GH History Lessons: Because History is Always Repeating Itself

[Oracle42]

I agree that he can do reveals but he can't structure the story leading up to the reveal and he's incredibly shitty at fallout, pacing, characterization. Narrative structure and the ability to do the day to day writing on a soap is more important to me than a sweeps reveal 

Edited January 24, 2016 by Oracle42

[HeatLifer]

I agree that he can do reveals but he can't structure the story leading up to the reveal and he's incredibly shitty at fallout, pacing, characterization. Narrative structure - the ability to do the day to day writing on a soap is more important to me than a sweeps reveal

Yup, my point exactly. But there should be a way to have good day to day writing and good reveal writing. It shouldn't be either/or.

[ulkis]

Here's the thing...and this may be a UO, I dunno...but Ron knows how write big reveal moments. Robin interrupting Patrina's wedding? Amazeballs. Michael finding out Sonny killed AJ? I ate that shit up like a bucket of buttery popcorn. The dialogue in both those reveals was on point. The emotion was on point. A part of me wonders how he would have written the Jason reveal.

 

I liked Michael finding out Sonny killed AJ, but it was pretty shallow, imo. I remember thinking that the old dialogue writers would have gone way deeper. And no one blinked at Sonny finally going to prison. Bah.

 

Robin's first return was good though . . . mostly. Remember after Nik discovered her and then the next episode they were just casually chatting, like no big deal? It was so weird.

[HeatLifer]

I liked Michael finding out Sonny killed AJ, but it was pretty shallow, imo. I remember thinking that the old dialogue writers would have gone way deeper. And no one blinked at Sonny finally going to prison. Bah.

Robin's first return was good though . . . mostly. Remember after Nik discovered her and then the next episode they were just casually chatting, like no big deal? It was so weird.

Oh, I'm not comparing Ron to ANY of the old writers. I was mostly comparing him to what JP/SA did, which is why I mentioned being interested to see what he would have done with the Jason reveal.

Like I said, Ron was good with the big reveal. Not like, the day after, lol.

[ulkis]

I get that, although I think he dragged out the Jason reveal so long it would still have lost all punch. I do think the Dante/Lulu reveal would have actually had more remorse on Dante's part, but at the same time I think he was gonna have Valerie pregnant, soooo. Six of one half dozen of the other there.

[dubbel zout]

The saving grace of the Valerie/Dante/Lulu mess is that Valerie isn't pregnant. (Yet.)

[ulkis]

The saving grace of the Valerie/Dante/Lulu mess is that Valerie isn't pregnant. (Yet.)

 

Nah. If she were going to be pregnant, Dante and Lulu would be together right now. There's no point in her being pregnant if it's not gonna tear them apart. 

Edited January 23, 2016 by ulkis

[dubbel zout]

True. There's still time, though. If Michael can forgive Sonny in two weeks for actually killing AJ, Dante can forgive Lulu for going after Valerie. We don't know how baby crazy these writers are.

[Ambrosefolly]

What gets me about the Val/Dante/Lulu triangle is that Lulu is surprisingly getting the AJ/Scotty treatment. AJ was married to Courtney, Scotty to Laura. Jason and Luke respectively, stole their wives, but because Jason and Luke were It at the time, the show made AJ/Scotty into gigantic jerks so every other character could tell them how much they suck and didn't deserve their wives. 

[katie9918]

I haven't liked Lulu since she stole Dillon from Georgie and then had an abortion story centered around her treacherous, careless ass, assuming that viewers are so stupid and such followers that Lulu would be supported only because she was considering an abortion.

Lulu wanted Dillon and didn't think beyond it.

Edited January 24, 2016 by katie9918

[Ambrosefolly]

Guza would never have killed off Jason in the first place. Jason was his soap alter ego. That was definitely Ron saying "Fuck you" to him, as well as establishing his GH.

Considering how many people lost their own jobs and/or whose characters were trashed to prop up Jason, at that point I didn't give a shit that Jason and Steve Burton felt insulted. I was happy that the hens came home to roost and Jason  "died" or was captured because of his decision to be a mobster/enforcer. Ron is a petty little bitch for sure, and while SBu is perfectly entitled to find employment elsewhere, I think it showed that SBu couldn't take his character even looking slightly bad. 

Edited January 24, 2016 by Ambrosefolly

[Asp Burger]

It was petty, I know, but I loved the meta digs the writing got in at Burton via that self-important woman interviewing to be Dante and Lulu's surrogate. Did they actually identify her as "Stephanie" on the show, or was that just a board name for her? Either way, it was one memorable day-player scene. I don't know if her dialogue was word for word things Burton had said in negotiations shortly before, but it fit an image of him that was out there. 

 

Also...I was all for AJ/Courtney and hated the direction that took with the strip club, the stalking, the skeleton, the flour, Jason as "protector" and all, but I'm not sure AJ  was a sympathetic character all through that story. Right from the beginning, there was an agenda on his part, and I knew that Sonny and Carly were being positioned to be proved "right" in their warnings to Courtney. So it's not as though I went into that story thinking that finally something good was happening for AJ, and then it got ripped away from him. It was more like the other shoe dropping, predictably. 

Edited January 24, 2016 by Asp Burger

[Ambrosefolly]

Also...I was all for AJ/Courtney and hated the direction that took with the strip club, the stalking, the skeleton, the flour, Jason as "protector" and all, but I'm not sure AJ  was a sympathetic character all through that story. Right from the beginning, there was an agenda on his part, and I knew that Sonny and Carly were being positioned to be proved "right" in their warnings to Courtney. So it's not as though I went into that story thinking that finally something good was happening for AJ, and then it got ripped away from him. It was more like the other shoe dropping, predictably.

The agenda was to get Michael back after Sonny put him on a meat hook because Alexis filed paperwork that shouldn't have been filed. He might not have been entirely ethical in pursuing Courtney, but the reason was done out of love.  Because Alicia Leigh Willis and Billy Warlock were exhibiting good chemistry, after the "reveal" of his true agenda, they would have spent sometime apart and Courtney would eventually forgive him. He gave up being under the thumb of the Qs for her and lived in cheap apartment, so that should count for something. This show centerpiece relationship is between a rapist and his victim, and it isn't like many of the other relationships that captured the audience's attention were much better. If anything, this is what the word "soapy" is used in the best of terms. This is one occasion where a quickie marriage actually made sense. He married her, intending to trade her for Michael, but ended up falling in love with because (initial) she wasn't some backstabbing bitch that treated him as a ATM/consolation prize. In a different era, AJ's and Courtney's story would have been given time and storylines to flourish, even with regime changes, but post 2002 (when Frons took over) we were subjected to people that put their own preferences over what was good storytelling and what the audience wanted.

[KerleyQ]

AJ and Courtney started out for the wrong reasons, on AJ's part, but he absolutely genuinely loved her by the end.  They could have been really good (and I might not have grown to hate the character so much) if Frons hadn't caught sight of a 10 second interaction between Courtney and Jason and decreed that they were to be the network's new "it couple."  Gag.  

[dubbel zout]

AJ always lost out to Jason, though, so I'm sure a SWSNBN/Jason pairing would have happened regardless. I don't think Guza could have resisted pairing Sonny's sister with his best friend.

[KerleyQ]

If I'm remembering the timing right, I think they were actually headed to really doing a Jason/Liz pairing, but then they trashed that when Frons got his hard on for Jason/Courtney.  

[Ambrosefolly]

AJ always lost out to Jason, though, so I'm sure a SWSNBN/Jason pairing would have happened regardless. I don't think Guza could have resisted pairing Sonny's sister with his best friend.

Didn't Guza dislike having to keep Courtney. I think Guza resented deeply that he not only had to keep Courtney around, but had to pair her with "the coolest character ever" , which is why he wrote her as so unlikable. ALW and Courtney might have been better off if the only order was that Courtney had to stay and she kept being paired with AJ and the day to day writers could have handled their relationship, like the beginning of Georgie/Dillon.

 

[Jazzy24]

I loved AJ/Courtney to bad that **** had to go feck his brother and AJ was trashed on again.

HATE

[Asp Burger]

Didn't Guza dislike having to keep Courtney. I think Guza resented deeply that he not only had to keep Courtney around, but had to pair her with "the coolest character ever"

 

I hadn't heard that. Interesting. I do vividly remember Guza and Pratt giving an interview not long after their 2002 takeover, in which they were laughing about the condition of the show they inherited (basically, bagging on Megan McTavish without naming her), and one of the things they found especially laughable was that suddenly "everyone had a sister." They implied that one of the first orders of business was to clear out all the new sisters. So, in short order, Liz's sister got sent out of town (for the second time; Sarah wasn't exactly new), Taggert's sister likewise, Alexis's sister got blown up, they eventually un-Q'd Skye...Courtney alone of that batch hung around for years as a major on-canvas character who didn't have her biological connection retconned away. 

 

But then she got killed off too. Seemingly for real, since (I gather) Spencer was seeing her ghost when I wasn't watching. 

[UYI]

To be fair to Guza and Pratt, it IS pretty ridiculous that a bunch of new long-lost sisters (except for Sarah) got introduced around the same time.

 

But yes, the story is that Guza basically wrote Journey with a gun to his head because Frons loved them so much. And he also apparently REALLY disliked ALW herself--wasn't she let go because she and her mom (who I guess was involved with managing her career) were demanding too much/were acting like divas? And apparently there was initially some talk about writing SWSNBN off/recasting her with someone else (or maybe, at least, leaving the door open for ALW's return), but Guza had her die a real death instead, because of this alleged intense hate of character and actress alike.

 

Not that a lot of us are crying over this loss, of course. ;)

 

BTW, it's been almost 10 years since her death/Spencer's birth--next month, I guess. I may have to post some clips. 

Edited January 25, 2016 by UYI

[Asp Burger]

And he also apparently REALLY disliked ALW herself--wasn't she let go because she and her mom (who I guess was involved with managing her career) were demanding too much/were acting like divas?

 

I remember hearing that the BFF vibe between ALW and Tamara Braun carried over offscreen as well, and that they (together and separately) had increasingly stormy relations with production. I suspect that the "failure to reach an agreement" when Braun's renewal came up, and the show's willingness to recast Carly, took Braun and ALW by surprise.

 

Without taking a side, and without denying that they had been given reason to think so, I believe TB and ALW thought by the mid-aughts that they were of considerable importance to the show and had clout, or should have it. Like some other heavily featured female performers before them, they found out that there was Benard/Burton/Geary and then there was everyone else. 

 

I did like ALW and Courtney initially. It didn't last long. I still don't hate ALW or anything. If she turned up as a different character on other show I watched, I wouldn't carry a grudge over.

[Tiger]

Considering how much TB and ALW were working/on-screen, they definitely deserved to be adequately compensated.

IIRC, ALW's exit was very strange. Best I remember, Courtney found out she was pregnant, vanished and was off screen for weeks, was in one or two episodes being held in a tower by Helena, and theatre being off screen for a couple of months escaped off-screen, got infected with the money virus, gave birth after being pregnant for five.months, and died.

As for Tamara, the exit must have been pretty amicable because they asked her to come a few months later and she declined. My understanding is that she asked for certain story guarantees, specifically doing CarLo for real and a business story with Skye, and got shot down.

Also, I believe the original plan was for Michael to be found and Carly taking him to the island for a few months with Tamara expending a couple months to play that out. There were also rumors of Carly & Faith being in an explosion, being mistaken for each other, and Cyndy Preston taking over the role and Faith being dead.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Tiger

[GHScorpiosRule]

Oh! Look what I found! Ruby! Grant! Buzz! Burt! Frisco! Felicia! Tony! Tanya! Sean! Anna! Robert!Fucking!Scorpio! Looking so uberly hawt, it's unbelievable.

 

I laughed at Sean's shoes--dress shoes? in jail? And a ceramic mug from which to drink coffee?

 

Oh, and the last five or six seconds? Awwww....

 

It's not a clip, but the whole episode!

 

[SlovakPrincess]

The Scorpio scenes in this just completely make me verklempt, GHScorpiosRule.   

 

My favorite part is where Anna clearly doesn't want to say goodbye to Robert, but tries to play it off all casual, like "not even a handshake to say goodbye?" ... and then he kisses her on the forehead very sweetly and reluctantly leaves, instead.   Awwwwwwwwww!!  

 

 

The later Robin-just-shows-up-in-Robert's-house episodes are hysterical, because baby Robin is just completely unconcerned about the fact that she's been picked up from summer camp by a stranger -- and deposited in the house of another complete stranger.   Maybe she intuited that Robert could be trusted.   But he's all freaked out and trying to figure out who she is and where she came from ... and she's all "Nope, don't know my own address or phone number!  No idea who left me here.  Thanks for lunch, though!"   

Edited January 28, 2016 by SlovakPrincess

[Ambrosefolly]

Considering how much TB and ALW were working/on-screen, they definitely deserved to be adequately compensated.

IIRC, ALW's exit was very strange. Best I remember, Courtney found out she was pregnant, vanished and was off screen for weeks, was in one or two episodes being held in a tower by Helena, and theatre being off screen for a couple of months escaped off-screen, got infected with the money virus, gave birth after being pregnant for five.months, and died.

As for Tamara, the exit must have been pretty amicable because they asked her to come a few months later and she declined. My understanding is that she asked for certain story guarantees, specifically doing CarLo for real and a business story with Skye, and got shot down.

Also, I believe the original plan was for Michael to be found and Carly taking him to the island for a few months with Tamara expending a couple months to play that out. There were also rumors of Carly & Faith being in an explosion, being mistaken for each other, and Cyndy Preston taking over the role and Faith being dead.

I don't blame Tamara for booking GH. They botched the casting of Steven Lars Webber, who was supposed to be her new love interest,  and the story involving Carly's dad became all about Sonny. Bobbie was hardly seen and it took months for even Luke to share scenes with him.

[SlovakPrincess]

Before Kevin was a psychiatrist ... he was an obnoxious rental car agent ...

 

[TeeVee329]

Watching the Lucas scenes from yesterday's episode, I was a bit torn.  I'm fine with Lucas and Julian having a relationship, and I think Ryan Carnes and William deVry have nice familial chemistry in scenes together.  But I think their relationship developed too easily, too quickly, and mostly off-screen, especially when you consider these great scenes between them when Julian found out Lucas was gay and Lucas got angry at Julian's slight on Tony and asserted that Tony Jones was his father in all the ways that mattered: 

 

 

 

I also LOOOVE this exchange about Lucas - unlike most PC citizens - not particularly being psyched about a familial association with the mob:

 

Julian: I'm having a little trouble with this, is all.

 

Lucas (with a dry chuckle): Well that's okay, because I have trouble with who you are.

 

Julian: What?

 

Lucas: You're a mobster.

 

Julian (flabbergasted that anyone would have a problem with that): Oh, come on now, that's not even the same thing as being gay. 

 

Lucas: Oh, well I'm glad we can agree on that.  I was born this way, you chose - you chose! - to be a mobster.  You choose to kill people, to racketeer, to steal, and whatever else it is that you do.

[ulkis]

 

Good times.

 

Sonny: Are we gonna go down this road again? I didn't know you were my son!

Dante: Oh, so murder among friends, I guess!

 

This scene is very good too, Sonny gives Dante and Lulu a check as a wedding gift and Dante goes to return it. I'm fine with Sonny and his kids getting along, but you know, there should be nuance, reluctance, hesitation, yearning to get past completely past all the baggage even when they can't.

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by ulkis

[GHScorpiosRule]

Lucky is choosing not to be Jake's father right now. That's all on him. I'm glad the show is calling him Jake Webber. That's what he should have been all along.

 

No he's not. It's the fucking hacks who call themselves writers, going back to the Guza era, that have chosen to make Lucky a deadbeat father, because JJ had the utter audacity to leave after a year of a dreckfilled and craptastic year of having Lucky do nothing but cry, instead of giving Lucky and Liz the reunion he thought he was coming back for...and because the following regimes didn't give a fuck about his character to recast him, and that that douche, Carlivati knew JJ wasn't going to stay last year-that he only returned because Geary was leaving. This is all on the writers and show runners, as far as I'm concerned.  Just as the horrific writing and trashing of Liz as a character isn't Liz's fault, but the people who are writing this show and running this show.

 

Just like Frisco was turned into a deadbeat dad because the show didn't feel like recasting the character; for awhile, Robert was turned into a deadbeat father, because only that midgety moobster can be the bestest father evah! And I know that's not true. Mac is a great father. Lucky was a great father. Hell, even Robin was turned into a deadbeat mother because Kimberly wouldn't return to the show full-time.

 

It would be different if Lucky couldn't have been bothered to be a father to his children when he was on the show. But that's not the case. And Jason was never any kind of father to Jake when he was played by Steve Burton, either.  And the only reason he has been all of a sudden Jake's father, as if he's always been his dad is because of plot point contrivance and because, once again, the show refuses to recast Lucky, or write dialogue that has all boys visiting with Lucky, as Joss is with Jax.

 

Like I will never hate Robin, I will never hate Lucky.

[Asp Burger]

Someone mentioned Claire the other day and I realized I had completely forgotten her. She was a very minor planet in the galaxy of Sonny's SlutBitchWhores, wasn't she? I remember the Sonny/Claire story seeming like a mashup of Hannah and Alexis. The actress was pretty good, all things considered. 

 

Did Claire ever get formally written out? The GH history page I checked says she convinced Diane and Alexis to accept her a partner in their firm, and then she just wasn't seen anymore, without any explanation. 

[aw86]

Someone mentioned Claire the other day and I realized I had completely forgotten her. She was a very minor planet in the galaxy of Sonny's SlutBitchWhores, wasn't she? I remember the Sonny/Claire story seeming like a mashup of Hannah and Alexis. The actress was pretty good, all things considered. 

 

Did Claire ever get formally written out? The GH history page I checked says she convinced Diane and Alexis to accept her a partner in their firm, and then she just wasn't seen anymore, without any explanation. 

I thought she moved to take a job in Alaska

[Lobsel Vith]

I thought she moved to take a job in Alaska

That's what I recall; I guess she's keeping Hannah company.

I heard she was initially going to be paired with Lucky; if that's true, I wonder why they changed their mind and ruined her by pairing her with Clown Shoes Corinthos.

[LeftPhalange]

Which one was Hannah?

[Asp Burger]

Hannah was the undercover FBI agent who was involved with Sonny in 1999-2000. She looked sort of like Brenda and Lily, which is how she got the job (both in the universe of GH and in the universe of ABC). After that relationship crashed and burned when Sonny learned of her BETRAYAL, she hung around for a while and was involved in a halfhearted triangle with Taggert and AJ. They also revealed she was Roy DiLucca's daughter. AJ dressed up like a gorilla and did a dance for her to Prince's "Kiss." Then she was written out, because what could top that?

 

The actress, Lisa Vultaggio, is married to Jonathan Jackson. 

Edited February 3, 2016 by Asp Burger

[LeftPhalange]

Wasn't Claire also a fed sent to bring down Sonny? 

[UYI]

 

The actress, Lisa Vultaggio, is married to Jonathan Jackson. 

 

And when they met, she was 26, and he was...17. Obviously, it doesn't matter now (hell, older woman/younger man couples are great! More power to her!), and they weren't a couple right away, either, but that's always struck me as a bit strange. 

 

BTW, their youngest son, Titus, played baby Aiden for awhile. 

[Asp Burger]

That Hannah Scott storyline was "classic" General Hospital mob-propping bait-and-switch. Remember how they made Hannah's FBI superior, Agent Larkin, the evilest evil that ever eviled, so Sonny would look good in comparison? The story even culminated with Sonny joining forces with Roy and Taggert to rescue her after Larkin kidnapped her, and Sonny got amnesty for his heroism. He was such a good guy that he set aside his Pain after her Betrayal!

 

And when they met, she was 26, and he was...17.

 

I don't think they ever shared a scene on GH, either. In any case, they just barely overlapped. Lisa/Hannah was first appearing as Lucky/JJ was being written out. 

 

Everyone hated Hannah back in the day, but I did like the scene in which she kicked Carly's ass all over the police station. (The Sarah Brown Carly.) Because even at that point, I was getting my fill of Carly and her territorial crap. 

[TeeVee329]

Wasn't Claire also a fed sent to bring down Sonny? 

 

She was a lawyer, right?  She was the one who prosecuted Sonny for Claudia's murder.

[GHScorpiosRule]

She was a lawyer, right?  She was the one who prosecuted Sonny for Claudia's murder.

 

 

Yup. Federal prosecutor that Jax convinced to go after Sonny. And we know what happened shortly after. Down to the dress and the island.

[LeftPhalange]

So there's this Hannah chick, Reese, and Claire. Why are women allowed to investigate/prosecute Sonny? 

[TeeVee329]

Reese didn't come to town to investigate Sonny, I don't think.  Wasn't she hired to track down the kids when Faith kidnapped them?

[OnceSane]

Reese didn't come to town to investigate Sonny, I don't think.  Wasn't she hired to track down the kids when Faith kidnapped them?

Yep. She was the FBI agent assigned to the kidnapping case and just happened to know Carly from high school (though that was revealed later). She banged Sonny, natch, and was the chick Ric cheated with when Alexis was eleventy months pregnant with Molly.

[dubbel zout]

They're all interchangeable brunettes to me. They come in rarin' to bring down Sonny and end up falling for the dimples. Zzzz. And SO DUMB.

[Asp Burger]

Years ago, Maurice Benard talked publicly about a time he tanked a pairing because the actress wasn't giving him enough to work with, and I still think he was talking about Lisa Vultaggio, who was indeed very green.

 

The funny thing was that he said the fans would know which nameless actress he was talking about, and then it started a big debate whether it was LV, Angel Boris, or Kari Wuhrer, so...not so much. But he gave a specific range of time Sonny and this woman were an official couple, and it matched perfectly with the Sonny/Hannah coupling. It didn't fit the others.  

 

I hunted for that item without success. It was middle of last decade. 

Edited February 3, 2016 by Asp Burger

[KerleyQ]

I'll say this - if they really want to try and sell Michael Easton as yet ANOTHER character, he needs to cut his goddamn hair.

 

And he's going to have to actually wake the hell up. 

 

Years ago, Maurice Benard talked publicly about a time he tanked a pairing because the actress wasn't giving him enough to work with, and I still think he was talking about Lisa Vultaggio, who was indeed very green.

 

The funny thing was that he said the fans would know which nameless actress he was talking about, and then it started a big debate whether it was LV, Angel Boris, or Kari Wuhrer, so...not so much. But he gave a specific range of time Sonny and this woman were an official couple, and it matched perfectly with the Sonny/Hannah coupling. It didn't fit the others.  

 

I hunted for that item without success. It was middle of last decade. 

 

It's always been said it was Angel Boris he was talking about. 

[Asp Burger]

Angel Boris as Angel Ellis only aired for a little over four months (June-October 2001), so I doubt he was working with her for the length of time he gave, which as I recall was about twice that, even if Sonny/Angel is considered a real thing. Hannah was more significant and fit the time frame perfectly, so I'm sticking with that answer.

 

I think the original plan was for them to reunite eventually, and he wanted Sonny/Carly, so the breakup (when Sonny found out she was FBI) "took."

Edited February 3, 2016 by Asp Burger

[UYI]

It's entirely possible he tanked both the Hannah and Angel pairings.

[KerleyQ]

This is from a December 2001 interview with MB:

 

Particularly, troublesome to Benard were Sonny's involvement with Angel and his wearing a bomb to force kidnapper Sorel to release Carly and Alexis. "You could say that I didn't give [the Angel storyline] what I was supposed to give," he muses. "It had nothing to do with Angel [boris, ex-Angel], because I like her. I just felt it was so unrealistic. And then when Sonny had to wear a bomb, when I believed that my character would never go near a bomb after his wife and child died in a bombing . . . Those were just two stories that didn't gel for me."

 

[ulkis]

As an Anna fan, the vampire story was painful to me. Painful. They made her look like idiot, with wackadoodle Lucy pulling a gun on her and a 16-year-old girl breaking people out of the jail.  And nothing happened to them. That's when I knew Ron was a poser as a writer. A cheap Reilly imitation.

That entire "story" was about Sam's breasts and ME not bathing.

HATED it. I may have hated that storyline more than jsbt hates Britt.

 

The part where Caleb or whatever his name was zipped across the room had me looking around in embarrassment, even though no one was in the room with me. The only other moment of Ron's GH that had me doing that was the kiddie quad, in an episode where they were like, "but do you LIKE like me Emma?"

[HeatLifer]

Nothing to me was more embarrassing than the way they had Emma behave in the Sabrina/Britt/Felix era, along with the kiddie quad of Spencer/Cam/Joss/Emma. That was some face palm BS.