Vee

Carlivati was fired in summer '15. Passanante and co. took over in late summer-early fall IIRC, and the first order of business from the network was to wrap up the endlessly prolonged Robin saga (in which RC circa 2012 had faked Robin's death after Kimberly McCullough chose to quit during the Garin Wolf mess, then had her rescued in '13 and immediately had her forced back into captivity again in early 2014) due to fan outrage. Patrick saved Robin in late '15 and they left Port Charles with Emma very early in 2016 IIRC. Not long after JT joined Y&R. Anyway, we're far afield.

Oh, he looked mortified. Once they got to the 2013 Nurses Ball where she 'transformed' into a plasticine princess and he was supposed to be enraptured by her, JT looked both baffled and lost in a fog for much of the remainder of his run. He enjoyed working with Kelly Monaco later by his own account, but the story was still bad because under Carlivati normal male characters are mostly clueless dupes for scheming vixens or eye candy. Only the 'edgy' guys or villains get a POV. So Patrick, Dante, etc. all lost most of their personalities and nuance from the Guza years and simply because slackjawed sperm banks. I know JT came to Y&R full of vim and vigor and apparently enjoyed working with Gina Tognoni, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's lost the passion there after years of playing Podcaster Billy, DID Billy, etc.

I haven't looked in much in awhile but I cannot imagine JT (who has aged a lot) looked more suicidal on-camera than he did on GH during the FV/Carlivati regime. After coming on during an era of strong scripts with some layered male POV (however misogynistic and mob-centric during Guza II), from 2012-2016 he looked like was experiencing slow cellular death everyday. Dominic Zamprogna clearly struggled in the 2010s too before briefly leaving.

They've all taken long breaks. Starting with Kirsten Storms, over and over and over. Genie, Finola, etc.

They do and it's deliberate. It's a character thing, which makes sense to me. The Vanessa they've known for years is not the one who has gotten in deep with Joey in a short time.

I've seen my share of her before of course, but watching so many of these recent classics clustered closely together in the early '80s (as well as exploring some of the later decade) reminds you just how versatile and durable a character Tiffany was. She could do almost anything, including in her intro eps and during the Ice Princess climax in August, etc.* I still don't know if she was supposed to have had a prior romance with Sean before the show or they just got set up with that scheme. It felt like they'd been together forever not long after they wed. The later Tiffany stuff in the '90s @DRW50 and @dc11786 have talked about and I should explore more wherever it's appropriate in '92 and '93 - it seems like they heavily leaned on Jackie and Sharon Wyatt for big angst to help keep the show going while a lot of other experiments in big new stories or couples either swam (Jagger and Karen, Mac and Felicia, Ryan, Scott and Dominique) or sank (Bill/Holly, Nikki Langton, Paul and Jenny, etc). What I don't get about some of these recent uploads is why did Noah dump Tiffany and then lose Bobbie in a matter of what, 2-3 weeks? Why did Bobbie drop him? With her having just come back to town only a month before? He really was a player. (- It gets dogged sometimes up against the Pat Falken Smith stuff of the previous year, but I think a lot of the Ice Princess story really holds up)

Dee casts her eyeline towards Suzanne Rogers' hair! One giant leap for mankind.

The AMC finale was lumpy, but I think part of Agnes' key point was that Jack would never be enough for Erica, that her quest for more would always be a part of her.

I love hearing him mention them all but especially Walt and Darnell. I know DW was an acting coach BTS around that time before returning onscreen in '08.

Finola is off contract today, which is troubling. Hopefully it's just a contract cycle hiccup til she returns and not a health thing (or Frank shafting her, which I doubt is the case).

I suspect they will pull Laura out again soon, or when it's time to finally bust Leslie for what she did. It seems like they had planned that for December when they thought the show might not be renewed.

Woof.

Different strokes. I never need to see Derek again in this life. He and Tomas are still the single weakest links on this show.

No it's not. 10 to 1 we find out in six months Stella faked the results. I would write them out together or kill one and let the other leave town immediately. Either way, they gotta go. Isaiah is also terminally boring and can go.

"Hi Mom. I'm doing good." She didn't ask, James! I’d give Britt a moment’s peace if she called Portia Co-Chief of Sluts. But only a moment. I also would've be down with her being like "DR. ROBINSON, THE FATHER OF YOUR UNBORN CHILD IS.... YOUR HUSBAND!!!" since they were out in the damn lobby. Georgie, nothing upsets James. He can’t act.

Oh, Valentin, don't smell Charlotte's hair while whispering 'mon petite' or tell her 'you weren't supposed to tell anyone.' 😬 I am convinced Frank does not actually watch these scenes in the control room and just lovingly rewatches grainy YT clips of Will Cortlandt on AMC. Sonny and Lucy were almost as fun together as they were back in the '90s. Lynn actually perked Mo up a bit. Again, the only value Sidwell has to me is as a foil for her and Ava to bounce off for a few more months between them in a marriage of convenience or con, etc. til he ends up dead. Carlo Rota is fun with them but both deserve far better. @DRW50 you will be pleased to know Van Hansis camped it up again to the nth degree after listening in on Sidwell and Marco.

No.

He sort of is, but the whole feud with Sonny has been a sideline at best for a long while. His entire storyline is about international intrigue, the WSB, Faison, etc. His primary scene partners these days are WSB/DVX people, Britt, Ava, Lucy, his son, the evil gay butler, Drew - Sonny, etc. are way down the list. Sonny and Jason just spend time complaining about what he is doing with other people and taking almost no action themselves. I prefer the Guza-era writing team to this one, but I will never be truly sorry the mob era is over. They broke the back of the Guza leads early in Frank and Ron's tenure and it never really recovered despite a few rallying points. But the last 3-5 years or so, for better or worse, have finished it. There is no real, substantive difference between Curtis' relationships with Portia or Jordan. These characters are all interchangeable and have no real personality, other than what BK imbues to Portia onscreen. DT barely acts and Tanisha Harper has never been able to. And that anonymous bubble is how FV clearly likes the Black characters. For PR purposes he can say they exist, are on contract and are cloistered largely among themselves so as not to upset that only viewer base he engages with. In a few years there will be another clueless lovestruck interloper like Isaiah, or one of the women will go and another will be added to play the exact same storyline again. I noted only a couple years ago when Curtis and Portia got married that they had the temerity to reuse 'the Ashfords' on some signage at the wedding, not long after Curtis and Jordan's overhyped wedding a couple years before that, and wondered if anyone involved got confused. It will happen again. I expect Stella to have faked the results or something to keep this going on and on.

Anyone who says the mob still dominates this show need only watch the last few weeks. 90% of Sonny and Carly's scenes together (or even in general) in the last year are recapping non-mob plots led by Britt, Sidwell, Michael, Willow and Valentin. That's at least 50-60% of Jason's as well, the rest of which are spent with Quartermaines. And now: An hour of Sonny being a romantic sounding board for Lucy Coe. If Guza were dead he'd be spinning in his grave.

Hot take: I would be here for an old-school Y&R-style doomed affair between the boss and the assistant. Psycho Hayley is incensed when Bill ends up cheating on her not with Dani (who he can't currently have) but Caroline! It would not last since Dani and Bill are inevitably going to reunite, break apart, etc. for years to come, but it would be a nice entree for Caroline into the upper echelon. And she'd keep him on his toes.

Thanks for this.

I do like Caroline and think they should add people for her. But I've been saying that about Mona re: family since Day 1. Jen Jacob is very lucky they hired Jordi. They work.

I don't think they're gaslighting us about Vanessa. I think Vanessa has always been that delusional. It's baked in to the character.

I don't care about Isaiah. He's just not interesting. None of them are interesting except Portia when they're not grinding her into the ground. I'd cut them all and fix her character. Exactly. Who is this for? No one. It's the old FV stand-by: A baby story to fill time.

I root for neither. Curtis is a test pattern and Isaiah is a bland simp. His whole personality a year and a half ago turned out to be a) Lucky and b) his beard. Then homie shaved.