My Brain Hurts

Watching General Hospital has started to send me on a spiral of self doubt: have I lost my grip on sanity by continuing to watch it? Am I really horrible at life in general since I don't have a job as a soap opera executive producer and Jill Farren Phelps does and if she can do it, a monkey can, so why am I not doing it, am I more useless than a monkey? Is James Scott not returning my calls because he heard through the grapevine that I have conversations with my television?

It's not a fun way to live.

I also start to wonder if the things I like on the show itself are actually good, or if they are just comparatively good because the rest of the show is so tragically, relentlessly bad. Like, is Emily actually smart because she was suspicious about Robin and Nikolas falling in love, or is she only smart compared to the dweebs that run rampant in Port Charles? Do Maxie and Cooper actually rule in myriad ways, or am I so starved of romance on this show since Robin and Patrick broke up for heinously contrived reasons that I am just latching onto them? I don't know! I'm so confused!

As adorable as I am finding Maxie and Cooper (and I am, very much so), it also frustrates me, because it shows that the writers are able to write a romance that doesn't make me want to harm myself or others and the new and improved Maxie with the layers and the sarcasm and the awesome proves that they are capable of complexity, but they just choose not to do anything with it because they're lazy hack bastards. Why bother delving into the angst Liz has gone through with the Jason/Lucky drama? It's much easier to just ignore character motivations and push plots, no matter how illogical they may be. It's quite annoying--I'd almost rather them not show me flashes of brilliance, because then I start to get upset over squandered possibilities, while if a writing staff is just moronic and untalented, I know exactly what to expect.

(While we're talking about Maxie, I would just like to take this time to send a brief message to Kirsten Storms: Kirsten. Honey. Please start eating. You're so pretty, but you're wasting away to nothing. I swear, if I wear my hair in a ponytail, the ponytail is thicker than your arms. And your legs are just---I actually gasped at one point in yesterday's show because your legs were like toothpicks. Please. We worry!)

I'm super thrilled that Sam is getting yet another backstory. I don't think that's happened enough during her three and a half years on the show. And it looks like it involved another sleazy man and a possible murder--you know, combining Sam and Laura's death tolls is chilling. They're murder machines!--which hasn't been done before. Oh, sure, this time is slightly different because it involves a creepy Fivehead, but come on, we've seen it all before. I'd rather see Sam hanging out with her mom. Does Alexis even know that her daughter is world famous?

Speaking of...the scene where paparazzi were following Jason around was the most hilarious thing I've seen in years. I laughed until I cried. I can't even imagine how they came up with this plot "Someone does something heroic...ish, so she goes on the news and the response to her is overwhelming and then she gets her own show, and she's so awesome that the press starts to follow her criminal boyfriend around!" If this happened in real life, I still think that my local paper would probably put it in a tiny box on the front page under a story about wildlife or something.

And why has no one said, "Our newest media darling is dating a man who murders others for a living. That's screwed up, yo". And yeah, it was nice that Fivehead got off that line about Sam looking like a mafia bimbo, but, um, hello, remember when she was the mobster's pregnant kept woman living across the hall from him and his wife? And why has no one pointed out how obviously evil Amelia is?! She's always vaguely sinister, the only way she could make it clearer is if she wrote it on her forehead (that way, people could see it from space).

Then there's Alexis and Craig. And you know what? I want Nancy Lee Grahn to be happy. I am a firm believer in the notion that Nancy Lee Grahn is about thirty times more amazing than most of the people on this planet, so I want her to have fun playing Alexis and I will normally turn a blind eye to the ridiculous situations that Alexis is put in like suddenly having a daughter that she never mentioned in her ten years on the show and, you know, Dobson, because it's so rare for an actress over the age of 24 on this show to have any sort of significant screentime so I usually just suck it up and deal with it, but you know what? I want Alexis to be able to talk to men who aren't (a)obsessed with earning the undying love and devotion of Carly and (b)psychotic. I mean, wasn't Ric bad enough? Must we immediately put her in Craig's orbit? She has cancer, she lost custody of her daughter--you know what would be a happy ending? Making her spend time with the mastermind behind the hostage crisis! Yay! Especially because you know this will lead to all of Port Charles angrily screaming at her because she didn't hate Craig on sight and why she must be an evil sympathizer. But Alexis wasn't at the Metro Court, she doesn't know it's Craig, you may say, but we aren't watching a reasonable show! This show might actually put Alexis on trial for the hostage situation just because they can.

Plus, for an evil mastermind genius criminal type, Craig is pretty much not good at what he does. Was the girl hostage taker the brains of the operation? I'm sure she wouldn't have thought of a lame "Force Robin and Nikolas to pretend to be dating! LOL!" plan. I'm pretty sure that Baby Spencer is like, "Dude, that's the best you can do? You're troubled."

I don't even have the energy to complain about how horrible and embarrassing this love triangle is. I just don't. When your storyline consists of a war over marble, you know it's terrible. Scratch that, when your storyline consists of a woman marrying and sleeping with her fiance's mortal enemy while the fiance is helping a family member, you know it's terrible. Wait, no, when your storyline consists of a woman torn between an upstanding citizen and the mobster who shot her in the head while she was giving birth to his child, you know it's terrible. On any other show, the person who once shot his wife in the head while she was giving birth to his child would have been shunned and hated by the rest of town, but on this show he is both the romantic ideal and the moral compass. 

This effing show...

- Promising Ingénue

Comments

[Anonymous]

I totally agree with everything you say and I really enjoy your comments about GH!

Seeing that you are a Patrick/Robin fan, have you seen this?
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-soapnet4apr04,0,1662931.story?coll=la-home-entertainment

I'm really excited for Night Shift now and isn't that the most adorable picture of them you have ever seen?

[Esther]

I'm sure she wouldn't have thought of a lame "Force Robin and Nikolas to pretend to be dating! LOL!" plan.

OMG, is this not one of the most stupid, lame contrived things this show or any has ever done? Can you just picture the writers' meeting? Guza says, "Um, Robin and Patrick and Emily and Nik seem pretty solid. I really can't think of anything to plausibly break them up to keep storyline happening." And then Elizabeth pipes up with, "Hey...I think you hit something with that 'plausible' part... why do feel like we have to be slaves to plausible? If not, imagine the world of opportunities out there!" Insanity! This is such tripe and I think NLG is the only thing making me able to turn on this show that could be written better by pre-schoolers.

Love your site. Cracks me up!

[RevengeMaiden]

The best part of the gawd-awful writing on GH is reading your comments the next day (or so.) You both have more writing talent in your left pinkies that the entire staff of GH writers (if that is what they call themselves these day) and producers have in their collective bodies.

What is with a story entirely about criminals and mobsters?! Yes, I guess it would be difficult to sustain a show about medical staff and keep in interesting to the viewing audience for any length of time (...cough..."E.R."...cough..."Grey's Anatomy"...ahem), but, good golly, can you at least TRY?! Oh, and while were on the subject of rooms and beds, how about a bit more SEX! We have been fed a steady diet of angst, anger, murder, mahem and drugs and very, very little romance and love-making. Where are the men's hot bods? Where are the steamy sex scenes? Where is the romance? Maxie and Cooper have very little on-screne chemistry, but we are so starved for a bit of romance, even those two appear to be hot.

Regarding Patrick, the unbelieveable hot Jason Thompson, writers, take note: have him get out of the shower, wrap him dripping wet in a waist towel, reach for something in a drawer and begin to cry when he sees a picture of Robin. I would forgive an entire hour-long episode of dirt poor writing...nee, nearly an entire week of lame-ass writing, if we could see a nearly naked Patrick in tears. *Sigh*

Question: what is it with poor Nicholas and the writers constant attempt to drug him. First it was the evil nanny, Colleen, drugging him. Now, the lame-ass-ideas Craig is drugging him. Is this all poor Nicholas is good for? If I were that boy, I would hire a bodyguard to (A) test all my food before I ate it and (B) protect me from poison injections from instruders. People, this young man is a PRINCE with more money than nearly all of PC combined: why doesn't he have security, for eff's sake!? Hmmm?! Makes me wish that Helena would come back and kick some Craig ass!

Speaking of kicking Craig, if Sonny is such a bad-ass mobster, why isn't he out there with a vendetta to mame, torture and otherwise kill Craig? Do you think that Tony Soprano would put up with the crap Craig pulled? What is Sonny busy doing? Whining about Carly. Dude, grow a sack, turn your back on the blousy broad and hunt down Craig. What kind of mobster are you, anyway?

Jason (besides needing to seriously rethink your hair products), you need to set Lulu and Spinelli straight: no one barges in on and talks to a hit man like they talk to you. What is wrong with you, dude? Give them a menacing look and show them the door and tell them they are not to speak to you again unless spoken to. End of discussion.

Hey, GH writers, for years Liz & Jason have had eyesex and Jason has pushed Elizabeth away saying that his life is too dangerous and he can't get involved with her. Now that Elizabeth is pregnant with his child and she wants to raise the baby with Lucky is a safe environment, Jason is confused and conflicted. Really, really? Jason, you are a mob HITMAN. How is that a healthy environment for a child, hmm? Yes, you and Sam weren't too worried about it, but who know what new backstory they would have created for Sam if Jason & Sam had decided to have a family. Perhaps they would have discovered that she has PMDD and that is why she can't stop crying.

Just a note: I thought it would be kinda interesting if, in the one in a million chance that Jason and Elizabeth get together, perhaps Sam and Lucky could get together. Perhaps Sam's checkered past (putting it mildly) and Lucky's boring present could (given a new writing staff) evolve into an interesting future. In the event, their combined moniker would not be "LuSam", but "Sam & Lucky"..."Sucky." LOL. Guess not...

I will sign off now and leave the brilling writing to Promising Ingenue and Evil But Twinless. But, before I go, I would just like to say: Zedis Lapedis, Kirstin, eat something!!!

Keep up the great work! -- RM

[Lauren]

Jason and Liz are the perfect couple and even though they cant be together cause Jason's life they will be together. Did I mention how much I hate Sam and Lucky cause the get to be together and Liason cant that to unfair!! I wish that Sam and Lucky would just die!!!!