carolineg

I have never been much of a Lulu fan, but I do find her necessary on canvas. I don't think the show ever got the casting exactly right, but JMB was pretty decent toward the end of her run and did have good chemistry with DZ. I don't hate Rylan as much of the rest of you. I thought she was okay. The show gave Dante/Lulu a lot of stupid stories through the years (especially with the kids) so I give ER some grace on that. It was very clear that the show was trying to marginalize Lulu as much as possible by the end of her run. That being said, I would try for JMB first although I don't know if she still acts. If not, I am positive there are at least 15-20 blondes with daytime experience in the right age range that could play Lulu better than Rylan. I still like the idea of Marci Miller. I do have a slightly hard time imagining her with teenage children even if I do think she reads a bit older than her age.

Interesting. I guess? I honestly don't know if Jason's current story is much better, but I guess it could be worse lol.

I'll be honest, if all those characters were really part of their plan I want to read the full breakdown. I can't imagine how you would connect that all together unless all three were being held hostage by some silly villain.

You know I agree with this, but it really seems like it would solve the Sonny/MB problem. Sonny/MB would get that automatic buzz/bump just from the pairing, Vanessa could do the heavy lifting in the story because Brenda's just not as played out, Sonny would still be a "lead" as long as he's paired with Brenda, and MB would get a female lead/co-star that he's extremely comfortable with. It's an easy way to take the load off Mo with the added bonus of helping the character of Sonny gain popularity back. There are a million different ways to bring Morgan back. I can't imagine how on earth Susan Moore would make any sense. Anyhow, I thought Dan & Chris got canned for their Jason return story not Morgan's.

I often wonder why the show doesn't pull the trigger on bringing Morgan back. I would recast, but the show seems to like Brian Craig enough. It seems like it would bring so much drama to the current Ava/Sonny situation. I don't really care at all about Morgan in general. It just seems weird he has never come back.

I always thought Luke was moved in to help redeem Sonny along with Brenda obviously. Luke's was cool and to me it just made Laura seem so much more of a homebody because she was barely there. Laura on her return just felt like she outgrew Luke. They still loved one another, but just weren't that compatible anymore. I don't know if I ever thought Laura/Sonny had chemistry. I was so lost in a Brenda/Sonny haze I probably could not comprehend such a thing. Lol. They always worked off one another well though. She could be very fiery with him when pissed off. Laura was always styled old. It's hard to believe she was only in her early? 30's at the time. I know she gained weight like @BetterForgotten said, but I also think Genie preferred that style of wardrobe. The flowy, earth mother style was popular in the mid 90's, but most of the other cast members (even Bobbie, Lucy, Felicia, etc) went with tighter fitting options. I also think there is something more wholesomely, naturally beautiful about Genie Francis/Laura that didn't exactly fit in the sexier 90's if that makes sense.

I think TB does just fine with the character of TJ. He's been on the show for almost a decade, but I know very little about his personality. He's always been just a pretty decent guy. The default now is anger at Kristina, but this character is very ill-defined. I think TB just kind of works with whatever he's given and doesn't have a super strong perspective on the character and the feelings because the show just started giving him one 10 mins ago.

I actually don't think the actress that plays Connie is bad. She is given material that is so stupid and so silly I think she's doing what she can. I think it's very similar to what Kim Coles was given as Nurse Whitley. It's so bad your only option is enthusiasm and camp.

Thank you for so many awesome suggestions. I'll definitely take a look since I am sure most is available On the bolded, do you think it was intentional to keep Luke "in" with the younger crowd and Laura mostly in a more mature role interacting with the slightly "older" crowd? Even down to her styling being a bit "older" considering Genie was still quite young? I am not thinking Laura should be grabbing drinks with Brenda, but I think Laura/Lois or Laura/Lucy could have had more solid friendships. It seems like an effort was made to mature Laura, but keep Luke "hip".

I am so confused as to how Stephanie easily got her old apartment back when Chad had to bunk with Maggie for months lol. If it was vacant this whole time why didn't he and the kids live there? And why does Stephanie need an apartment big enough for 4 people? Today was boring. I honestly don't care about this Ava/Stefan stuff at all. I think Ava is mostly useless. I love TB, but why is Ava still on canvas? Tripp is gone. Harris is gone. She should have left when Steve did.

Now that you mention that article I absolutely remember Claire saying that lol. I think in my mind I might have been confusing Tony's disdain with her characterization of Luke for her own perhaps? I don't know lol. I am sure the maternity leaves/scheduling was probably the main issue for Laura. Since most of my re-watching is through Sonny/Brenda edits Luke just seems to have so much more to do. I would have to really watch Luke/Laura edits to judge again. I have a hard time remembering what Laura did before Nik arrived besides the Ward House/Damian Smith murder.

No, I definitely remembered the convo about Marci Miller and I agreed with you for once.😂 And I couldn't stand Miller as Abby.

I can see what you are saying. I took a few peeks at scenes from Laura in that era and she was always talking about Luke's need for danger and excitement. I do get it because Luke was always doing stupid things. I think this is where the narrative begins that Laura tried to "tame" him or whatever. I wonder if Labine just didn't like writing for Luke and Laura (or mostly Laura). They aren't exactly the type of character or couple that Labine excels at and she tried to mold them more into what she wanted more than what made sense. I can only imagine their schedules were a bit of a nightmare for writers as well. Labine seemed to do better for Tony/Luke, but Laura was often left behind. I think I just understood Laura's annoyance and worry because Luke was always doing obnoxious things he didn't need to.

I agree Sam's absence today was actually a bit glaring-and I don't think I have ever typed these words before lol. Days might do something like this, but I doubt GH would. It makes zero sense. Surrogate lady (forgot her name) didn't get paid for her services, would have had to pay all medical bills/child expenses, already had her own children, and was said to be traumatized by the miscarriage. What would surrogate ladies gain on this scheme to keep the child away be? Most likely down the road Molly will adopt or magically get pregnant.

Yeah, I am not mad about the change. I pretty much hated the story from the beginning. It just feels like a even more sudden shift than even Ava's. Alexis/TJ were talking about it until the moment Kristina was wheeled into the hospital. I figured they would establish Kristina didn't want the baby and then kill it off.

I think there is a lot of places to go with grief, regret, sadness, etc. etc. The story could have been easily played with TJ/Molly/Kristina all being on the same page with the baby though. I was dreading a custody story and it would have been difficult for Kristina to be rootable if she decided to go that route with her own sister. I just don't know why we had to hear about the possibility Kristina might decide to keep the baby for months. Probably. I doubt Mansi cares much about the ending. It still gives her a lot of material to play.

It seems like there was definitely a change of course in the Molly baby story. Why did we have to hear conversation after conversation about Kristina keeping the baby when the baby was killed off anyway?

Honestly, Lois and Olivia were the only ones who really used the Brooklyn accent. Sonny nor Mike never did. Connie worked to lose it. I think Joe Scully Jr. and Sr. both had a slight one, but it seems to me Labine was committed to Lois having one as part of her creation of the character and the show never cared much. Since we don't know much about Gio's mother aside from the fact she was a talented musician I think it might be possible she never spoke with an accent, so Gio never started either. I was going to bring up Ingo yesterday as his accent diminished over time, but I personally could still hear it. If you watch 1996 though his accent is very thick. JJY had to be a creative decision. He was not good at the accent at all, but he did start with one.

Honestly, thinking about it the show was pretty dark for the rest of the 2000's lol. I think Guza was still taking him very seriously in 2003, but by summer of 2006 he just gave up and embraced all the trashiness. That Summer of Sleaze was really *peak* GH trash, but I am not going to lie, I enjoyed some parts of it lol.

It seems to me they are just very quickly trying to redeem Alex without doing any of the work.

Agree with everything you said about Guza. I never thought about Labine regressing Laura. I always thought her pushback with Luke's antics made sense given where she was in life. Finally getting her house, finally able to stop running, Lucky growing up, getting pregnant with Lulu, etc-Luke was always just about to ruin that stability. I wasn't terribly familiar with Luke/Laura's 80's story back then, so maybe a re-watch of it now I would have a different opinion. I find the show starts going off the rails before Sonny shooting Carly, but that is a really dark period for the show. I know people praise the Panic Room story, but I find Ric just an awful, gross character-and I enjoyed early Liric so I was giving the guy a chance.

Mostly the Kelly Monaco push. And the obvious pivot from Guza thinking Vanessa was going to re-sign so there was a lot of scrambling to figure things out.

1997 was bad but Guza wasn't at fault. He was gone. You could feel the moment he was even ghost writing back. Cast departures were rough in 98-99, but that wasn't exactly his fault either. The replacements they tried to bring in for Robin and Brenda were trash. Carly is basically what he had to work with unless you had a Chloe/Hannah based show lol. Again there were a lot of mistakes. But it didn't get bad bad until 2003 IMO

I totally get it and I am not really disagreeing, but is it possible Gio tried to lose his accent? He went to Julliard and maybe he tried to tone it down a bit? I am not saying Gio screams born/raised in Brooklyn or anything, but I thought maybe his classically trained artistic background and schooling might make a difference. I don't think Brook Lynn or Dante really have accents either. They use more slang that seems to align with Brooklyn, but don't have noticeable accents IMO. Olivia and Lois are the only ones that actively try to use one.

I believe I have said this before, but I don't think it would have went well. I love Claire Labine but she excelled at writing stories that were going out of style by the late 90's. I also think Claire was creatively spent by the time she left GH and the show was a bit depressing. Guza brought more action and drama that was necessary to compete with Days that was surging. Guza was pretty great in the beginning as well. Do I think Guza should have been canned long before he was and was overall detrimental to the show? Absolutely. I just don't know if Claire would have been as revered or if her writing would hold as up as well into the 2000's.