Serial Drama

A Happy Return and a Good Laugh

I admit I have extremely mixed feelings about Todd Manning on General Hospital. Sure, part of it is that it's bittersweet to see any Llanview residents in Port Charles because it serves as a reminder that One Life to Live is no more. And in many ways it would be easier on my heart just to imagine the characters living on happily with their families. And while I really love Todd Manning as a character (I phrase it that way to emphasize that I find him compelling, not that I think he's a super-swell guy who I'd really root for in real life), my very favorite thing about Todd Manning just happens to be Blair. So it's hard to see him without her -- even broken up they're better in each other's orbits than outside of them. Not to mention one of the coolest things about how they've developed his character over the years is that they resisted the urge to turn a gray-hat former gang rapist into some heartthrob who went from hot relationship to hot relationship. We've only ever seen him with Blair and with Téa (and in both cases, these were not typical romances by any means), and sexual intimacy has always been a careful issue for him. And that is so important to me. If you're going to pull that standard soap trick of turning a rapist into a viable leading man, it's the only way I can stomach it. I absolutely in no way, shape, or form, ever ever want to see Todd bounced from leading lady to leading lady and put through the usual battalion of chem-tests. I will lose my lunch. 

And, since I've launched into this dissertation, another thing that worried me was that we already have Sonny, a bad boy who gets away with tons of stuff but who genuinely loves his family and sometimes his woman and always has a gaggle of people making excuses for him, and do we really need another? And yes, I find Todd a million times more compelling because of his self-loathing and his constant battles with himself, but still. Might it be too much? 

So I was nervous. Very nervous. And today I was reminded why there's so much more that differentiates him from Sonny and the number one characteristic? Humor. Sonny is rarely written to have much of a sense of humor and, in fact, is quite frequently such a depressing wet blanket. The trademark Todd Manning humor was a breath of fresh air for me today.

So for now, I am cautiously optimistic and very glad to see him. For now. And he apparently is free of all charges due to PTSD which, ha, but it would be a pretty easy case to argue considering what he'd been put through for eight years (although I loved that his original version was that they acquitted him because his mother didn't love him!).

Also, I love how people (especially Sonny) on this show routinely point guns at people and threaten to kill them and then either change their minds or are somehow thwarted and it's either witnessed by or admitted to the police and nobody ever gets arrested for attempted murder, ever. Because attempted murder is not really a crime in Port Charles. And now Starr's locked up for it. I can't say I hate Michael for it, though, because it stops the cycle. I know he did it for childish reasons, but honestly if he'd ever been held accountable for flirting with crime early on, he might not have gone in the direction he did. (Of course here I am applying psychological growth principles to GH, when we know full well Starr won't "learn" from this because... well, soaps!)

It Gets Cuter

Seriously, what is wrong with me that I am so enchanted by the One Life to Live babies and toddlers? (Shh, don't tell my parents, they'd given up hope of my giving them grandchildren long ago and we do not  need to encourage false hopes!)

There's just so much cheek-pinching to do. Y'all? They dressed Liam as a baby seal.

I cannot take it. And with his "daddy?"

I mean when the situation is that cute? It's tempting to root for Brody's secret to stay secret. He's fighting for something so adorable, how could it be wrong?

Tell me again why this man has to go all Crazy-Eyes and threaten people and lie just to get a wife and child? 

Second (+) Lives for One Life to Live Characters, Installment #2

Hallelujah. And I mean that.

I'd been wondering where the list of returns was. So far the list was small, just Kim and Langston and Markko (and the last two don't count as they were just there), and that seemed insufficient considering the barrage of announcements we were getting about All My Children returns. But then I realized the timing. The cancellation announcement came just over 3 months ago. OLTL got a three-months-longer lifespan than AMC, meaning right now is when we can start fairly comparing how AMC is wrapping things up with how OLTL plans to do so (this "they'll live on online" business has yet to take any credibly shape, so I'm speaking as if it's full cancellation till we get any real information). Today it begins.

And right on cue? SWEET MERCY SOMEONE UP THERE LOVES ME. Because Cord and Tina are coming back!!! Honestly if that hadn't happened I would've been seriously mystified because it's probably the most obvious return of all, but hey, we soap viewers are used to being mystified by the choices of the showrunners.

Allow me to gush with no shame. OH EM GEE CORD AND TINA.

I also feel it's important to go on record and saying if they're reuniting these two, it would be unacceptable for them to come back already reunited. I need to see this onscreen. NEED. (Isn't that picture crazy, y'all? Look behind them, remember when soap weddings used to mean huge budgets and a cast of extras by the droves? Now we're lucky if 1/10th the contract cast is there.)

Now This Is Just Not Playing Fair

Call me old-fashioned, but try as I might to see them with other people, to see them as other people, I'm a sucker for Viki and Clint. I've loved their friendship, I've loved their romance, and I've loved both of those with both Clint Ritchie (I seriously get misty even typing his name) and Jerry verDorn portraying Clint. Maybe it's because Viki and Clint's love story was the first major story that really drew me into a soap opera. Maybe it's because it's Erika Slezak and two men with wild charisma. Maybe it's, uncharacteristically, writer after writer on this show getting one thing very right. I don't know. But it gets me every time. And today?

Clint: I'm not the man that you married. 

Viki: Twice. I think that's proof that maybe you weren't all that bad.

Clint: Maybe not back then. But I changed.

Viki: Everyone changes, Clint.

Clint: Yeah, but you're supposed to get better with age. You did. And maybe I would've, too, if... 

Viki: If what?

Clint (with tears in his eyes): If I had somehow found my way back... to you. I was my best self with you. Hell, I had to be because you wouldn't settle for anything less. And that is what I'm going to take with me. Knowing that there was one point in time where I did something good. Because there was a certain someone there that brought it out in me. Dear Viki, I'll die owing you for that.

Viki (now with tears in her eyes... and most certainly in mine): I think... I think we'll call it even, huh? 

I just have one question: why are they trying to kill me?

Second Lives for One Life to Live Characters, Installment #1

We have to assume that in the months to come, we'll be getting a string of actors returning to One Life to Live to re-visit their former characters, whether they be characters from way back when (c'mon Karen Wolek!) or characters we've seen more recently but might come back one more time to wrap up a storyline somehow (Alex Olanov? Tina? [pleasepleasepleasepleaseTina] Cord? Mitch?). I've said before that I don't think we're going to be getting many of them till closer to the finale date (I'm thinking the parade, if there is one, will start around late October), but we did indeed get one announced today: Amanda Setton will be back as Kim!

Now we all know I've always been very quiet about my feelings on Kim. Virtual silence here. I barely even remember what I thought of the character. I wonder if her departure bothered me? It's so hard to think that far back. I probably completely forgot her after she left.

So, you know... cool.

Reunion Time, In Brief

So they found Liam. Or sorry, John found Liam, because he is King of Heroes. All of it very anti-climactic. And really, most of it about John. John looking longingly at Liam as Brody reunited with him. John looking sad when Brody thanked him for finding his "son." Characters elsewhere blathering about John and how John is really Liam's father and how Marty somehow thinks telling John that would absolve her of all the murdering and attempted-murdering.

Somehow this:

...is worth less than lame-ass broody sour-faced John McBain. I just can't get how a John-and-Natalie reunion is the root-for scenario here, especially because it's been telegraphed from miles away that Liam's paternity will be the game-changer that leads them back together and, yes, that still drives me nuts since it changes absolutely nothing about why they broke up. But I'm a broken record with this one so I might as well just give up. The kiss was cute, anyway.

I don't know who he is, but this kid playing Brad absolutely cracks me up every time.

 

I don't know what it is about him. Maybe it's because he's so miserably miscast for a bully (not just because he's so much shorter than Shane, but also because my quick read on him would be that he's a "class clown" type), and maybe it's because of that hilarious shit-eating grin he gets every time he and Jack are being all evil. I mean I know we're supposed to hate him because he's just a one-dimensional bad guy , but I have to say I'm giddy every time he shows up. (I think, perhaps, that giddiness and laughter are not the hoped-for reactions to this storyline. Oopsie!)

A Ghostly (?) Visit I'm Not Even A Little Conflicted About

Presented without comment, unless "OH MY GOD, JOSH DUHAMEL, YOU GUYS! LEO! LEO! I don't even care how they bring him back. I don't. I don't care if it's Greenlee having a vision of what could have been--I'd relish that, actually. I don't care if it's David having a vision of what could have been--I'd also relish that, a lot! I don't care if he's another angel welcoming someone else into heaven, which is a distinct possibility since this is ABC Daytime and they love killing people off. I don't care if Leo is alive with amnesia and living in New Hampshire. I don't even care if Josh Duhamel and Leo's famous leather pants just stroll through the background of every scene in an episode without any explanation. I DON'T CARE, IT'S LEO!" counts as a comment. It might count as a comment; it definitely counts as mental illness. Anyway: LEO!

Josh Duhamel back to All My Children for a cameo!

In a classy show of gratitude for the show that helped to jump start his career, Josh Duhamel has agreed to perform a cameo on the soon-to-be shuttered All My Children.

Duhamel will reprise his role as con artist Leo du Pres on the ABC soap, which is set to air its final episode in September. The film actor, who went on to star in NBC’s Las Vegas before appearing in flicks like Transformers and Life as We Know It, will appear in an August episode (or two?) of AMC.

LEO!

The Bold and the Beautiful: Week In Review

Jumping into the middle of the Liam/Hope/Oliver triangle right now on The Bold and the Beautiful is a little hard to to because it seems so truly bizarre. Those of us who watch soaps are pretty used to its tropes and the beats of a triangle, but here we are in a situation where Hope is essentially dating both Oliver and Liam and trying to decide between them, and both of them are completely okay with it. To be fair, Liam is pulling a little harder for his side put this poor little cutie Oliver... I mean, what does he stand to gain from this? Is there something in it for him other than the heart of this girl? He just sits around in rooms with her while she talks about her feelings for Liam and waits for phone calls from him and actually has the nerve to use him as a sounding board. And yes, it's pathetic of him to sit around and take it, but if she had a little more decency it seems like she would just cut the poor kid loose. Is he more nefarious than he seems? I do realize he has a darker past but he seems to be on the level with this one, and it just feels off.

While I say that Liam is pulling a little harder for his side, I guess that's a stretch considering he basically just accepted getting dumped by text message and has already made out with someone else without even speaking to Hope about what's going on. But it sure is haunting him in hilarious ways!

These articulate, heartbreaking texts are literally hurling around the air assaulting him! (Scott Clifton continues to be a trooper.) He should totally sit around being confused about them rather than going to talk to Hope for clarification!

Whoa.

Well, folks, I'm at a loss for words. Wait, here's a few. By now many of you have probably heard the rather enormous news that Roger Howarth (i.e., the original Todd) is returning to One Life to Live. Wow. I admit I did not anticipate that this would ever really happen. I thought we were all just supposed to be in a massive state of anxiety right now since we keep being told that cancellation is imminent! And hey, it may still be. Bringing Howarth back and somehow explaining the Todd we've known for several years would be a pretty monster farewell story, but I'm not going to muck around in the worst case scenario here.

I don't really even know how I feel about this. I think Roger Howarth and Trevor St. John are both highly talented actors (and I might add I have a lot of respect for their non-soap work in particular), but also that they both can have a tendency to telegraph their own boredom or frustration in their acting. This could very well light a fire under both of them, and of course I'm dying to see how they're going to play this. I hate the character Todd right now, of course, but he was once a fascinating character study. Never a great, swell fellow. But fascinating as a fictional individual. We don't even know at this point if he is coming back as The Original Todd Manning, so I shouldn't go too crazy with speculation. But they definitely have my attention.

If he's really Todd, I sure hope he's had a bird to confide in during his time away.

What's everyone else thinking? Am I the only dope that's shocked here?

Poor Little Bobby Ford Feels Like Crap

Cry me a mothertrucking river.

If you check in here often, you probably knew this was coming, and I'm happy to deliver. Well, "happy" isn't the word, really, because I am still seething today. I am not seething only because of today's episode but also because I made the foolish choice of exploring various pages and message boards to see what the general viewer consensus is and I've learned that I am clearly insane and watching a different show from much of the viewing public. Apparently there is an alternate-universe One Life to Live out there that also has a character named Ford who has recently found out he has a biological son, but in this alternative universe, he didn't get this biological son by sexually exploiting a mentally ill woman, he did it during a run-of-the-mill one night stand and he is, in fact, a really decent guy who needs to rescue his son Ryder from a handful of evil people -- and this handful of evil people has a ringleader named Brody. Brody is super-evil! He has the nerve to hate this innocent Ford who has truly turned from a player into a wonderful man all for the sake of his new li'l boy! That bastard Brody! 

See, on the One Life to Live I've been watching, Ford did sexually exploit a mentally ill woman and, doing so, neglected to use any sort of protection and impregnated her. He then blocked the mother of his newborn son from getting the professional help she so desperately needed and planned to live in a home with her alter (a woman who has attempted to, in fact, blow people up in the past) having regular access to said infant and wants to completely restrict the child's mother's family from having any contact at all with the child. This includes the child's sister. Any bonding that this baby did with his mother or his mother's side of the family in the weeks after his birth has been deliberately cut off by Ford, and he planned to continue this arrangement indefinitely. Possibly forever.