Serial Drama

Deception and Delusion

You know what's weird--actually, "weird" is too benign a word for it. You know what's downright disturbing about General Hospital? I mean, aside from the fact that, off the top of your head, you just came up with 83 different ways to answer that question. What's downright disturbing is that one of the more better written, better acted couples in Port Charles is comprised of the incredibly irritating Adrienne Barbeau (the character whose name I can't be bothered to remember; I am sure Adrienne Barbeau, as a person, is delightful. I mean, she was on Maude! Spending that much time with Bea Arthur can only lead a person to a good place) and a criminal mastermind.

 
 
I'm not saying that they're the next big supercouple or anything (but can you imagine seeing them hugging and happy on the cover of Soap Opera Digest?! What could their couple name be? I'm partial to Balki 'n' Barbi), but Daniel Benzali and Adrienne Barbeau don't seem repulsed by each other, and The Balkan and Adrienne Barbeau seem to genuinely enjoy the other's company, and that is much, MUCH more than we can say for a lot of the romances on this show.

Theo: You are a formidable woman. I was wise to marry you.
Adrienne Barbeau: Don't you forget it.
Theo: I've missed you during this tedious separation.
Adrienne Barbeau: I've missed you, too, but we have to remember we're laying the necessary groundwork.
Theo: Yes, we are. And we'll soon have all the time in the world together, after Brenda Barrett finally pays for killing our son.

Adrienne Barbeau: They would be floored to discover we're married.
Theo: And Alexander?
Adrienne Barbeau: I've never mentioned our son to Brenda. She brings him up occasionally, how violent he was. She has never shown any remorse about his death. It takes a lot of effort to hide my true feelings.
Theo: Well, soon you won't have to. So are you helping with the wedding preparations today?
Adrienne Barbeau: Mmm. I offered to help. And you?
Theo: Paying a visit to that den of incompetence.
Adrienne Barbeau: Theo, there is nothing wrong with you!
Theo: As you know, I have as delicate constitution, which happily gives me an excuse to meet with the matron of honor and get some more details about the wedding.
Adrienne Barbeau: And I take it Robin falls for your lonely curmudgeon routine?

They're kind of sweet, if you ignore the fact that they are blood-thirsty criminals embroiled in a years-long quest for revenge.

Truth Be Told

Okay. I do hate that Tess is back out (although in her first appearance years ago I liked her more than Jess, but not in her later appearances when they turned her all sociopath instead of just fearless hedonist), but I have to give her credit for having all the lines of the day. Granted, we should be seeing a story right now in which Jess becomes truly integrated and is able to tap into the part of her that has this kind of incisive boldness and anger. It should have been Jess herself saying all the lines of the day. Regardless, it all got said and I loved every second of it. When Ford started smarmily blathering on about how he and Jess "created" this baby "together" and scolding her for not behaving by his standards of how a mother should behave, she really let him have it. He wasn't in the mood for her "drama," apparently, and told her he needed to get to Langston. And then:

Tess: Oooooh! Your little teen queen, that's what you're into, right? Seducing young girls? You were only interested in Jessica when she thought that she was seventeen. (seething) It's easier to get them into bed, right? Talk about chamber of horrors, no wonder she came screaming for me.

And then he accused her of lying that it was really her and she got even better:

Tess: I wish I was. I was locked up for a year and a half to wake up with this waxed gorilla on top of me -- it was the worst thirty seconds of my life!

Sometimes I love Tess. She later referred to him as a pedophile. What's not to like about Tess so far? Chamber of horrors! Waxed gorilla pedophile!

Also, wow. So not only did Ford have sex with a messy amnesiac who thought she was losing her virginity despite being thirty years old, the experience was so traumatizing for her that she had to call out her sociopath alter to actually do the deed? Oh, One Life to Live. Please assure me somehow that this is meant to further drive home the craptasticness of what Ford did to her, right?

And Ford can shut the hell up about his rights to "his son." Is anyone on the show going to address the fact that he's going back on his word by wanting any contact at all with this baby? I understand that people change their minds about such things, but I just want someone to mention it considering he's behaving as if it's shocking that no one's just handing this kid over to him.

Ryder and Brody Know What's Up

Full disclosure: I'm too exhausted right now to pull everything together into a cohesive thought process, so if you feel like joining me in my weary brain, today we'll go all kinds of stream-of-consciousness up in here!

Nate and Dani look like a man and a little girl. Ew. The dialogue made it even worse with Dani breathily telling him she's "all grown up." I want to go scoop her up and rescue her from the pedophile. Lenny Platt is "only" 26 years old (though he could play older... and he's almost nine whole years younger than his on-screen mother), and that's not exactly unheard of for playing a teen on television, but the thing is... Kelley Missal is actually 17. I need them to shut this down. I want to track her down and put a high-necked sweater on her and send her to her room!

Ryder had this to say about sharing DNA with Ford:

"D'oh!" (He is very articulate for such a young age!)

 

Time To Go, Bobby Ford

So much to say, and no time to say it. I thought One Life to Live was a fabulous, angsty, soapy-as-all-hell classic sweeps episode yesterday, and while some characters behaved in infuriating ways (I assume Charlie isn't long for this show?), most of it was kind of awesome anyway because they just went ahead and went balls-to-the-wall (yeah, I said it, balls-to-the-wall!). John was a complete dick in his near-glee at forcing Natalie to confess all to Jessica and Brody (and yes, of course she had to tell them, and of course John is thinking of himself above all after the news he's just gotten, but it was pretty disgusting watching him practically salivate in anticipation of Jessica's life being completely leveled in front of him after knowing the blow she's already just received -- I realize that wasn't what he was thinking about, but yikes), and it was sort of lovely to see Brody just take punch after punch while just quietly imploding. Jessica even seemed poised to be able to offer up some understanding to Natalie about sleeping with Brody. They actually did play that nice beat there where for a moment you could see Natalie thinking, "What have I done, she actually could've forgiven me if I'd told her upfront," which of course makes the final, enormous betrayal that much worse. (For the record, I was still not completely feelin' Melissa Archer's performance during the confession, but she had a really terrific moment later when Natalie was basically hyperventilating alone with the knowledge that her own sister now hates her. That one I felt. Ouch.) And John... well, it's funny. What Natalie pulled on him is horrific, and our hearts would be going out to a better character right now. But I can't muster up anything for him (though I came close last week, it was done yesterday) because he doesn't look at all hurt by this. He looks nothing other than completely disgusted, and truly happy to wash his hands of the entire lot of them. No violins for Johnny Mac. Jessica, on the other hand, got the worst news ever and actually managed to pull out some serious anger and... was that even a little bit of a snarl toward the end there? I'd find this refreshing, you know? Good! The princess needs some edge, she's earned her anger. This could lead to something....

Oh. Nevermind. Tess. For fuck's sake.

Keeping It In The Family

I caught exactly three minutes of General Hospital today and it was, of course, just my luck that the three minutes I caught were the most disturbing.

Johnny: Did you learn nothing from Sonny's murder trial?
Lisa: What does Sonny have to do with this? [This is a sign that Lisa is a relative newcomer in town. Sonny has everything to do with everything, Niles! --Ed.]
Johnny: Claudia. She was smart and fearless and focused until she fell in love, fell for Sonny. Fell in love with him. She wanted nothing more than for sonny to love her, to look into Sonny's eyes and see anything but contempt.
Lisa: Ow.
Johnny: Sorry. There was nothing that she wouldn't do to try to get Sonny to love her. But he didn't. Just like Patrick doesn't love you. She was fixated on something unattainable, and it destroyed her. So do yourself a favor. Step back off the brink, all right? You're a beautiful woman and a brilliant surgeon. You don't need Patrick.
Lisa: I need you. Is that it?
Johnny: It wasn't a come-on. It was a warning to try to get you to stop doing the same thing Claudia did.
Lisa: Stay out of my way, 'cause you can't keep me from Patrick. No one can.

So Johnny is attracted to Lisa, who...reminds him of his sister? Come again?

I mean, I see his point in that Lisa and Claudia are both less "characters" than they are "wholly unlikable vessels for a series of ever more ridiculous plot points". Also, they are both staggeringly inept when it comes to their evil plotting. Also also, bitches be crazy. So, okay, I guess he's onto something. And the Zacchara family never really seemed to consider incest a taboo, so I guess this is all very much in character, but still!

Hopefully Bob Guza goes all out in this homage to, um, himself and Lisa winds up on the wrong side of an axe-wielding teenager.

Rylee Part 987: The Sickening

While it goes without saying that the Ryan/Greenlee pairing and the breathless lead-up to another one of their weddings doomed to fail is offensive and lame and, I'm sure, responsible for a large spike in the number of viewers self-medicating in the mid-afternoon, the last few minutes of Thursday's All My Children were exceedingly soapy.

You have Madison retrieving her lost cell phone from Emma who, it needs to be said, is too cute for words and just begging to be squeezed

 
--Adorableness, right?

 
She and Spike deserve better, paternally speaking--

and suddenly doubling over in pain which, surprisingly, doesn't escape the notice of Ryan; I would have thought that his obliviousness would have ruled that out, but it seems like his hero complex is even more powerful.

 
Then you have Ryan trying to get Mads to tell him what's wrong, before Greenlee enters with two words: "She's pregnant".

And Ryan is like "Say what?"

 
And I, for one, was delighted (and not just because it will delay the ceremony legally uniting the smug and the douchey. Although now that I think about it, I am conflicted: would I rather these two just put us out of our misery and get married now, or deal with the fallout of Greenlee keeping Madison's secret, which will make Ryan angry--and we are all so impressed by Cameron Mathison's arsenal of angry faces--and force us to sit through weeks or, god forbid, months of the two of them working their way back to each other? Is death an option?). Something entertaining happening at Ryan and Greenlee's wedding--this is truly the plot twist we never saw coming.

Now that I've gotten that shockingly out of character positivity out of my system, let's move on to the grossness.

Greenlee: Ok. I've got to admit I'm getting kind of excited now. Have you written your vows yet?
Ryan: No. I am a man of action. You know? Uh-huh. Acciones.
Greenlee: Mm-hmm. You better get on it because I'm expecting nothing less than Shakespearean poetry.
Ryan: Wow. That's a lot of pressure. Yes, ma'am.
Greenlee: You know you can't spend the night.
Ryan: I know. I know. I wouldn't tempt the gods after everything we've been through. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Um:

1. Gross.

2. What, exactly, have Ryan and Greenlee been through? Okay, so there was the time she fell over a cliff and then hated him for a while when she came back from the dead, but other than that?

3. Please don't bring Shakespeare into this.

4. Don't they know that Romeo and Juliet ends in a double suicide? The writers could either be showing their complete ineptitude and staggering lack of reading comprehension OR...they could be giving us some mighty impressive foreshadowing, but I feel that may just be too much to hope for. 

"O" My Goodness: Legendary Soap Stars Reunite

Watching yesterday's Oprah has gotten me excited about Ms. Winfrey's eventual takeover of the entire universe because I figure that if she's in charge of everything, that would include daytime television programming. And judging by her soap enthusiam, she would be awesome at that; she showed more genuine interest in daytime during her introduction of Susan Lucci than Brian Frons has exhibited, ever.

In case you missed the show, here are some things that I learned (and re-learned) about some big-name soap stars.

1. Susan Lucci is, seriously, the most adorable person ever.

 
I am always hesitant to talk about soaps with people I know; what if they--how can I phrase this? What if they have terrible soap taste? How could I look someone in the eye if they admitted to, say, 'shipping Spinelli and Epiphany? Or not liking Susan Lucci?! 

2. Susan Lucci's New York estate? There are no words.

Well, there are three words: real estate porn. The house from Home Alone finally has some competition for my dream home (I LOVE that house!). I was feverishly trying to screencap every single minute to fully commemorate the pretty, but the shots were so quick! But we got to see...

The library where she reads her scripts

 
Her bathroom and facial care routine

 
Her exercise room

 
The woman looks to be at least a quarter elf. She is TEENSY.

And, um, this.

 

When The Ends Do Not Justify The Means

A confession: I'm overloading you guys a bit lately with One Life to Live posts because starting next week my schedule gets insane again. I'll still be around with my no-so-insightful insights, but this almost-every-episode thing has been a lot of fun... while it's lasted.

Now to the show. Finally the reveal of what happened in the spring of last year:

Today's ending was superb -- John, Brody, Jessica, and Natalie all running into each other in the hallway after all the revelations (some of which are still unknown to Jess and Brody and I just... wow, poor Jess and Brody). However I can't really speak too well of what came before.

Natalie and John? I hope this is the end of them. Forever. I don't blame John for feeling completely enraged at Natalie (she deserves it) and I can't be critical of his anger in general, but he was yelling at her the way he yells at a perp, not a loved one who he thinks betrayed him. A little too much of a, "Ha! You're busted!" attitude. Meanwhile, Natalie made it perfectly clear that she doesn't think much of John either, by explaining that he brought this lie upon himself by not being willing to raise another man's child. I don't like being on John's side in any argument, but every angle she tried today was offensive on so many levels. Oh! She was giving him another man's child as a gift that she was going to lie to him about for the rest of his life. I mean, I've known some lousy gift-givers in my time, but she really takes the cake. Basically all of her arguments could be summed up as: "But John, you're such a douche that I had no choice!" Good grief. John is a douche, but he should probably try to date only women who wouldn't agree with me. And it sickens me that Natalie would go so far, be so underhanded and commit criminal acts, just to hold on to a man she holds in such low regard. I know that characters on soaps have done worse to each other, but honestly I was just nauseated during that entire fight today. This is not a couple. (To be fair, it's probably been a better relationship than some of my own, but I don't imagine anyone's been rooting for any of mine.)

A Wedding In Ruins (or What Just Hit That Fan?)

Okay, this'll probably be ranty and wandering. What can I say? It's all goin' down.

Today's One Life to Live was tough on the soul for obvious reasons. First of all, the awkwardness. Like yesterday, the wedding scenes were full of weird pauses when people (like Clint and Natalie) should have been trying to say anything to stop Vimal from talking. It should've come out when Vimal yelled it over Clint's protests, but instead, Clint just kept letting him talk. And I would've loved to see the beat played in which Natalie had a moment of hope that hers was the paternity test that Vimal changed and therefore Liam really is John's, but they steamrolled right past that possibility (despite John alleging it later). 

Today we got the explanation that basically half the town missed the wedding because they all had hangovers from the bachelor/bachelorette parties. Weak. I can't even begin to count the weddings I've plowed through with a bachelorette hangover. You just freaking do it. Sometimes it involves mimosas.

And am I to understand that Matthew was too hungover to go to the wedding? Because seriously, this is just nonsense to have Clint's machinations doled out piecemeal like this -- which reminds me, if Rex doesn't come out with the truth about what he knows regarding David now? He is just as bad as Clint. 100% as bad. 

Also, it seemed to be another one of those "Aren't the Ford brothers decent, deep-down?" episodes. Were we supposed to find Ford in his little hot dog uniform doing an incredibly creepy hot dog rap somehow endearing? And what was that nonsense with Langston being all appalled that Clint wouldn't help Ford get a job back that he was rightfully fired from and he was all, "What I did was kinda bad, Lang," as if his recognizing that it was a bad act makes him a swell, repentant guy? And then Langston's nonsense about, "Sure, but how long do you have to pay for it?" WHAT? He hasn't paid for it at all. Okay, he got beat up a couple of times. He's not paying for it now. Not magically getting a job back that you lost by knowingly violating your employment contract isn't "paying" for something. It's what he deserves. Why the hell should Clint do him a favor? EVER?

And I literally could've vomited when Ford was all of a sudden the fucking toddler whisperer with Hope. Out of nowhere, Ford likes kids! This is news.

And were we supposed to be charmed that James didn't sleep with that other chick? I wasn't. Especially since it was Michelle who stopped it. On the other hand, I do mildly appreciate that he would've gone through with it just like 98% of real-life heterosexual American 19-year-old males. Sometimes that's refreshing on a soap. But it certainly doesn't make James more interesting or anything I care about.

John marching Natalie off to the guillotine room was hysterical, by the way. And why was the family so much more furious and disgusted with Clint when learning about this DNA switch as opposed to the one regarding Rex? I mean even though this, too, is playing God and is underhanded, etc., etc., isn't it a little more understandable? He did it so his daughter wouldn't be in pain, wrong as it was.

Honestly, as much I enjoy Natalie and do not enjoy John, I was thrilled when he finally flipped on her today. Her behavior was pretty pathetic and even I wanted to slap her. The double "I slept with Brody," "I slept with Natalie" confessions coming out simultaneously at the end was pretty awesome. I fear looking forward to tomorrow because it means self-righteousness from John and traditional tears from Jessica, and yet I'm looking forward to it anyway. And I'm going to calm myself with the fact that any number of things might've happened to those paternity test results, and this is not necessarily proof positive that Ford is Ryder's father or even that Brody is Liam's. It's just damn good drama for now.

Destiny out! (Seriously, what was the point of her today?)

In Case You Missed The Wedding...

Here it is in a nutshell so far...

Clint walks his twin girls down the aisle on their collective wedding day. Aww!

Rama/Vimal: Wait! Clint has done something terrible!

Natalie/Jessica: Who are you people?

Clint: Vimal was fired and angry, he's just here to start trouble!

Rama/Vimal: But it affects the family! You had DNA tests changed!

Charlie: Does this have to do with my good little boy Rex?

Vimal: Rex isn't your boy! Clint's really his father!

Natalie/John/Jessica/Brody: ....

Charlie: It can't be true!

Rex: It's totally true.

Background Actors: Gasp!