget what gross thing Carly said that made Robin finally slap the snot out of her.  I remember vaguely that Carly sneered loudly about Robin having HIV, because Carly is a nasty cruel witch.  But that might not have been right before the slapping.  

She said Robin had nothing to offer Jason, certainly not sex. 

Yeah.

[GHScorpiosRule]

27 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Heh heh.

It's so long ago now, I forget what gross thing Carly said that made Robin finally slap the snot out of her.  I remember vaguely that Carly sneered loudly about Robin having HIV, because Carly is a nasty cruel witch.  But that might not have been right before the slapping.  

 

7 minutes ago, HeatLifer said:

She said Robin had nothing to offer Jason, certainly not sex. 

Yeah.

It was her sneering that Robin could never give Jason a child that did it.

Why no, I’ve never gone back to play that clip repeatedly. I don’t know what y’all are talking about!??