Vee

I would argue that's the only scene anyone remembers or cares about from that whole pairing. It was brilliant. And yes, Maurice already looked old next to her. Which is striking when you go back and look at clips, where he looks vibrant compared to today lol.

The show could be very misogynistic and mob-centric in those years, but many of the woman still had distinct personalities and relationships. That's the difference between too much of the show today. I think both John and Zach on OLTL and AMC were real mixed bags at best lol. John had a decent intro period and early romance with Natalie at first before it quickly got bungled, but it was also bound up in a very flawed storyline that alternated between being gritty and true to life or hilarious and campy depending on the day (the Music Box Killer). His earliest material with the two Walker/Todds, Atlantic City follies and Natalie the pool shark didn't help either. After mid-'04 I lost all interest in John and pretty much considered him dead to me til GH rolled around, where he actually fit. I haven't seen any of it in decades but I'll be the lone wolf and say I thought Jax and Sam could've worked at the outset if they'd stuck to the initial brief which was high adventure, treasure hunting in the '80s GH mold, etc. Or at least Sam herself staying in that mold. When Kelly first appeared on the show she looked dramatically different from goth queen Livvie, was cleaned up and scrubbed and looked for all the world like a young Ali MacGraw to me. It was striking. The Dead Man's Hand thing got real silly real quick but they still could've had more fun with her or those two. Instead, because the network had forced it by giving them a squish name at the outset in promos with no audience support ("Jam! Catch it from the beginning!"), because Guza already hated Jax at that point and Frons had bigger stars to move her on to Sam instantly got turned into a mob moll/Brendabot. It was so obvious at the time too, they were desperate to get Maurice competing with Carly and Lorenzo again with a big star. And it was gross and didn't work. (I even seem to recall something about Sonny pulling a magic sword from a stone as part of one of Sam's capers - imagine inserting him into classic GH fare like that.) Her vixen era was Kelly's only great period on the show. It is ridiculous people let her do that. It's got to stop.

Good lord. She actually has snuck out of the hospital and no one's seen her yet. Come on now. Don't do me like this a la Lucky's return.

I think the scenes were very well done with Bianca and Michael, and how he sort of psychotically cottoned on to her and talked himself into their having a relationship they didn't. I revisited them a few years ago and they held up production-wise. I just think, then and now, that doing it was repugnant and a convenient excuse to desexualize her and elide the network's fears of the character (which would probably be far more pronounced today ironically). It took many years for them to even go near active sexuality with Bianca again, and only then in very scattered ways with Reese or Marissa. At the same time it can't be denied re: how it turbocharged story for Bianca and the whole family. It's a very difficult thing.

It's true! I've heard all sorts of things about Jason Beghe over the years but he was so sexy on MP. I didn't know that about Bill Brochtrup at all.

I agree with all of that. It was a nasty tradeoff with Megan, who knew the show and its families well even as she plundered it. I do remember when she came back with much grand flourish (just like Frons' reinstatement of Malone at OLTL and Guza at GH around the same time, all three being creative teams who he felt were quintessential to their shows - and to a certain point he was right). A lot of material IIRC was centered around Pine Valley celebrating the fourth of July or some other big event. That was a classical soap opera setup that felt uniquely appropriate for AMC's suburban Americana, even if a lot of the events that unfolded (Bianca's rape and IIRC David almost poisoning half the town or something) were pretty ugly.

I thought Higley retconned them into being Roman and Kate's. I could be wrong.

If Alexa spends the rest of this week sharing scenes just with Cyrus Imma riot. Or worse, we'll get the Frank/Chris/Korte special. Just like Lucky in Africa, it’ll be a month of Lulu trying to get out of this hospital and playing gin rummy with the nurses til Jason inexplicably shows up to bust her out instead of her actual family. Stay tuned for January 2025, when Jason helps rescue James' new dog from a fight ring.

This entire trial is delusional and a timewaster too. Someone has got to sit Kristina down and slap her around with the truth.

Damn! Liz already has three kids!

I'll get to today's show later, but upon further review of yesterday: That was not Kelly's most flattering photo up on the dais in the church. The side eye it gave all Sam's former rivals at the pulpit at least screamed 'still hate you bitches!' Carly should not have been up there with that same old cliche line of hers though, no matter how matured their relationship became after Jason's first death in '12; Sam still had smoke for Carly as recently as a few months ago, and they spent the bulk of the last two decades trying to beat each other's ass. Legit thought Kristina was going to get up at the pulpit and start talking about the damn baby BTW. "Not all of you attended My Daughter’s funeral, so I feel it’s actually appropriate to circle back! Some People [death stare at Molly] and the fake news would tell you my daughter was not named Adella, but here before God we know the truth, just like Sam did!" Thank God for some restraint. I am glad they had Lucky up there talking about Sam, since this is the first time I can recall the show ever acknowledging they had a relationship of any kind since Jonathan returned to the role. Even here they don't explicitly mention Lucky and Sam were romantically involved though. JJ's reaction shot in the back during Liz's speech was like "Did I fúck her? 🤔" Rocco's blue suit was a ilttle too fly for a funeral, but that kid did do a great job again. I will grudgingly allow that Asher Whateverhisname was very emotional in the pews and various reaction shots, more than I've ever seen him be but he still was far too contained at the pulpit itself IMO. I am annoyed Michael didn't speak and annoyed at how disengaged Chad was way in the back. Sam helped raise that little shít in the Dylan Cash years and onward. Nice montage at the end (minus Sonny/Sam) but BITD in the pre-FV years they would've let the silence with NLG alone in the church play a bit longer and not cued in the girls or the music so fast. Alexis' eulogy was beautifully done BTW.

Oh, I have no faith in the writing lol. I just think JJ is doing his usual fine job despite that and will always be a boon to the canvas.

I wouldn't call JJ lowkey most of the time, lol. He could certainly ham it up. I just think they have him doing so little atm.

I liked them in the 2000s when they came back out of nowhere. I thought that was organic, and I'd already hated Jason for years up to that point. Again it was a case where the older versions of the characters were more compelling - Liz as a woman who'd left that life behind and Jason from a totally different world. Since that ended I've lost all interest. Every brief attempt since has felt pathetic to me. Liz would never go back to that after the life he's led and him abandoning their son. And their fans are delusional at this point IMO.

They absolutely do, which only makes the Liason stans on Twitter madder. And I wasn't a big fan of the couple as teens either - I loved Lucky but the two of them together were too saccharine back then and bored me. I do think they're great together as adults just as I did in 2009-10 and should be reunited, since it's what both actors and most of the general audience want. It's a supercouple license the show has always shied away from for bullshit BTS reasons that have nothing to do with any logic. He's just the first in a line of suspects. Next I guess is Liz and Cyrus.

I think CM is as good a Drew as any. As I've said many times the character has almost always been a Jason-shaped blank slate. It's only in his position as a corporate tycoon and now a schmoozing politician that he has gained any definition. Cameron plays that well. I don't mind scheming Drew Q or villainous Drew Q - it's a classic Q archetype as many have said. I do lament what could've been had PM's take on this story not left the building, but as it is I am fine with him taking a hard heel turn and riding that out as long as they can. But I do think many factors including Willow, Michael and now Sam's will are cruising towards a murder mystery. (And if Korte gets her way it will 100% be Nina lol) I could take or leave Drew if you can keep his machinations going longer, but I do think this show is due a solid murder mystery.

Agreed. I may find the writing repetitive and tired for Lucky's return, but I think his absence has to be explored somewhat honestly and upfront. This is the show's attempt at doing that and it makes sense given his pattern of behavior Lucky would try to leave again when things went south, but the taping schedule and very surface-level writing and circular, tread-water storytelling (probably due to the schedule) has Lucky repeating scenes and actions over and over, instead of explaining how he got that way. Nonetheless, JJ always commits and any time he's in scenes with Genie or Becky I'm totally locked in. It's all right there despite very boilerplate stuff. I just wish the show was worthy of all their talent and was writing up to it.

I'm not going to dog Jonathan who I think has been doing a fine job with lame and lazy material, lol. He never fails to show up. I look forward to seeing them all together. That's a function of the material though, which has left Lucky a deadbeat for the last 15 years.

Alexa definitely has more grit and visceral weight onscreen as Lulu than Emme, as she always did. That classes her closer to JMB's popular version, but unlike Julie Berman Alexa has never been hard or cold onscreen. That's a big part of why she put Babe over in spite of truly atrocious/slanted writing.

It is insane. I guess the fundie life will do that for some women! But I am very happy she's here.

I do too. Missing that is very careless, Sam never got over that loss. It was a major moment in her life and she and Jason would've made sure about how the baby was remembered.

It is very clear (and has been for weeks) that it is ineffectual jewel hoarder and insomniac Sidwell a.k.a. NuCyrus a.k.a. NuVictor a.k.a. NuPeter a.k.a. NuShiloh. This is all so boring. It's the only stupid story Frank, CVE, Korte, etc. know how to do and they do it over and over and over with a series of unthreatening characters. We'll all next be expected to act shocked when omigod!! Sidwell is Natalia's ex and the father of her stupid children! Yes, as we had to hear ad nauseam at the time. Baby Lila was almost as canonized as Lila Sr. for a while due to her proximity to Jason and Frons' favorite starlet. You'd have thought that baby was B.J. in those days. Soap Twitter these days has goldfish memory. They've been redoing flashbacks on this show since at least Laura Wright's debut as Carly. Looks like more prime setup for a murder mystery, and I'm not hating it.

LMAO the cast purge in OLTL '91 is absolutely brazen and should be a model for doing these things in crisis mode today. Kerry Nichols gets bumped superfast in mid-late July, and now Andy #1 and Hunter Guthrie are being quickly cycled out of town. (And in a few weeks IIRC Rika Price is out too, and she's not alone either.) Amidst this rapidly concluding romantic B-storyline Father Tony walks into Wanda's to abruptly tell Andy and Wanda that he too is leaving. "My bus to Philly leaves in an hour." Exiting actors talking about their exits together and then GTFO: That's what I like to see! GH needs to take a page from this posthaste.

Very true! But I seem to recall his stamp being on a few eps before his official start date, namely the big Wagger speech after the shootout at the warehouse (or wherever), Dante's shooting and that fallout and Kevin's big scene with Marshall and his family re: Black misdiagnosis. That was what, a week or two before? And we know for a fact he was brought in to redo the Jason return storyline which officially started at the beginning of March and proceeded to quickly implode. So if I'm directing someone to watch that era I am telling them to head for the beginning of March (technically a few days prior actually given what I remember seeing in Quartermaine scenes, but never mind).

Honestly a lot of the PM era is probably readily available on YT. He started very early in March and while there was clear interference and mess all throughout I don't think his stamp fully left the show til maybe mid or late July (though Drew and Willow kissed around the 4th). You could probably poke around and find a lot. (Anna still cried way too often though, as she has done for years.)