Vee

What I didn't realize is that it was apparently Gabrielle who first came into contact and had dealings with DuAnn. I regret that her final episode or two in '91 apparently isn't available.

There's too much floating around there about why RA may or may not be back and I find it irresponsible to repeat it or speculate. I just know I'll never care a tenth as much about Curtis as I do Taggert, and I miss him a lot. As for the Heather mess, while I think a lot of last week's early episodes around the holiday are fairly strong they are definitely writing Portia way OTT re: her very valid issues with Heather, and that (like the goofy Ava situation and the handling of Natalia) is agenda writing and biased BTS. They want the anti-Heather side to look unhinged so suddenly Portia is claiming Elizabeth(!) and the Quartermaines are all in Laura's pocket, and ranting at the top of her lungs. That has a racial aspect no one left currently at the show seems to care for. I would honestly end this with one good monologue for Genie with Heather, talking about the good old days in her cherished youth with Rick, Lesley and Jeff and the old household and how much she loved Heather’s poor long-suffering mother Alice the housekeeper and tried to associate Heather with that and a link to a loving past that's mostly gone. And how she can’t be sure what is happening to Heather or what she will become, but remembering all she's done to people in Port Charles (and she can go through the list) Laura says she can’t have her here or do more for her. And depending on how Heather's mind turns out in future, she can say she wishes her to get well, serve her time or both, and then ships her off to an extensive high security rehab facility somewhere, and that’s it. Just put a bow on it and then end it. At least that way you leave the ambiguity for the future; maybe someday Heather comes back semi-saner but still bad news, maybe her treatment does nothing at all. But Laura has done the right thing and the story is over. But FV never says die on favorite actors or stories unless absolutely forced, so here we are.

Same. It guts the character, unless in the end she brings him in herself (or kills him while they're away and alone, which I'd be fine with).

In fairness, I would not call this the height of great soap.

The problem is he thinks he can manage story. And no one has been allowed to challenge that for long in almost a decade. Last Monday (7/8) with a good portion of the cast arrayed around the Fourth and Drew Q's coming out party and the spark of the Willow/Drew kiss is great stuff IMO, as is Mac and Cody in the following episode, etc. But now a lot of it is just strangled in its crib. It's so frustrating seeing good material and players wasted when there is a lot of raw material there.

Not everything necessary, but a good and desperately needed start.

I think the worst thing they can ever do with Ava is domesticate her. The problem is that is where she has languished for a number of years until recently - for a number of years under D&C she was inexplicably getting along fine with Sonny, with Carly and many others, breaking bread and socializing away. They were treating her civilly or even with friendship. That makes zero sense given their history. Ava is a power broker and at core a vicious criminal. So is Sonny, but he has longtime cachet with the town she never had. Ava's power base and social base is a select swath of the town. The other problem is the audience, which cries foul when Valentin turns bad, or when Ava breaks bad again or torpedoes her inexplicable relationships on the canvas, like the odd friendship with Nina (who had a grudge with her going back to Silas Clay and her pregnancy and coma in the '90s). They want nothing bad to happen to their favorites or nothing to change, and then they call it ruining the character. This is who Ava came on GH as - Ron Carlivati had her gunning down Connie and letting her choke to death on her own blood on the floor of what is now Nina's office because a) he has no sense of long-term proportion and b) they never thought Ava would turn out to be a lifer, when Maura was only supposed to do first a few days on the show and then maybe a few months. But a lot of people say she's changed and it's character assassination. It isn't IMO. What is problematic is the current story, where Ava is bumbling about with rinky-dink schemes like the Natalia recording which are small potatoes while Sonny is acting like she blew up another one of his kids. That's not the level any of this should be pitched at, nor should Ava be in the hot seat over what Natalia said. Ava should be making a whole different league of trouble. The Sonny/Nina, etc. fans wailing about Drew and Willow, etc. I have no time for. At least a fair amount of the audience finally admitted the Drew/Willow kiss and the Nina FWB relationship was proper soap and are mourning its quick dismissal.

I'm pretty sure the idea of making Valentin the head of Pikeman (which did track with the original story developments) was PM's. It put a character beloved by the previous creative regime and the current EP (Frank) in an untenable and possibly irredeemable position. I believe Mulcahey also wrote the key reveal episodes with Valentin and Brennan himself. It was good work. At that point, with Ava discovering Sonny's meds were tampered with and keeping quiet and Valentin in turn discovering Ava had found out, it seemed as though the show was on course for the two of them to link up and conspire together for their mutual interests. Then it went on ice, probably in part due to FV's guarantee shuffle and probably also due to creative strife BTS, and then things changed. That's all been flushed now: Sonny has suddenly remembered he should hate Ava and is overall behaving much more reasonably and kindly all over town, the newly-estranged Kristina and Dante have leapt back to their father's side yet again (after those wonderful scenes with DZ cutting him out after the wedding fiasco with Dex) over the fuckin' Natalia recording of all things, Ava is out of the penthouse and has no real place in the conspiracy. On one hand I am actually glad the show is finally remembering Ava is not some nice person for Sonny and co. to be buddy-buddy with, and I'm glad they're bringing up Connie, etc. It's important not to lose sight of what she is. But right now she comes off as a bumbling cartoon. The setup PM inherited with Sonny and Ava at the penthouse, which he turned into Ava becoming the Iago whispering poison in his ear, made sense because she'd done it before and was on track to go somewhere interesting IMO. Now it's back to Good Sonny and the world vs. Ava, which is boring to me. And meanwhile the wretched Charlotte is suddenly back from limbo to make us weep for Valentin and Anna's love. Nor do I think Willow/Drew/Nina will last much longer, which is a shame bc the big political rollout eps with Drew Q around the Fourth of July, with the town watching the press conference, etc. and a lot of umbrella reaction stuff was solid IMO. I do think that unlike Blake/Ross/Holly, the mother (Nina) was to be the endgame but who knows. Given the way things are going now with the sudden 180 on the story I am def down for a Ryan's Hope-type scenario. I just think it's such a waste of potential, because Watros, Cameron and even Katelyn MacMullen are doing solid work. Old fashioned soap. Don't get me started on the handling of Natalia again BTW. It's disgusting and it's about FV wanting to hire and then wanting to keep another big soap star - nothing else. I don't think Wagger is relevant either. I don't think bringing Karen back has any purpose (Scott has other daughters). Wagger had a handful of good scenes when PM came in to write. What has he had since? Nothing. Wagger was just another 'give us brownie points for bringing back an old character' hire by FV before the HW change in March, and now he does nothing. I'm not gonna squee and fanboy out every time they pull out some old name from the GH Wiki for a mid recast.

Not the same writers, IMO. Mulcahey's name is still barely there but he's pretty much out of the building judging by a lot of swift story and character whiplash (Ava, Willow/Drew/Nina, nice guy Sonny, Natalia) in recent weeks.

It's ruinous writing, especially because Anna and Robert are easily the most qualified people in town and always have been. But I suspect it's all to try and salvage Valentin again. It's no coincidence IMO that they dragged Charlotte back from oblivion from this. I won't lie though - seeing Kirsten so reenergized and bossing up after years of depressing drabness makes me get back on the Michael/Maxie train I've been riding for over a decade. I'd still probably recast him and/or wait but I'd go there.

I don't think he's missing either tbh. But when faced with the prospect of another year of Brennan or Wagger a recast Jax is looking less uninteresting to me lol.

You were right, this is hysterical (particularly in the original aired episode vs. this replay where I think they reshot for the next day). Any time I see DuAnn Demerest she comes off like some sort of Hanna Barbera cartoon character to me, but Linda Thorson is swinging for the stratosphere herself. They're both completely deranged.

With the sheer tonnage of pointless nobody characters atm I've begun to reconsider trying a really solid Jax recast tbh. At least there would be a sensible reason to pair Carly with someone and there are roots and history if anyone cared enough to invest vs. just having Jax wandering around like he did a lot of the last decade (or two). This Brennan, Wagger, etc. shít is terrible and they are clearly stuck re: her and Jason. It's that or my preferred option, wait for Cobra Kai to end and Brad Bell to get bored and do the right thing for Sean Kanan lol.

Thanks for this - I'm still in fall '86. I saw Susan reappear briefly I think during the anniversary and of course they brought Emily back not long after, so I wasn't sure when exactly she came back permanently.

I was wondering how long they'd string that out. So classy of him to keep this going for so long.

They're wonderful rants! They've definitely lessened any focus on Danny and Jake over the last few months, as PM's influence waned. I don't think SLs were stalled as an excuse to deliberately tank ratings - I don't think FV operates like that in terms of the bottom line, ever. I do think stuff like the now-endless Pikeman saga, etc. stalled out due to BTS turmoil and likely different people at the show being at cross-purposes over stories or actors, and possibly other issues (like May sweeps vs. July 'sweeps', PM wanting to cut the cast and allegedly not being allowed, and the rather salient point that Jason and Carly, who seemed primed to be reunited, have zero romantic chemistry). Now we see the Willow/Drew/Nina story (which I suspect would've ended with Drew/Nina as endgame far down the road) likely coming to a swift and nasty end prematurely as Mulcahey's tenure wraps, and that's probably not by his own hand. We have Ava out on her áss vs. playing Sonny, and we have FV favorite Valentin's place in things remaining very murky as Anna catches feelings all over again. I do think Jacqueline Lopez was very good in her monologue eviscerating Natalia. I just still don't see much of a character behind Blaze, and I don't need to watch one more minute of Natalia period.

This has been happening for months. Carly goes over there and spills everything the cops are doing to Brennan. Why? She looks like a total idiot but it seems like it's all about them chemistry testing LW and flailing wildly because they know her and Steve aren't working. Carly constantly spilling everything to this dayplayer bad guy is ridiculous.

Trump hates anyone or anything who pulls focus from him. He will be shivving Vance soon enough.

Same thing happened with several roles on OLTL and AMC before the premiere, IIRC.

Why are we just randomly grabbing names of people we barely know from the existing production? That's not what this show needs.

I still wonder if it had in another ideal universe been up to Mulcahey alone if he would've tried to go back after SJB, lol. He was obsessed with her work. But that may just be wishcasting my own brain, as I still would though I think Laura has always done a solid job with often dreadful material, particularly since the 2010s. Felicia has been mostly totally redeemed from her disastrous late 90s-2000s period over the last decade-plus. There's no need to ever do anything like that with her or Mac again. I think Cam will be back in force eventually. I have my doubts it will be William Lipton though, as he's just got a regular position on a new Amazon show (for whatever that's worth).

No, we're not 'clowning.' Some of us actually suspected an undercurrent with Cody and Tracy for months now. You don't have to agree with it.

Gross.

I don't think Jason/Carly is going to happen tbh. I think they've feinted at it and toyed with it (and the exiting team wrote the hell out of a few scenes for them, particularly when he moved back above Bobbie's again and told her about his tattoo) but it's never been popular with the audience with LW in the role and they don't have romantic chemistry. Which is why it keeps dragging out. I don't think they have any idea what to do with either of them romantically atm - I think EK/FV, etc. just know it won't be Liz or Sam or whoever else. I do suspect the old stories about Korte not caring for Elizabeth or for Jason's non-Carly/mob relations are true. I also think everyone still at the show is looking for a way to keep Valentin, sadly.