Serial Drama

Valiantly Refusing To Make A Handful Of "Relish" Jokes

It's not that I wasn't excited to have a snow day and an impromptu three-day weekend and the opportunity to nap and spend the entire day in leggings; I was excited about all of those things. But what I was MOST excited for was the chance to watch General Hospital live. It was the very first thing that ran through my head when I heard work was closed (and I'm eternally grateful that I managed to only think my excited thoughts and not blurt them out, because that would have been quite the awkward conversation), which says a lot about how much I am enjoying most of General Hospital these days.

And then, because I am terrible at change and hardly ever home during the week to watch GH as it airs, I promptly forgot that the show moved to 2 and was halfway through a batch of scones (is there anything more perfect on a cold day than a good scone?) when I realized that I'd have to give up the dream of liveblogging the show. But I will settle for a good old-fashioned recap!

Spinelli and Tracy at the Quartermaine mansion. She, like any rational person, is absolutely disgusted that he'd come into her home using the front door where anybody could see him.

General Hospital: Sabrina is beside herself looking for Epiphany about the results of the exam re-do and whines at Elizabeth that she can't find Pip anywhere. Elizabeth, having a terrible day of her own, turns around and reveals a face covered in pretty tears. Her phone reveals an incoming call from one Mr. AJ Quartermaine, who leaves her a(-n adorable) voicemail expressing his sympathy for what's going on with Steve and says he'd understand if she cancels lunch. But I wouldn't understand, AJ!

Tracy is disgruntled and horrified by having to associate with Spinelli in her scheme for the Pickle Lila recipe. Spinelli has failed at his task so far.

Speaking of Pickle Lila, Starr and Ellie are trying to solve this mystery, too. Well, Ellie is trying to solve it; Starr is reading a Sun article about her father accompanied by the blaring headline "Teflon Todd Trial Today", which is pretty good, but it doesn't really rank in comparison to some of the wordplay the Daily News and the Post come up with.

At the Metro Court, Carly is reading the same newspaper and puts it down in disgust when she's greeted by Michael and junk food in the form of faux Cheez-Its. Michael says he thought she'd want to eat her feelings today, but Carly plays dumb. "What? Today? Hmm?"

Teflon Todd and Diane stalk into court surrounded by a mob of reporters who shout stupid questions about him and shove microphones in his face. Diane stridently (a descriptor I probably didn't need, because does she speak any other way?) says her client has no comment, but Todd does. And prepare yourself--you're going to cringe. Hard.

Todd: I do have something to say to Carly Jacks.

Gross!

Kate and Sonny are in bed. She flashes back to the feud she had with...well, with Connie, because there is nothing soapier than flashbacks to things that happened 24 hours ago (it's one of those uniquely soap things that I could really do without). She nuzzles up to Sonny, who is thrilled that she's still here "after everything". Like boning Connie? He seems momentarily annoyed that she'd bring that up and tries to evade what, in his defense, is a terribly uncomfortable conversation by thanking her for listening. She says she doesn't want to bury all of this and asks if he had real feelings for Connie to which he sputters for a while and saves, suavely, by saying he's happy now and flashing his dimples. They smile together over Connie being gone (which means that by the end of this hour, Kate will be revealed to be Connie and I will punch myself in the face) and Kate asks Sonny to tell her he loves her. He does: "I love you, Kate. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you".

Liz shares, through sniffles, that she had to say goodbye to Steve because he's going to prison in Memphis. I think she's laying it on a little thick, because shared DNA or not, nobody cares that much about Steve. Tears? Really Liz? Please.

Q Mansion: Tracy snarls at Spinelli and then pushes him to the ground when AJ enters with a pleasant "Oh, Auntie!" The exchange hate-filled words. After AJ leaves, Spinelli says "Quartermaine snark never disappoints". Please don't try to butter me up, Spinelli. Tracy yells a lot and Spinelli shares that he's learned that Michael and AJ have employed a lab technician.

Tracy: All you have to do is snatch it from some pasty, beady-eyed lab rat.
Spinelli: "Pasty" is a little bit harsh. She is fair.

Okay, ha. Like, an actual ha, out loud.  

Lady of MY Heart? Tracy Angelica Quartermaine

Sometimes Tracy The Ball Buster gets on my nerves a little bit -- never because of Jane Elliot, who is a rock star champion of the world at all times and is beyond reproach -- just because she is occasionally overwritten. But when she's on, she's on.

And today she just slayed me when she suggested that perhaps Luke wants to be with Laura. It wasn't that she suggested it, and it wasn't that she called him out on acting as if Scott Baldwin is his own issue when it's really not about him at all. It's just the way she said the word "Laura." Because, see, it was like this:

And, see, that is just awesome. (And I say that with all due respect to Laura, who is also awesome. Just in a totally different non-Tracy-esque way.)

She even teased it again later!

(By the by, I'm oddly glad Luke's back on the sauce. I don't think Luke Spencer is a man who'd ever stay on the wagon for life.)

I'm Not Laughing At Myself Now (or I'm Always Laughing At Myself)

Y'all, I just sat down and pressed "play" on the DVR so I could watch today's General Hospital and the first few scenes involved Tracy and Lucy and Anna and Frisco and Felicia and Mac and Kevin and Laura and Scott and... I mean seriously? This is the fanfic that was happening in my head a couple of years ago that I never dared utter aloud because I was already laughing at myself on the inside for what an idiot I was for even thinking about those characters, much less fantasizing about an episode featuring all of them.

And now here they are.

So I figured what the heck, I'll take the journey of the rest of this episode in public. Or however public Serial Drama really is. My dog is sitting next to me giving me a very judgy look for doing this, so be warned that some of what follows may be couched in deep shame somehow. How does someone who spends most of her life licking her own butt make me feel self-conscious?

Right, so Luke is yelling at Scotty and accusing him of having sent Lulu the fake Ice Princess. I'm loving Laura's darker hair color.

Lucy is filling Tracy in on all her recent shenanigans.

At the Floating Rib, Mac is encouraging Kevin to go back to Lucy. Felicia gets a call or a text and rushes out, pretending she had to go meet a friend. Mac knows she's full of it but doesn't call her out. For now.

Frisco is offering condolences to Anna about Robin.

Y'all. FRISCO AND ANNA ARE IN A SCENE TOGETHER ON MY SCREEN AND THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT ROBIN. I die.

Frisco: I was so sorry to hear about Robin. She was such a bright light in all of our lives. I just think of that 6-year-old little girl that captured my heart. I'm sorry she's gone.

Oh, my heart! (Jack Wagner looks like he's wearing a little too much of the pancake makeup today, though. It's just a little... weird. Am I seeing things?) They chat about the whole Duke Masked Faison incident and whether or not Duke and Anna's relationship will always be tainted as a result. Frisco, in case anyone worried there would be a question, thinks that Duke and Anna have incredibly chemistry and he's totally a 'shipper. Anna sees something beyond Frisco and she starts beaming. Cut to: Duke, coming out of the elevator doors, beaming even more at her! I'm 12, I'm 12! (And remember how cool it was when elevator doors were just Duke's apartment door at his penthouse? Yeah, yeah, Sonny had that later but it doesn't count.)

Kate is apologizing to Sonny. She wants to start a new life and she hopes he'll be part of it because she loves him. Well, Kate, he'll pretty much stick with you and your alters through anything at this point, and he's really the best you're going to do. So you know, good call?

So Much YAY and WOO and GLEE

While I was in the midst of crafting a truly hilarious (to girls who grew up in the 80s and 90s reading the works of Ann M. Martin and to absolutely nobody else) comparison between the "Sabrina is unjustly accused of cheating on her nursing exam because she's just SO perfect that she got a perfect score which nobody in the history of General Hospital has ever done" story and the plot of Claudia and The Middle School Mystery, the 40th Baby-Sitters Club novel that saw Claudia accused of cheating on a math test, a comparison that ultimately fell apart when I realized that Claudia was much more worldly and mature than Sabrina is (and more fashionable--even Claudia would judge the hell out of Sabrina's glasses), I got a series of texts that included so many exclamation points and capital letters and the breaking news that Vanessa Marcil and Ingo Rademacher are coming back for GH's 50th Anniversary festivities and I let out the kind of squeal that is unbecoming once you pass the age of eight. Who the hell can even take the time to mock Sabrina when there is Brenda and Jax action to dreamily imagine?!

We've been down this road before, so I feel like I know what to expect: the pair NOT returning as a couple, since Jax is all about Carly and Brenda is probably married to some random (remember, the show decided to give her a child with some long-dead offscreen nobody and then saddled her with the block of wood who goes by the name Brad Rowe for weeks that felt like decades!); one or both of their returns being TERRIBLY written because...remember what happened last time Brenda came back? I don't even have the heart to go through the archives and link to specific examples of how awful it was because that would just ruin the good mood this news has managed to cultivate; and my own broken heart when I realize that this visit is both short and unlikely to end with the two of them living happily ever after with Brenda's son who was rewritten hastily and awesomely to actually be Jax's.

AND YET I AM STILL SO EXCITED BECAUSE OHMIGOD BRENDA AND JAX.

In Record Speed...

So since I fast-forward just about everything on B&B now that has anything to do with The Triangle of Doom, I actually miss some episodes in their entirety (well, okay, I see lots of quiet things happening very, very quickly). Early in the week, they seemed to hint at a possible romantic interest between Maya and Rick, which is actually something I think I could get behind. Maybe. It's certainly more interesting than Rick and Caroline, that's for sure!

Otherwise, this is really what it all amounted to:

I loved how Eric got into his bathrobe while Taylor was in the bathroom changing into the lingerie he designed for her. It was just so smarmy. But he's probably gotten some tips on how to romance Taylor from at least two of his sons. Maybe more? 

Apparently the number one tip was, "Just touch and move her hair. A lot. Don't actually kiss her or anything. Just look into her eyes way too intensely and smooth out her hair. Maybe move her hair behind her shoulders? Now smooth it again. Now maybe move it back in front of her shoulders. Now caress it. Now move the hair again."

Here's how Brooke felt about it:

Note to Brooke: if it's nighttime and you've let yourself into someone's home and you hear cheesy smooth jazz playing behind their bedroom door, you're probably not going to be super-psyched about what you find when you open that door.

Quick Suggestion To Benevolent Ghosts Of The World

It sure is nice of various spirits to roam the Earth and remind the living that they are powerful or safe or being watched over or loved or... something. And ghosts are usually plentiful in soap towns (even ghosts that aren't real because they are ghosts of Not At All Dead People, like Robin or... oh hey, Anna was a ghost too, I guess ghosting-while-not-dead runs in the family), but it's high time someone gave the ghosts some tips.

Seeing dead people is startling. I once accidentally dropped my dog's leash because a rat ran out in front of us. Sometimes a noise makes me jump. It's best not to be holding anything fragile or liquid when one gets a shock, because said fragile item might drop and shatter or said liquid item might spill and stain the carpet with a deep burgundy stain, which sucks because red wine can really stain unless you get some salt on it pretty fast. Wait, what?

The point is, be careful when you first appear as a ghost to a loved one. 

Here's one suggestion of what might be a bad time to make your debut apparition appearance to your son.

You know, WHEN HE'S HOLDING AN INFANT.

That kid is liable to drop that smaller kid!

All right, I guess he wasn't too shocked. And Danny's all, "What. WHAT. This ain't shit, lady, you should see what I've lived through already. What do you think, I was born yesterday?"

Also, apparently you can get knocked up pretty fast in the spirit world. Did she look that preggers when she got offed? (I realize the actress is really pregnant, but c'mon. Cover it up a tad!)

I Needed This Little Pick-Me-Up

You know, maybe if I had been a Port Charles viewer I'd find all of this less hilarious and bizarre. Perhaps I'd be giddy about the re-visit, or embarrassed by the re-visit because I'd hoped it was long behind me, or maybe I'd be all manner of furious about what PC plot points (if any) this current incarnation rewrites or cancels out. I have no idea. 

As it stands, I'm watching this with a tremendous amount of aesthetic distance because I can't care about it. I'm not emotionally engaged or worried for the fate of any of the characters involved because it's all just so silly. It's silly in a way that doesn't make me angry, though, because it feels like once it's over, it'll really be over. I'm eager to get to Lucy Coe actually being Lucy Coe, which is the only thing that really keeps me from fully enjoying my incredulity and dropped-jaw at how absurd this has gotten.

But seriously. How is this not fun?

I mean come on! (Again, had I ever seen Michael Easton do this before, the novelty wouldn't exist. But novelty it is, and he looks like he's having a blast camping it up. He so rarely gets to do that, so it's hard not to smile.)

Uh oh! Sam got all bitten by prosthetic fangs!

That's gotta smart, right?

On Awkward Pauses and A Handful Of One-Liners

I was hoping to do a full, old-school recap of Friday's General Hospital. I was. I wanted to! And then after about the eighth time I typed "And then Sonny paused awkwardly and played some seriously stilted word games to refrain from actually saying dead until the PERFECT moment around the half hour mark while Olivia's eyes bugged out of her head meaningfully every time Kate--this IS Kate, right? Still?--asked a question about Trey", I decided that I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry. That is just a REALLY long sentence to type repeatedly. And repeatedly it needed to be typed because honestly, what is this?

Kate: Why? Why can't I go to my son? Sonny, he's alive. You know what that means to me. And Joe Jr.'s dead. Now I can have a relationship with him. I can get to know my son.
Sonny: It's not gonna happen.
Kate: I know it's not gonna be easy. I have a lot of work to do, I have a lot of apologizing to do, but I have to try, right? So, I'm gonna go to him. I'm gonna go to his apartment, and you can't stop me, Sonny.
Sonny: You're not gonna find Trey over there.
Kate: Why?
Sonny: Because Trey... is gone.

I mean, how tortured is that?! And I didn't even point out the many places in which Sonny just stopped talking mid-sentence, which added at least twelve minutes to each instance of this conversation. I suppose this could have been a conscious choice, and that it was supposed to show how Sonny was fumbling for the words to give Kate some seriously devastating news in a way that wouldn't devastate her so greatly that all of a sudden Connie would be back to gesticulate madly and overact after thirty seconds of successful integration. That is maybe it. And while I appreciate that commitment to realism, it felt like it tripled the length of their scenes.

The Fog Begins To Lift (or Metric Tons Of Gumption)

After that adorable awkward moment the other day when A.J. showed up at Elizabeth's door with flowers that she mistakenly thought he'd brought her, I knew those earlier scenes between the two weren't just accidental and irrelevant chemistry. No indeed. 

Today, we got a phone call between the two implying at least one of the major topics of conversation from their impromptu spaghetti dinner -- PickleLila and A.J.'s strategies for dealing with Tracy and saving ELQ. And A.J. talked about how much fun he had playing with the boys and both of them said how good a time they had and it was super-cute. And! 

A.J. really did end up sending her flowers!

And his handwriting doesn't look like an eight-year-old's like Michael's did the other day!

And she was all bashful when Steve was prodding her about it. I love when the two of them are actually siblings and act like it, but far too rare (I might still be a little grumpy about that time he basically accused her of trying to kill Siobhan). And Liz gave her big brother her patented Liz look when she 'fessed up to who her admirer is.

Sibling rapport! If I didn't know better, I'd think they were giving us this cute brother/sister stuff to up the drama because something's going to happen to one of them soon. I KNOW! I'M REALLY GOING OUT ON A LIMB HERE, Y'ALL! Sherlock Weezie here.

Anyhoozle, Liz promised Steve that she's sure A.J.'s attempts to be a better man and a better father are sincere. Meanwhile, A.J. had another panic attack and begged for Tracy to call Liz. He needs his Florence Nightingale! 

Now We're Getting Somewhere

Now that felt like a February sweeps episode.

You know, one of the best and worst things about a Carlivati/Valentini-helmed show is that, as a result of both Carlivati's approach to storytelling as well as Valentini's approach to consolidating and block-taping in order to best keep the show budget down, the storyline wealth tends to get spread around. The latest Soap Opera Digest has an interview with Ron Carlivati in which he talks about how Brian Frons used to jokingly call him a socialist because he rotated stories through so many cast members while Frons thought that the best approach was to find your stars and give the vast majority of the material to the heavy hitters (yeah, we noticed that influence on GH for a damn decade and most of us nearly lost our minds). The great thing about this is that even if some storylines are driving me completely insane, there are always about fourteen other storylines to lean on (see The Bold & the Beautiful for an example of a show that currently gives 90% of its material to one small group of characters and one dominant storyline, and it is torture all of the time if you don't totally adore that plot and those people).

The worst thing about this is that soap viewing is kind of a full-immersion process. Three episodes in a row with a certain focus and that aren't really to one's tastes start to feel like THIS IS ALL THE SHOW IS NOW! Anyone who watched last week and last week only would be pretty damn sure this is a ridiculous show about vampires, doppelgangers, some clown named Todd being wacky, and Carly generally being horrible. While I'm sure some viewers had a blast, I was hurting, y'all.

You get the point. But the last couple of days we're back on a track that hurts me a hell of a lot less. 

Now, just in case any viewers didn't start watching till the 90s and feel like that was the heyday of the show, the cornucopia of 80s nostalgia we're getting might not be all that much fun and the show might really feel like... not GH. But today was totally the GH of the last 17 years, y'all, because SONNY'S LOVE REDEEMED A WOMAN. You know, like it does. Obviously.

Sonny apparently rocked Connie so fantastically in bed that she wept.

Wept! Oh man. This show slays me.

Anyway it was apparently the happiest moment of Connie's "entire life," which... huh?

She was blathering on about how it's been so long since she'd had sex (other than the revenge sex with Johnny) and I was trying to figure out who Connie was sleeping with before considering she's an alter. God this D.I.D. story is a mess.Anyway apparently the sex was so pure and beautiful and life-affirming that it made Kate re-emerge, so Sonny is going to wake up next to a different "person" from the one he fell asleep with, which is surely no less than he deserves. I wondered how Kate will feel that Sonny "cheated on her" with Connie. Ha! I mean is that how it works? Oh hell, there's no "how it works" because they are just making this shit up on whims as they go along and every new bit of it is making me laugh even harder than the last.

Meanwhile, Sabrina was floating around the show today being... Sabrina. Which is a heavy load to bear since she is the worst. After she couldn't stop crying at the Haunted Star Valentine's Day party (which really differentiates the Haunted Star from no other place in the world, because there is nowhere that Sabrina doesn't cry or isn't on the edge of tears, though while she's AT HER JOB she's definitely in the most emotionally expressive and shaky place), she decided to head into work where she could really have a much better cry. 

So here's the greatest, most hysterical sequence of the day: Britt puts on a fake face and horribly fakes apologizing to Emma for their "misunderstanding."

Emma was not having it, and bolted immediately.