Serial Drama

Sweet Mercy, Show, I was JOKING!

I was! I mean I was half-joking. I did see chemistry, but was really more lamenting the fact that Hope and Thomas are related* because they could be a decent pairing. Better than most of the available pairings. But they are related*.

This is the insanity I need from this show. It keeps me from getting too frustrated. I only watch three soaps, one of which is endlessly dreary and depressing, one of which has a fabulous balance of good drama and fun camp and a mostly sparkling cast but its bad moments are as bad as they get, and the other? IS THE INCEST SOAP. Officially. In every way. Sometimes watching scenes on this show that are well-written and played by actors with nuance and depth (so really, scenes between Eric and Stephanie), I fool myself into thinking there's something bigger going on, but this is a foolishness that can only lead to disappointment. And the end of the day, The Bold and the Beautiful is at its best when it lets its campy freak flag fly. 

Well, guess what? They did it, they did it! They just went for it!

Hope and Thomas sitting in a tree, I-N-C-E-S-T.

This is awesome.

I can't even tell you how this delights me. Soaps!

Acting (And Actor) Out

I am not going to bother with a (trying to be) clever introduction because sometimes, when it comes to bad news, it's best to just blurt it out. Sort of like ripping off a Band-Aid. So here we go: Jonathan Jackson is OUT at General Hospital.

I know. I know! I had the same reaction as you. If your reaction was to gasp and say "WHATNOWHYOHMYGOD!" and then semi-hysterically g-chat all of your GH-watching friends, that is. Which, while sort of crazy, is far more measured and reasonable than when JJ left the show the first time around, when I practically went into mourning and, literally, became dehydrated from crying fits when Lucky "died".  So...progress? 

Says TVGuide:

Word from the set is that the beloved and acclaimed actor is exhausted from a heavy work schedule and months of a harrowing storylines that have included the death of Lucky's child and the character's addiction to drugs¹. Sources say Jackson had attempted to get GH execs to lighten his schedule with no luck. He also wanted to be romantically reteamed with Rebecca Herbst (Liz) but struck out there, too.²

¹ I am totally right there with him, because the doom and gloom that became Lucky's life has been absolutely brutal to watch. I wonder if the tipping point was spending hours on the floor, staring at pills. That would have been my personal tipping point.³

² Seriously?! And we couldn't go that route because tragedy is that much more entertaining to watch?

³ I still can't believe that happened

Although if TVGuide is right and Jackson is filming his final scenes on November 17th, that doesn't leave much time for a proper farewell. I worry that Lucky is going to finish his depressing, dull adventures in Ireland by writing a postcard to Ethan that says "Need a break. Be back never!" or that Lulu's spiteful wish that he get shot instead of Dante turns out to be foreshadowing and that he will get killed off suddenly and randomly, in which case I will probably have a rage breakdown. I know, I know, that's me jumping to the worst possible conclusion, but this IS GH, so it's...gosh, it's sad that the worst possible conclusion and the best case scenario are almost always the same thing when it comes to this show.

The rest of Monday on General Hospital, ignoring Lucky's boring (seriously, I cannot stress that enough. Boring. Dull. Zzzz...) soul searching in Ireland, can be summed up quite neatly in two words. The first word? Tantrum. The second word? Rape. Yes, this episode was a must-miss.

Can We Get To It Already (or Victodd's Moonlighting)

There are paternity storylines that go on for months or years or even decades on soaps and they work just fine, so why is it that "Who Is Liam's Father?" feels like the longest, most drawn-out paternity story in history? Well, I came up with a few possibilities. We know who Liam's father is, for one thing. We've known for a long time. And even before that, we "knew" the big secret that it was Brody. It's just been going on too long. When it was revealed that Matthew was really Bo's son, for instance, we didn't know that. It was years after the fact, but we hadn't been waiting for that reveal and getting tired of it. It was a surprise. This was lovely.

The other issue is that this story is about how this piece of information is the only thing that's keeping this allegedly "meant to be" couple apart. It doesn't make anyone look good. John, who would have had every right to fall out of love with Natalie for her lies, fell right back in love with her but couldn't do anything about it only because he thought she had a child with another man. Dick. This isn't his issue anymore, and I do admit that being reluctant to make a play for a woman who's about to marry someone else is actually fairly admirable -- when you don't take into account that "inaction" is actually John's default mode in anything relationship-related. And Natalie is marrying a man she quite consciously does not love and obviously isn't in any sort of denial -- she told her mother that John's "apparent lack of interest" was enough reason to marry a man she doesn't actually want to marry. Also not sympathetic.

And Brody is doing exactly what was done to him -- lying to keep a man away from his own son to get what he wants, and now being self-righteous with John about it to compensate. Not sympathetic.

So there's no real triangle here and there's no one to really root for, and we're still dealing with the fact that "Will these two crazy kids ever get together?" is hinged entirely on paternity, which is incredibly irritating and antiquated. I know it's a soap staple, but usually it's more like, "If these two crazy kids knew they shared a child, they'll have to be back in each other's orbits a lot more and maybe finally realize they still have feelings for each other!" Now that's something I can work with on 21st Century soaps. But this "all the couples will rearrange themselves lickety-split when the truth is revealed" current running under all these is tedious. And a reminder that the biggest storyline of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 was all for naught anyway.

Yay joylessness! How fun and soapy. Or something.

This Part of New York Is In The Deja Vu Time Zone

I would have been absolutely HORRIBLE during the olden-days. This was first hinted at during elementary school, where I was completely incapable of succeeding at Oregon Trail, instead dying in numerous and embarrassing ways and was driven home at the end of this past week when I practically flung myself, sobbing, at my cable box when television and internet service was finally restored after the huge New York/Connecticut outages following the freak October snowstorm (can I just say? This extreme weather is extremely worrisome to me. Snow in October knocks entire counties out, I had no power during Hurricane Irene AND there was an earthquake that, if I am being honest, I didn't actually feel, but still, it happened! I fear that soap writers will seize upon this weather weirdness for future sweeps stories. "We need to trap all of these people in a room together in May. But how? I know: MAY BLIZZARD! Hey, it could happen!"). I wanted to hug it and pet it and coo at it to never leave me again. Please note that I did not do any of those things but, in the throes of technology deprivation, I seriously contemplated it.

Obviously, no television means no soaps which means no soap blogging on my end (Louise has been bringing the brilliance all week, as always, when it comes to One Life to Live and The Bold and the Beautiful) which means a decidedly un-fun and depressing weekend spent catching up on a week's worth of soaps. It's been a slog. And I sort of cheated, because I watched Friday's episode of General Hospital first. I wanted to know if there was light at the end of this week's tunnel, you know? Like, maybe something fun and exciting that would set the tone for the coming weeks? And there was! It lasted, like, a second and a half, but Kristina's goodbye dinner was very sweet and I am going to miss Lexi Ainsworth very much, but the family fun was pretty delightful.

Too bad it was canceled out by, um, everything. Which, adding insult to injury, is nothing we have not seen before, repeatedly.

There was Carly marking her territory and acting with extreme hostility and attempted seductiveness when a man in her life pays a minute of attention to another woman. I am usually entertained to no end by the possessive, mouthy Carly, but this iteration leaves me cold. Partly because Shawn is so freaking dull and partly because if we keep going down this road on a monthly basis, we're soon going to be getting scenes of Carly acting like a jealous shrew when she sees someone talking to the FedEx delivery guy.

Carly: Hi, I'm Carly Jacks. I was with Shawn in Hawaii. You are...?
Shawn: Carly--
Renelle: I got this. Hello, I'm Renelle.

"Renelle? That's a slut's name if I ever heard one".

Renelle: What were you and Shawn doing in Hawaii?
Shawn: It was work.
Carly: If you want to call drinking on the beach work!
Shawn: It was a bit of an overstatement.
Carly: Have you ever been to Hawaii?
Renelle: A few years ago. Had a lot of fun.
Carly: Where Shawn and I stayed, it was just beautiful. We had a 1 bedroom shack right on the beach. Renelle: That's funny. I've never seen you drink tequila. Never seen you with anything but a beer.
Carly: Shawn's pretty guarded. It's amazing what he'll share with you if you just know how to get it out of him...

"I know how to get it out of him: with my vagina".

We also had one of General Hospital's favorite recurring themes: incest! During their never-ending point/counterpoint Claudia Zacchara: Saint or Psycho? (which has me tense and worried that Claudia will one day return to wreak more havoc on Port Charles; her planned havoc failed regularly and spectacularly, but her unintentional havoc, namely the pain she brought to me personally, scarred me deeply), Johnny and Anthony both made comments about the dearly departed madwoman that hint at feelings that are illegal, immoral, and icky. Disturbing as all of the following is--and oh, it is disturbing--I've come to expect it from the Zaccharas. Inappropriate relationships and sexual tension have been one of their defining traits over the years.

Johnny: She loved me and you sent her away!
Anthony: You two were unnaturally close! I had to put distance between you before you became fixated on her in a way that's unhealthy.

Uh, your plan was less than a rousing success, dude.

Anthony: You didn't know Claudia like I did.
Johnny: Why did you hate her so much? You acted like she wasn't even your daughter.
Anthony: Oh, she was my daughter, all right. More than you know. More than you'll ever know.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I AM PRE-GAGGING RIGHT NOW.

And then, of course, the episode ended with the very real threat of Sam being sexually violated by Franco. Of course. OF COURSE. Kelly Monaco has been sexually menaced by nearly every villain that's traipsed through Port Charles and when you consider that Port Charles is a den of sin and a hotbed of murder, that is a whole lot of menacing. But this time is totally different, guys!! An Oscar-nominated actor is doing the violating AND Jason is being forced to watch the whole thing. This year's Outstanding Drama Emmy must already have this show's name engraved on it.

"Can't wait" for next week!

Gondolas: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Soaps!

You gotta love 'em.

Hope: My mind wanders. I keep -- I keep going back to being in that gondola, forced to watch Steffy and Liam get married. It's... it's weird, even when I'm in, like, an elevator and the doors close, I... I feel trapped in there like I can't breathe!

Y'all, I cannot tell you how happy I am that this component of the whole Hope/Liam/Steffy debacle is a point that is going to keep on coming up. And more flashbacks!

I mean, this is a serious issue. People all over the world have PTSD after having been trapped in a gondola and forced to watch their half-sister* marry the man they were engaged to the day prior (it's just one of those things that's not widely reported). All over the world. And now elevator doors trigger the trauma for poor Hope. Perhaps for her next fashion line, instead of focusing on promoting abstinence she can focus on generating awareness for the National Organization for Gondola-Trapped-Wedding-Viewing-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I Hereby Declare November 2nd as Tina Clayton Lord Roberts Day!

Tina reigned supreme today. It was her episode, from beginning to end. From the beginning, when she read Clint the riot act for coming down so hard on her for, quite frankly, having no more sketchy a personal track record than his own. Somehow when other characters unload on Clint, it just comes across as holier-than-thou sanctimony based on nothing but its own self-righteousness, but coming from Tina in her lighter "but how come you get to be a jerk then?" wide-eyed sincere curiosity, it is absolutely on point. To the middle, when upon learning Irene's entire estate had been left to her and she threw out a simple, "Well. That seems fair!" And finally to the end, when she turned right around and gave every last cent of the fortune she's spent her whole life dreaming of and fighting for right back to her brother Todd.

And so today is forever Tina Clayton Lord Roberts* Day!

This woman rules my heart.