Serial Drama

Now I'm For It!

After Friday's episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, I was all set to sit down and write a big rant about how stupid it is that Thomas and Hope are brother and sister (though not by blood) because they really do have smokin' hot chemistry, and it's not as if the show treats Steffy and Hope as sisters or treats Brooke as in any way related to Steffy and Thomas despite having had a huge hand in raising them.

Because seriously, I cannot be the only viewer who interpreted this moment as the standard "sad, supportive moment leads to kiss" scene we so often see in soaps, right?

Right? I mean, she even did that thing where she looked up at him and then looked at his lips before moving in!

Evil Doers, Doing Evil. Just Kidding, No One Here Does Anything.

It should be a HUGE warning sign--the warningest of warning signs!--that the most entertaining part of an episode of television was listening to a character, semi-hysterically and with painstaking detail, rehash storylines that took place five years ago.

(And! It wasn't even THAT entertaining, it was just MILDLY entertaining because it involved Spinelli's evening being ruined, which was a richly deserved punishment for basically lying to Maxie and holding her hostage on a boat.

Spinelli: My intention was that we would spend the evening together [...] I didn't see any other way to command your full attention.

You know where I've heard that before? In various Lifetime Movie Network movies with public service announcements about stalking tacked onto the end. That is straight up creepy, and the creepiness isn't lessened by the fact that it's coming from a manchild who speaks gibberish; in fact, that makes it even MORE creepy.)

Of course, that's assuming that...

1.) The powers-that-be at General Hospital would be bored to tears by Wednesday's show.

2.) The powers-that-be at General Hospital actually watch this show, period.

3.) The powers-that-be at General Hospital care about this show's future.

Which don't really be safe assumptions to make. I can picture them watching all breathlessly, "OMG! They don't see Lisa in the corner! And she has a SYRINGE! This is amazing!"

Brody Lovett? Brody Lovett! Your Bus Has Finally Arrived!

Okay, look. I will never, ever call out Nora for hating Todd Manning. He assaulted, terrorized, and tried to rape her. While she was blind. She gets a lifetime pass, she can hate him until her dying breath -- she's absolutely allowed. One hundred percent. 

However.

This nonsense?

Nora: For the last eight years? I actually started to feel sorry for Todd Manning. I mean, his kids were kidnapped, he was raped. He was actually given a lethal injection. But you are not him. You're still the same guy who terrorized me at a beach house. You're still the same guy who hurts anyone who's unlucky enough to love you.

Let me get this straight, Nora. Eight years ago you hated him as much as you ever did, but you'd really started to pity him because during that time he was a victim? But now that you know that was Victor and this is Todd, Todd is precisely who he was eight years ago? Nora, honey, you have heard what your old nemesis Todd has been up to in these eight years, right? Kidnapped and imprisoned and tortured daily, separated from his loved ones? For eight years? Because of his mother? While Victor was out sexing up Blair and Téa and planning kidnappings and trapping and raping Marty and beating up kids. I daresay Victor was having plenty of fun in the midst of his various unfortunate victimizations. I daresay Todd had a dismal and joyless eight years during his consistent, interruption-less victimization. 

So really, Nora. Just admit it. Just admit that here he is, the man who tried to rape you, looking you in the eye, and it just brought all the hatred back. That's fine, you have every right. But please stop participating in what seems to be a show-wide "Poor, Sweet, Big-Hearted Victor" retcon campaign. All righty? 

We Must Galvanize The Fight: Better Health Insurance Plans For Strippers!

I mean for heaven's sake, poor Kim is handicapped because she has sciatica from the pole!

We've got a lot of messes on the screen right now in our dear show, y'all. A lot. But I have to say that I'm having a lot of fun with the whole Manchurian Candidate parallels. Nate and Dani watched the original film and Dani felt like it hit close to home; meanwhile, Irene's "ghost" was over at the cabin basically brainwashing Todd into thinking he'd murdered Victor. (It felt just a little bit like, "Hey, viewers, remember how campy and ridiculous and implausible the whole Irene story was? Whatever, y'all, it can be awesome and win Oscars, too! So shut your pie-holes! We're having fun!")

So take a little Barbara Rhoades...

 

And add a little Angela Lansbury...

 

And we're all having a good time! (And how cute is it that Barbara Rhoades acted with Angela Lansbury!)

The Honeymoon From Hell

It sounds like the setup for a joke, doesn't it? "So, a honeymooning couple, a mercenary, a nutbar, an artist whose canvas is MURDER and a baby all go to Hawaii..."

And I suppose it IS a joke. It's just that the joke is on us, because I'm sure that this story will go the ways of the other stories currently unfolding on General Hospital: it will go boringly (Exhibit A: literally, anything currently happening on this show but for example's sake, let's say Lulu's newfound "drinking problem" and whining over how some marriages end in divorce) and, probably, skeevily (Exhibit B: Ethan's uncomfortable "What do you have to say about this, love?" the the portrait of Laura. Step off, mate!). There will be hardly any real entertainment and very many homoerotic moments between Jason and Franco, who will probably change from a lei to an even more menacing grass skirt. So, you know...yawn.

We DID get some quality Carly, however, as she could simply not contain her giddiness about interrupting Sam and Jason's honeymoon to warn him of danger. The danger she is willingly--and excitedly-- walking into. With her child. Because that's what good mothers and sane people do!

Carly: I'm scared. Shawn, I'm scared. I'm scared about what's going on in Hawaii. Jason would not just ignore my calls.
Shawn: Well, how about the guy's on a honeymoon and isn't taking calls from the woman who keeps getting in between him and the woman who is now his wife?

"That's exactly what I MEAN, Shawn! What if he's not taking my calls because he's having sex with Sam? Gag me with a spoon, amirite?"

The woman is INSANE, spending half of her time talking breathlessly about how worried she is for Jason and spending the other half all giddy, planning the zany things she will say and do to get Jason's attention and have a laugh at how it's just Carly being Carly.

Shawn: But I need you to play by the rules for once. Can you do that?
Carly: I will do my best.
Shawn: No, no. Not good enough.
Carly: That's all I got.
Joss:

Joss: Shady Pines, ma.

And yet Shawn still trusts her to stay alone in a hotel while he goes off to check on Jason! I am pretty sure Mr. Morgan isn't the only one here with brain damage.

Dialogue Neither Bold Nor Beautiful

Even though the storyline is dreadful, I have to celebrate the fact that a television genre exists in which this can be said....

Brooke: She's just really devastated about what happened -- having to watch them get married while she was stuck in a gondola.

I really hate when that happens.

We should start a charity or put out a benefit album to help those who have had to watch their ex-boyfriends get married while they're stuck on a gondola. It's becoming an epidemic and, y'all, we should no longer stand for it! 

But really. Someone sat down and wrote that line. Someone else memorized and delivered that line. It's a beautiful world, people.

Sexual Harassment? More Like Sexual HA!-rassment.

If it weren't for Patrick and Robin being at least ten times cuter than cute (seriously, how freaking charming were those two today? I know that their adorable bliss is a setup for what is sure to be an overlong and uninteresting story regarding Lisa's thirst for revenge and Patrick, but for once I decided not to do the pessimism thing and just focused on the cute present. I mean, even Epiphany was adorable, lighting the candle in the mangled cake. EPIPHANY! It's like the cute was contagious), a Cam sighting and the possibility of Carly being hilariously inappropriate and obnoxious in a Hawaiian setting (like, will she bring a swimsuit and try her best to seduce Jason? Or interrogate them on whether or not they consummated their marriage? I hope so), I probably would have had an actual rage blackout. Which is embarrassing because seriously, why do I let General Hospital get to me?! BECAUSE IT IS TERRIBLE AND OFFENSIVE, IS WHY!

Anthony: I made [the deal] in good faith: a night of passion in exchange for my silence.
Tracy: I didn't make a deal. I was coerced.
Anthony: Such an ugly word!
Tracy: So is blackmail, and that's exactly what you did. Either I sleep with you or you turn me in to the SEC, but newsflash: you are not touching me. i made it in good faith a night of passion in ex for my Anthony: Your lips say one thing, but the fact that you're here tells me everything I need to know.

Anthony, getting progressively angrier as the sentence goes on: A night of passion insures my silence about you funnelling dirty money into ELQ. It's clean and simple!

On most other shows, this would be seen as something horrible and disgusting, because it's awful on basically every single level (not least because it is an enormous waste of Jane Elliot, but that's sadly typical for GH). This show, though? Brought us the twinkly music of zaniness. You know the one, the maddening music the show plays to let us know, "Hey, you probably can't even hear this over the sound of your hysterical laughter, but this music means that wacky stuff is going down!". The music that I hate. That music. I rage.

"The People Of Llanview Are Very Fair"

....Or so says Shaun Evans. I could debate him on a few points there.

On the other hand, just about everyone in Llanview has committed some crime (or twenty) and they're generally never actually imprisoned for them in the long run. The town is full of murderers and rapists and con artists and, granted, a lot of them are (temporarily) in hiding or perhaps in comas, but for the most part they're just walking around town. Mostly with guns. Llanview-ites are nothing if not ultimately forgiving.

Speaking of criminal justice, the only character still on canvas actually serving out any sort of a sentence is Clint, who is basically on house arrest for the remainder of his natural life. And he misses a few things (bourbon, the office, hostile takeovers, the boardroom where he usually gets his own way), but he's not exactly miserable. He gets to live out his years in the family home of most of his children and with his ex-wife who he'll never be over. He makes attempts, sure, like today when he suggested Viki "put herself out there" and try to find a new man (he thinks she should put herself on the market and she wondered if he meant "like a cow" in of course her most imperious Queen Victoria mode) -- through the personals no less! What would her "About Me" be? "DWF (seven ex-husbands, give or take a few depending on whether you count annulments or multiple divorces from the same man) full of life, including a grand total of no fewer than seven disparate personalities, too! Probably killed own father. Several heart attacks, brain aneurysms, deaths and revivals, heart transplant from dead ex-husband, mother of five (one dead), grandmother of five (two dead), sister of convicted gang-rapist and several-time killer. Tee-totaler and newspaper publisher! Likes long walks on the beach and never go anywhere without a passport!")

But Viki didn't think any of that would be the issue. She thought the issue would be bringing her online date home to her... living situation.

Viki: What would I say to that someone? "Oh don't pay any attention to that man with the ankle bracelet, he's just my felonious ex-husband who lives with me?"

Oh, Vikster, you have such a way with words!

When Will The Cringing Stop?!

Any given episode of General Hospital leaves me with at least half a dozen questions to add to my ongoing list of unanswerable questions I have about this show (like "What trade to Sonny and Jason deal in?" "Why did they ever bring Michael out of his coma?" "Why is Spinelli?", etc.) but following today's show, I know three things for certain:

1.) The GH writers are failures on basically every level. Their typical storytelling--the dark and dready sort--is painful to sit through and their attempts at trying something new, like being romantic and playful, are just as disturbing.

2.) Scott Reeves and Lisa LoCicero are trying valiantly to have this episode wiped clean from their IMDB pages and if they're not, they should be, because their performances today were an unholy combination of sleaze and cheese and oh my god, why were they smacking their lips so loudly?!

3.) Having this episode on my DVR for longer than one hour will lead to my being added to some sort of FBI watchlist of depraved individuals.

Guys, the following happened.

Olivia ran up to Lulu at General Hospital and shticked for a few minutes before asking Lulu if she and Dante had set a wedding date yet. Lulu shrugged her shoulders and then clearly opened her mouth as if she were about to explain when Olivia interrupted her with "No, no, no! Don't tell me you changed your mind!"

We never got any followup on whether or not Lulu had changed her mind about getting married (the editing staff on this show is, as always, top notch) but whatever conversation the two of them had clearly got Olivia hot and bothered, because the next we saw, she was urging Steve to skip out on his shift and visit her at the Metro Court for some afternoon delight. There was a stripper pole, because this is General Hospital and we're not brutalizing women here, we're objectifying them.

Then--I know, people who haven't seen this episode yet because, wisely, they stopped watching the show in the late 90s, are like "How can the ick factor possibly get upped here?" but it can, and how!--came the double entendres.

Olivia: Here at the Metro Court Hotel, we pride ourselves on the finest customer service.
Steve: I'm feeling very serviced¹.
Olivia: You ain't seen nothing yet².

Olivia: I certainly hope you came hungry³.
Steve: I'm famished⁴.

Steve: I love me some slow backslide⁵.

¹ Ew.

² Ew.

³ Eww.

⁴ Eww.

⁵ Why?

When Olivia took a spill and hit her head--because of course she did, because that's so wacky and hilarious. Seriously, Lisa LoCicero should sue--I found myself profoundly jealous because there was a chance that she'd have brain trauma and, if she was lucky, amnesia; meanwhile, I couldn't forget this if I tried.

(Seriously, WHY DID THEY SLURP SO LOUDLY?)

A Photo Album: Better Than Winning The Lottery

Dear Lottery, I'm just kidding. The title is hyperbolic. Friday's episode of One Life to Live wasn't really better than winning the lottery (so feel free to let me win still, anytime now!), but it came close. Metaphorically or something.

At this point I've said most of what I can say about the seventh heaven I'm in and what a gift the show has been lately and how we need to buy Scott Sickles a gift basket (and I guess we also owe one to Kassie dePaiva and Roger Howarth and Jill Mitwell and Ron Carlivati and... well, we probably owe one to Frank Valentini and a team of editors but I'm too groggy to do this legwork), so for the most part I will just let the show speak for itself this time.

Todd: You know, if you let me nod off, at least then you'll finally be rid of me.

Blair: Yeah. Don't tempt me. Besides, I've...never been rid of you, even when I thought that I was. You've always been a part of my life ever since you walked in Rodi's that night and somebody played that stupid Louis Armstrong song.

Todd: Nat King Cole.

Blair: It was Louis Armstrong.

Todd: It was Nat King Cole. Nat King Cole. How could you forget something like that?

 

Their first scenes at Rodi's!