Serial Drama

It's A Guza-Ful Life

A couple of weeks ago, I had a dream that Leonardo DiCaprio was my best friend and not only my best friend, but an AWESOME best friend. Details of the dream elude me now (although I feel like Starbucks was somehow involved), but the pain of the realization I had when I woke up and realized that Leonardo DiCaprio is not, in fact, my best friend cut me to the quick.

I felt like that was the world's most tragic dream-related event, but then Tuesday's episode of General Hospital happened and I was reminded once again of the ferocity with which GH fights to earn the title of Worst [Insert Any Category Here, Including "Dream-Related Event", "Non-Sweeps Non-Event", "Wardrobe", "Romantic Hero", "Wig", etc.].

I always wish that GH would use the show's rich history and TECHNICALLY Maxie's dream episode qualifies as wish fulfillment, because it did use the show's history and I never stated that the show had to use the history well, so I guess they beat me this time.

The show may not have convinced me that Maxie living fundamentally altered the future of Port Charles, but it did convince me that the writers' steadfast refusal to make sense also exists in alternate universes, because I was befuddled by so many things in this episode.

REALLY?

I know that the show's budget has been shot to hell, what with the big explosions and fire and all of the insane effects that go with GH ratings stunts, but I don't think that the economic situation could be quite so dire that the only wig they could afford for poor Kirsten Storms is this...thing.

Putting yourself in a position where Tyra Banks could condescendingly mock you for the cheap craziness and crazy cheapness of your wig is unwise.

Kane and Able (To Be Bitchy)

I have a feeling that Charles Pratt realized that he's never going to be the best head writer in All My Children history and, desiring a legacy of some sort, decided to set his sights on being the show's last head writer.

At least once per episode, something happens, whether it's an insane line of dialogue, the implosion of a previously stable relationship or a ludicrous plot twist, and I'm like, "This is seriously the worst thing I've seen on this show in a long time."

Except it's NOT actually a long time; it's more like five minutes (if I'm feeling generous) between each instance of heinousness.

For someone who seems to have insane boundary issues when it comes to her brother-in-law and sister-in-law and a clingy, unhealthy idea of what it means to be a family, Reese sure didn't seem conflicted when it came time to the tough decision of following Bianca back to Paris in hopes of reuniting with her or hanging out in Pine Valley being despised by literally every person who lives there. Her dramatic farewell to Gabrielle had me rolling my eyes so hard that I may have actually sprained them.

Reese: Well, yes. Hello. How are you? Hey, my little angel. Hey, I love you. I love you more than my own life. Yes, I do. And I will always love you. There will always be a piece of you in my heart.

"So I'm just going to love you here, from Pennsylvania, where I have no family, no friends and your aunt plotting my demise every time she lays eyes on me. I love you more than my own life, but I don't love you enough to leave town and follow you! I'm going to miss you so much!"

Where Should I Send My Therapist's Bill?

Have you ever done something really terrible? So terrible that you can't even bear to remember it? To the point where you want to go get hypnosis to make yourself forget that it ever happened, but since that's crazy, you do your best to excise it from your memory and never, ever mention it?

Sonny and Emily's romance was that kind of horrible mistake. If I were the poor soul responsible for creating it, I'd never think about it again, much less mention it onscreen, because of my overwhelming embarrassment about how bad it was, and also out of concern for the audience.

Unfortunately, Bob Guza is completely lacking in shame and dredged up the memory that we all tried our best to repress:

Sonny: You're not going to find one person who didn't love Emily. She was kind, wonderful, generous.

Rebecca: Yeah, Nikolas said she was an angel.

Sonny: He didn't deserve her, but she loved him anyway, because that's the type of person she was. She just saw the best in everyone.

I love when Sonny gets judgmental. The ironing is delicious!!!

Rebecca: Did she have any faults at all?

Sonny: Yeah. She made mistakes, you know, like we all do, but not as many, and not as bad.

I am trying to think of a mistake worse than dating Sonny and I am coming up empty. Maybe mass murdering a bunch of children and kittens, but even then, it's pretty much even, especially if those kids played with guns, in which case they had it coming anyway.

Sonny: One of the things -- she loved too much, and she gave too much, and terrible things happened to her.

Indeed, terrible things did happen to Em. Breast cancer, being raped by her husband's doppelganger, dating Sonny, being strangled...

Rebecca: Sonny Corinthos?

Lucky: Stay far away from him.

Rebecca: Oh, why? He's the only person I've met so far who seems to know who Emily really was.

It was at that point in the show that I seriously started to consider that I hallucinated the entire episode. After all, if it wasn't a hallucination, how else could Anthony fly from Florida to New York in the same amount of time that it took for Sam and Jason to take the elevator to the pool?!

Our Column in the 3/3 Issue of Soap Opera Digest

Our latest My Take/My Take, Too column is featured in the March 3 issue of Soap Opera Digest, on newsstands now. This month, Becca takes on the utterly unfocused Days Of Our Lives and wonders about the characters of Melanie, Chloe and Nicole. Her questions include lots of anguished "Why?!"  Mallory has problems with All My Children and General Hospital relying on stunt-casting and, adding insult to injury, not doing stunt-casting well, and suggests that they watch The Young and the Restless to see how it's done.

Oh, Silver Fox. Never Change!

I am cold, and I am tired, and I am cranky, and I have "Touch My Body" stuck in my head on endless repeat, which is bad enough, except that I don't know any of the words, and it's just a garbled mess (are there actual words to that song, or is it just Mariah Carey trilling gibberish?) in my head nonstop, so obviously, I am not in a good place right now and I don't have the heart to take on the piece of EPIC BABY AND BUTTERFLY INFUSED FAIL that was the ending of today's All My Children right now, although I will take it on eventually because crap of that magnitude needs to be publicly humiliated.

It is at times like these that I wish Adam Chandler were a real person so he could be a guest blogger and eviscerate it in that way he eviscerates things:

Adam: Amanda has no heart, half a brain, and schizophrenia in her DNA. And that's the woman you want to entrust with Babe's sweet, gentle, loving little boy?

It was way harsh, made even more so because it followed fond recollections of Babe and implying that Babe is somehow greater and more trustworthy than someone else is pretty much the worst insult in the world, but the man has a way with words, you have to give him that.

I Need Some Synonyms For "Annoying"

The latest GH non-sweeps non-event has taught us one thing, and one thing only: apparently the major side effect of being exposed to toxic balls, suffering smoke inhalation or some combination of the two is that you become ENDLESSLY ANNOYING. Unless you're Carly, in which case the toxicity and/or smoke engages with your natural hatefulness and the resulting chemical interaction renders you human and kind of adorable. Everyone else, though: ENDLESSLY ANNOYING.

Truly, today's episode of GH once again made me wonder what goes through the writers' minds (assuming that there are actually people writing and not just interns photocopying old scripts and changing names); I can only assume that the writers had some mandate to be heinously irritating, because of this amount of annoying is unintentional, well...I have no words.

Robin and Patrick: ANNOYING

Yeah, I went there. And it pains me to do so, truly it does, but this PPD "story" (we can't in good faith refer to it as a story, can we? It's pretty much two lines of dialogue repeated ad nauseum) is not doing either character any favors.

I know Robin isn't well and isn't thinking clearly, but...I think that it's a perfectly reasonable reaction for Patrick to want to stay in for the night after a hospital blew up/their daughter was ill/their daughter was tucked in a tree. And when she was all irritated about Patrick turning down the date night offer and said that so many Emma-related factors play into what she and Patrick got to do? I LOLed. Robin, talk to any new parent ever and see how much time they had to themselves. Spoiler: the answer is none.

But Patrick is not covering himself with glory, either. After the aforementioned hotel blowing up./daughter being ill/daughter being tucked in a tree scenario, he wants quality time with his wife and daughter so badly that he either went to work at Mercy the next day or went to Mercy to arrange working there (the writing wasn't clear on that point). Um, could you not take a few days off? You are an Everyday Hero, after all, with your mugshot featured on the front page of the paper

I think time off would be okay!

And here is a shocking thought...if you are worried about Robin perhaps having PPD, maybe you should talk to a medical professional about it? I can understand why you don't want to talk to Lainey and Kelly, because they are both incompetent lunatics, but maybe try talking to a doctor at Mercy instead of discussing it with Liz, Matt, Carly, Jason and Sam? It's coming across part dutifully concerned husband, part shameless gossip and part "the writers of this show literally have no idea what they're doing, so I am just going to stall while they Google PPD to see how this story should progress".

This Is One Instance Where I'm Not Upset To Have Been Wrong

If you had told me a few months ago that I would be loving The Young and the Restlesswithout reason, and that I'd be loving stories involving Lily and Cane, and Tammin Sursok in particular, I would have, not in a rude way but more in a "Aww, you're crazy" kind of way, laughed in your face. Because the very idea is laughable! The Saccharine Duo and the girl who launched a thousand "Tammin Sure Sucks" Google searches? HA!

But here we are in February of 2009, and they, along with nearly every other story on Y&R, are appointment viewing.

Sharon hooking up with Billy was bizarre, came out of nowhere and was an extraordinarily bad idea, but...I do not blame her for doing it.

I am just saying.

Watching her go on a downward spiral has been equal parts entertaining and irksome. Something about watching Sharon impulsively steal stupid knickknacks is delightful, in an Afterschool Special kind of way. You can almost hear the voice of a patronizing narrator. But ugh! Self destructing because your ex-husband--and not even your most recent, most awesome ex-husband!--didn't acknowledge your anniversary? Lame. I wish that this had started solely because Noah almost died, and had nothing to do with the Nick/Phyllis/Sharon triangle.

Watching Jack be super awesome and supportive and full of good advice and seeing Sharon and Billy squirm has been excellent, though.

Billy: I'm on my way to the shower. And I actually have a change of clothes right here in my office.

Jack: Wow. Stale booze and... expensive perfume and yesterday's clothes. Do I get to know her name?

Billy: Not a chance.

Jack: Do you even know her name?

Jack totally knew it was Sharon, right? I find him to be more perceptive than the average soap character, so I am assuming that he knows Sharon's expensive perfume, especially since fragrance and cosmetics is his thing...

Sharon: Jack?

Jack: Yeah?

Sharon: I'm really messed up.

Jack: Yeah, we're all messed up. I'm here to help, Sharon. No strings.

Aww! I want a Jack Abbott of my very own to be dreamily supportive of me when I make horrendous life decisions.

I Think This Google Search Says It All...

Part of the fun of having a blog is being able to see what search terms send people your way, especially when the person doing a the search is obviously a kindred spirit! Witness this Google search that someone used today:

hate HATE ryan all my children

YES, Anonymous Googler, I am with you! You are among friends!

I had been so focused on my burning, irrational loathing of Reese and all that she does that my hate HATE for Ryan Lavery had dwindled to irritation rather that outright hostility. And while Reese continues to be just...the worst, today's episode reminded me of just how terrible Ryan is, because today was a whole lot of Ryan being wronged, a whole lot of Ryan being angry, a whole lot of Ryan being smug and a whole lot of Ryan being loud.

He's all angsty about Greenlee being dead, to which I say, first of all, her body wasn't found and even if it had been, everyone in Pine Valley should know that means it's just a matter of time before she strolls back to town regardless because Pine Valley death is shorter than some vacations and also, we all know that he would have gotten sick of her after three weeks, so her "death" is making him move on to the next love of his life a little sooner than he had anticipated. Maybe that's what this is about, he's inconvenienced that he has to seek a new soulmate out already...

But even if I give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he's grieving and heartbroken...the man is a moron.

Ryan:Great, great, big hero. Greenlee is still dead, ok? Zach is responsible, and I want to press charges.

Can you imagine going to the police and saying, "Hello, I'd like to press charges against this man for the murder of my fiancee. Granted, we have no body and the incident that drove her off of a cliff was clearly accidental, but he made out with a lesbian, which made my fiancee super angry. You see where I'm going with this, right? So what kind of charge can you make stick, first degree, second degree...? Is the death penalty on the table?"

Ryan: Yeah? Well, I wanted my marriage to work, too. But Zach killed Greenlee before I had a chance. And what are his consequences? How -- how does that affect his life? It doesn't. Not yet.

Before you had a chance to kill her?!?! 

Ryan: She ran off the road because the car was on the wrong side. The car was on the wrong side because they were arguing about Zach and Reese. Greenlee wouldn't have been on the road if it wasn't for Zach and Reese. Zach and Reese are behind all of this, Erica. So, please, don't tell me it was an accident. Zach's arrogance killed Greenlee.

The logic there is too effed up for me to even comprehend, but I am trying to decide which is better: the idea of Killer Arrogance, or the notion that Ryan is angrily denouncing someone for being arrogant. The hate HATE, it burns!

Our Latest Soap Opera Digest Column

Sorry to have delayed a couple of weeks in posting this column.  We were just so swept up in the amazing sweeps storylines on our soaps that we lost track of time and . . . Okay, no.  We were just kind of twirly and totally spaced. 

In this latest column, Mallory wonders how in the name of Agnes Nixon All My Children has screwed up a lesbian romance and pregnancy, and why the GH writers seem determined to drive a stake through the heart of every memory of old school General Hospital with Nadine and Nikolas's story about effing plow patents along with the yawn-worthy on-again-please-be-off-again-soon Jax and Carly "romance."  Meanwhile Becca, who was apparently still drunk from New Year's when we wrote these columns in early January, got all weirdly positive about a couple of characters on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital.

The Day's Dumbest Dialogue: Ironically, It Hurts My Heart

We have had few Day's Dumbest Dialogue entries lately.  That seems bizarre, since other than Young and the Restless (which I don't even get to watch), our shows are, on the whole, dumb, and are unfortunately on daily.  But somehow either the individual passages of dialogue aren't the problem, or it's all so bad that nothing sticks out as especially awful.  So leave it to General Hospital to get me riled up enough for the first Day's Dumbest Dialogue of 2009.  Milo and Max's lecture to Diane about heart health raised my blood pressure and, on account of its stupidity, stressed me out about the state of this show.  Probably not what they were going for?

Milo:  Now, most people think of it as a guy thing, but what they fail to realize is that heart disease is the number one killer of women.
Diane:  Milo, I know this!  In fact, it was I last February who reached out to Alexis Davis to educate her –
Milo:  So you know it’s just as important for women to control risk factors.  Stress?  Forget about it.  It’s the worst.
Max:  Yeah, yeah – Diane’s got a lot of stress.
Diane:  Oh, do I?

Milo:  You have to counteract it with exercise and healthy eating.
Max:  Diane’s got an important job.  She can’t spend all day in the kitchen.
Milo:  Well there’s plenty of good stuff that doesn’t take any time at all:  Campbell’s Healthy Request Soups, Swanson Chunk Chicken, Prego Heart Smart.
Diane:  I took a basket of those very items to Alexis.
Milo:  All due respect, Ms. Miller, we’re talking about you.  Your heart, your health.  It’s never too soon to start monitoring both.
Max:  Milo does have good points.  I mean --
Diane:  Which sound suspiciously rehearsed.
Milo:  Oh would you look at that, I’ve got a jar of Prego right here with me.
Diane:  You have GOT to be kidding.

I wish I were kidding that this scene actually occurred on national television.  I wish the writers knew what "heavy-handed" meant and that it is a bad thing.  I wish that they had left well enough alone, since Maxie attending the Campbell's heart-health benefit actually does make sense and is not eyeroll-inducing.  I also wish we could get through a sweeps crisis without Jason ending up as the hero, that there was a single couple on this show that intrigued me, that I had Megan Ward's hair, and that the return to trendiness of light-wash denim was an ongoing hallucination or practical joke.  But now I've drifted away from the topic at hand, which is:  Today on a soap opera I watched a five-minute scene about processed tomato products.  Please study that sentence closely and tell me how anything in it is acceptable on any TV-viewing level, at all.  Thank you in advance for your help.