carolineg

I read MB's biography during Covid and he was offered a contract for Damian and a recurring, short term role as Sonny. He's mentioned it a bunch of times elsewhere too. He chose Sonny because it was shorter term and if he hated it he could leave and pursue other opportunities. Obviously MB didn't hate it lol. Sonny's rise was really well done. It's was a combination of luck and determination. First with Frank Smith's death, then Damian's troubles, then Sonny takes out Joe Scully, then marries Lily and her father "dies" leaving him money and power. A lot of events just fall in his favor for him to rise to the top, IMO, and he grabs them. Damian or his family would have been a much more solid Pikeman backer then any of this Wagger nonsense, but I guess it's not to be. I never have been a huge Steve/Kayla fan, but I do think they are good enough as a couple. Stefan/Katherine somehow managed anti-chemistry with one another.

I think Katherine was much more of a challenge for MBE. Katherine was really what I knew her from because her time on Days was a bit before my time and it was almost jarring at first to see her as sweet Kayla lol. I have never really had too many good things to say about Katherine's run, but I never blamed MBE. I think pairing her with Stefan just really ruined anything fun about the character. Plus, it ruined a perfectly soapy Bobbie/Stefan pairing which I really did like. I liked LM as Damian too and his story always felt slightly unfinished. Like perhaps there was more to do with Frank Smith's son? I always think it was crazy MB was offered Damian or Sonny and chose Sonny. I can't picture him as Damian at all.

Thanks for all your feedback and memories! Some things get a bit jumbled in my mind especially if I was not super invested in it. I remember Mac/Holly more in that era more than Felicia/Mac. I thought Scott was with Dominique or it was heading that way at that time, but it makes sense that I was off by a few months or so because edits especially warp the passage of time lol. I don't remember much about Mac/Dominique at all. I do think there was something there with Mac/Katherine honestly, but it got really convoluted really fast. It's another one of those things that on paper seems like a decent idea. So if I am getting the timeline right Ryan/Felicia happen first, Maxie's heart issues next, Felicia and Frisco conceive Georgie and she gives birth, Felicia is at the brownstone and meets Tom, and then the Kevin stalker stuff happens? Considering Kristina also looks a bit similar to Missy Reeves I can totally see how that makes sense. They just went the wrong way with that romance. Thanks about Tom. I knew MA's was but for some reason I thought Wallace's Tom had a larger role at the hospital maybe more administrative or head of something as well?

It's truly comical. Out of all the actors, characters, humans in the universe RC could have focused on he chose a Cheetwood brother. I suppose he had a nice body, but I don't think he's very good looking and not RC's usual type. And acting certainly wasn't his specialty. Maybe Ron was getting a deal on Monavie from him or something.

Cameron's father is Zander. Lucky is Aiden's dad. Ah...the time RC tried to make Milo a thing. Don't remind me. I remember several episodes that just showed the actor shirtless working out with ER's new Lulu and I couldn't.

I don't find baby stories particularly interesting most of the time, but Lulu's were especially unnecessarily convoluted. It's a shame the show decide to basically make two young lead heroines baby machines and not give them real stories. Out of Maxie and Lulu's entire brood only Rocco is useful now and that just happened within the last month.

Britt stole Rocco and it is Dante/Lulu's. Valentin stole Lulu's embryo for Charlotte who I think was given birth to by Bree Williamson's character via IVF. Lulu gave birth to 0 of her children. Maxie miscarried the surrogate Lulu/Dante child then got pregnant almost immediately by Spinelli and tried to pass now Georgie off as theirs. Violet is Finn and Hayden's child.

I agree that I don't think Sonny is on to Ava at all. I still think Sonny has been in worse places and his behavior isn't that erratic yet to where people would be concerned. They way you and @titan1978 explained it did make me re-think my take and I suppose you could say it's a long time coming, but I didn't really notice it. It's kind of like you can tie all of Sonny's current behavior back to Nixon Falls, but I don't think that was the initial intent and PM/EK (if they are responsible) just made a very conscious choice to go that particular route. The imbalanced medicine is really a great move for Sonny's motivation and it does open a lot of possibilities outside of Sonny just being stubborn and wrong. Julian Jerome is Sam's dad.

I sort of wish the nickname stayed Max. Although I used to Maxie as name by now it will never not remind me of a feminine hygiene product and gave me lots of giggles as a teen. With no actual evidence, I tend to agree the Lucy/Kevin stuff would work for Scott/Lucy and Kevin/Felicia was perhaps the original plan. Hard to say because Kevin certainly needed some levity to the character and Felicia as a partner would have messy. I could see perhaps Tom/Felicia being molded into an alternate version of Kevin/Felicia but their actual romance was weird. I think MA's Tom was a psychiatrist, but I think the previous version of Tom was just a regular Dr. I could be absolutely wrong though. I always assumed Tom was supposed to play more into the Simone/Justus romance and Labine lost interest or her whole story was compromised with RC's untimely death IRL.

Okay, so this might sound wacky, but I think it was because she thought Tom was stalking her, but it was actually Kevin, who was having a mental breakdown. I think the show toyed with Tom being the real stalker because he was being a bit suspect. Tom/Felicia break up and he sticks around through the Laura is presumed dead story and is in on the plot and I think just goes back to Africa to be with his son. I feel like when he left Felicia might have been on one of those long trips to see Mariah in Texas, but I could be wrong.

I think my worst fear is Ava being up to something and it's working and she pulls back because she loves Sonny. It will all blow up in her face and she'll look stupid again. I have little use for Ava myself, but I can't deal with another woman being changed by the love of a short, greying, shouty, past-his-prime mobster with a million kids.* *Obviously, this doesn't refer to my feelings on the eventual Sonny/Brenda reconciliation lol. Meh, Sonny's been in worse places. Starting in the late 90's he was drunk and going through depression when both Lily and Brenda died and very isolated. He was worse when he was with starting his romance with Emily (sorry to bring that up) before he was diagnosed and when he was off his meds when Brenda left him and tried to kill Jax and shot Robin. IMO, this isolation and manic behavior started quite slowly and is a bit understandable when you think about his life circumstances to the point where people around him wouldn't necessarily think he was off his meds or ill, but just in a bad place.

I don't think the wrong choice was made regarding Lucy/Kevin at all. I do remember Felicia and Kevin having a vibe, but the timing was probably way too off given Felicia was pregnant/just had a baby and the Ryan situation. I can't recall if Felicia/Tom was a Labine creation or mostly Guza, but the idea sounded decent on paper and I don't think MA/KW were without chemistry. The relationship just played out so oddly sexual and cringe-y. It was still playing out in 1997, so a few writers had a hand in it I suppose. The Mac/Katherine stuff was a mess from the beginning, but they last surprisingly long all things considered.

That I don't know. It feels like such an odd pairing to me, but so does Felicia and Luke and that happened. Didn't Scott have quite a bit going on at the time? It's so hard to say with all the behind the scenes upheaval. And the show couldn't figure out what to do with Holly let alone Mac. I have a feeling Mac might have always been in mind for Felicia, but as a temporary pairing. I do think the show always wanted Jack Wagner back permanently although I don't know the timeline between this and his gig on Melrose Place exactly. I also wonder if the show at some point wanted to do Felicia and Kevin, but decided that was too dark and they moved her to MA's Tom instead and put Kevin in a lighthearted Lucy pairing.

I would suspect Valentin would immediately throw Ava under the bus because he's a wuss like that lol. The way MW is playing it makes me think she's up to something, but does have feelings for Sonny. Unfortunately, that's my least favorite part of this (potential) story. I could see Ava being pretty high on the fact she's getting all of Sonny's attention and trust, but I have also seen this story played out before with Sonny and (insert random FBI agent here).

Yeah, I have to see him onscreen. Since AP is 22 or so in real life it's not too awful, but JMM had a pretty young look to him.

I know Ava is playing Sonny or at least I strongly suspect that. I just wasn't sure if it's likely that she is also working with Valentin. If Valentin is the good guy and working with Jagger and the Feds I can't imagine they would be okay with him tampering with Sonny's medicine. I hope Anna/Val don't reunite. I was assuming Nina/Valentin would reunite because that would really mess with Sonny's mind. And think of all the fun schemes unhinged Nina/Evil Valentin could come up with to screw with Sonny, Carly, Ava, etc.

IIRC, they started moving Mac and Felicia together during the Ryan story. She was still married to Frisco for awhile when she came back. Although I appreciate JJY as Mac I do think he got quite lucky with the Felicia pairing. Mac would have been truly gone ages ago without it. He pretty much floundered in every other pairing he had, but most were pretty ill conceived and not entirely his fault.

It makes me sad they had Tate offscreen for so long. I really like JMM. I wonder if JMM was hired to be temporary when the show intended to have JL played Theresa for a brief story. Is it just me or does this new guy seem a little old to be romancing Holly? Especially now that I know he's engaged to the actress that plays tempSloan lol.

This makes a lot of sense to me. There were a lot of red herrings in this Pikeman saga and I get the sense PM/EK finally decided where they wanted to go with it, so I can buy that explanation fairly easily. Valentin having a relationship with Anna makes sense and I agree Charlotte unexpectedly ruined that, but it seems his feeling for Anna were real? Even Brennen mentioned as much. If controlling Anna was so critical to his plan I find it strange that Valentin made so little effort to prevent the break up. Oh well, most of this can be easily explained away. So, do you think Ava is working with Valentin? Or has her own agenda to take Sonny down? And, yes, hire someone for Lois! It's ridiculous to have Lois in one scene yesterday which amounted to her hearing about Dante and hugging Olivia. If you have Rena around you would think you would use her.

That's what I thought. I, um, have bailed a few people out back in my wilder days for much smaller crimes, but not in the state of New York lol. Anyway, I liked today's episode. As generally boring as I find Sam/Dante, Kelly Monaco really does seem invested in this pairing and showed some real emotion. Lois really needs more to do. Like please make that a priority PM! Idk why, but Jason just strolling past the guard into Sonny's penthouse was hilarious to me as was Jason just absolutely letting Carly fight his battle for him. I think MB was infusing more erratic behavior into Sonny immediately today even though it all adds up over time. I would also think Olivia would call Sonny to tell him Dante was awake instead of using a smiley emoji filled text lol. The Ava/Sonny stuff is still pretty interesting. This entire Pikeman story was clearly entirely changed. Valentin is still a pretty weak sauce villain to me, but I am open to it. I sort of tuned out on the whole Pikeman saga, but I am not sure if Valentin being the mastermind actually adds up. I haven't seen every back from the dead story, but the few Brenda scenes where she explained she had no id and was considered dead, willed her estate to Jax, and Jax/Skye got married and their divorce was contentious and making the asset transfer difficult was the only time I have ever heard a character say coming back from the dead was hard in the most basic ways lol. Days doesn't even touch it, although Jason did allude to it today a bit with the money situation.

I think Jason has plenty of money. I am just not sure how easy it is to access since he was legally? declared dead and his assets were divided up. I remember Brenda in 2002 talking about how difficult it was for her to get any of her money and assets since she was legally declared dead and had to borrow money from Jason, so I just consider it rule of thumb for all back from the dead soap characters.

I don't think Michael has to pay literally 5 million just a bond. If Jason's charges are dropped or he's acquitted he gets the money back. I am pretty sure Michael gets the money back after court fees and what not even if Jason is guilty as long as he doesn't run out on trial. ETA @Dion beat me to the answer lol

Yes! Definitely. There have been many times over the last decade or so that I thought Brenda was barely relevant. But with Jason, Jagger, Lois, Sonny, Deception, etc on the canvas, she actually would fit in seamlessly again. Not expecting it, but it would be a delightful surprise. I would probably prioritize getting one Laura child on the canvas before Brenda, but again the show is very invested in Sonny and his women so it could happen. You could easily also bring her rando son in to join the Joss/Trina/Dex scene.

Thank you-please take care of yourself! I just had some travel, work, and personal engagements come up. Nothing serious! Just no GH time. Thanks! Take care as well! I think any extra prayers for a Vanessa return are useful though😂 I just don't think it's happening even though I can clearly see where Brenda could fit into so many of these stories. Obviously, I think Brenda makes everything better, but there are a lot of places where it would be easy for Brenda to explain situations better (ie Jagger/Jason/Sonny) or be that model with an edge (yes, I know she's 50 plus, but still more dynamic than Sasha), or put Ava/Nina in their places in regards to Sonny.

Oh good! Hope Charlotte gets all the help she needs far, far away for a long time. As far as GH overall, I had some real life stuff get in the way of me watching consistently, so I had to binge quite a few. I am caught up with every show, but today. I see positive changes and I have enjoyed Jason's return thus far, but I think I need more time to really evaluate. There are definitely some more interpersonal scenes that feel more right and true to character. I am, however, just used to GH starting stories great and petering out in the end. At this point I see changes and am optimistic. So I guess I basically have a non answer lol. I don't find the teen boys as awful as some although I do think they are very interchangeable at this point and I might have gone older with Jake, Danny, and Rocco at the very least. I know you like Hudson West, but he's a bit up and down for me.