Vee

Kristina may be frustratingly blinkered and selectively amnesiac about her father in many ways, but that's in character IMO. She was Daddy's flaky little girl under Lexi's tenure for many years. What matters to me is how much KM is carrying most of her end of that age set. I was impressed they let her mention Ava and Connie - in the same office where Ava murdered the woman.

I couldn't stand Laura supporting Esme, because it was clearly the writers/EP in love with Avery Pohl and desperate to redeem the character. It went on too long. AP is very talented but there was no need for a year-long amnesia tour trying to soften the character with the audience, and yes, it did devalue Trina. I got the distinct sense that if that HW team and Frank could've pulled off pairing Spencer with Amnesia Esme, they would've. I was waiting for those two to sleep together. They clearly teased that romance option and in doing so played into the hands of the racist portion of the audience. Heather is a more complex case for me - there is history there, it's not about sidelining the interracial pairing and AM is talented as well. It's also a unique story turn I didn't expect. And I feel Laura has been there for Trina. So I'm open to it. I got all that, yeah. I saw the motive. But it still went on far too long and she was far too committed to her. It was the show trying to use Laura (and others) to put Esme over as redeemed, IMO.

I can see that, but that also depends on the actor and isn't always the case when one half of a pairing goes (especially with the FV guarantee merry go round). And I do think Laura and Trina got a pretty fair amount of time together right after Spencer hit the drink (and again today, apparently). But I'm less hard on the Cyrus or Heather stuff because I think these scenes Laura has had with her relations have been surprisingly very good since the writing change - especially Cyrus dropping the man of God nonsense. I'm not going to begrudge what I think is good material. There's a bunch of people who apparently think Laura's gotta go for being there for Heather. I don't!

I don't blame them unless it gets into the area of "GH MUST reunite Spencer and Trina ASAP with NAC in the role!" That's not likely to happen right now. And they can miss me with jailing Laura, or whatever.

I think that was still what Frank tried for after she got paired with Spencer, lol. He was only somewhat successful. Regardless, Trina's love interest just got written off dramatically and the show is undergoing a writing change. The character is going to be recalibrated and yes, sometimes on less whenever something like that happens. I'm not going to assume the worst just yet. Especially since elements of the fanbase are wildly unrealistic if they expect a) Spencer to be recast immediately or b) Chavez to return ASAP and play out a reunion. Neither is likely to happen any time soon. it also remains to be seen if

Hit dog, holler, etc.

You can tell this Times expose has hit them hard because it even has Peter Baker and Jonathan Swan, who usually turn up their noses as above it all, out defending Sulzberger.

At the very least he's not free or on the streets. He's still serving a 16-year sentence for California.

There will most likely be a retrial. We got it at the same time.

Sorry to be the one on this.

@DRW50

IIRC once the strike material ended or close to it they had Jake drop in a line about him and Charlotte no longer being a thing. Thank God.

That's the hope.

I wouldn't either really after all these years, but I do think Drew and Nina's crazy pairing and scheming is the most fun thing on the show right now lol. I'm down for more of it. I've turned a corner on worse characters. And God no, please no more romantic Valentin. With anyone. Let him be the bad guy and go.

Honestly all it took for me was some sharper, more mischievous writing recently (leaning into Watros' innate comic/campy sense of the character, though Nina has been a spoiled, unstable and hyperdramatic rich girl since Michelle Stafford) and a very hot sex scene with Cameron Mathison. Those two are old soap pros that know their business. But yes, I agree with you, she's had too much stick in the last year or two ever since they were apparently forced to put her with Sonny lol. I do think Drew is more intrigued by her than he is willing to admit to anyone, starting with himself. It's an old soap staple. He put in a good word for her to Willow the other day for no real reason. Chem test with RoboJordan aside, I suspect Nina is the plan there assuming CM/CW stay on the show..

We complain about the characters or stories a lot, but it can't be overstated how much stronger the Quartermaines have been as a family/story core since the 2000s ended. CD's Michael began gravitating heavily to the family following the prison rape around 2010-2011, and has stayed in their business sphere before and after A.J.'s return. He became close to Monica, Tracy, Ned, etc. Michael's wife and children are all very close to the family and are considered part of the next generation, and all are seen with them fairly often - Michael and Willow live in the Q gatehouse, I believe. Same with Drew and Monica. Jake has also spent a lot of time with Monica and the Qs in general since his resurrection; this became such a throughline when Billy Miller was around that once Steve returned they tried to retrofit the closer relationships BM's Drew/NuJason had with Jake and Monica onto him. Olivia, Ned, BLQ and Leo are mainstays. We saw Danny and Jake at a Q family party just two months ago. So yeah, while I may find Michael, Willow, etc. tired and think others should be brought in for the family, the Qs I think are a pretty active and vital family today. Wasn't sure it would ever happen again.

Same! And I have wanted Nina's ass gone for almost a whole decade (until very recently).

I did LOL at Anna silently taking the axe from Ned at the bachelor party. Great moment.

There's no endgame there as long as Vanessa Marcil is alive IMO, lol. When this show goes off the air or MB quits or retires it will be Sonny and Brenda, hopefully not just with her coming back at the end. I do think multiple regimes have known for many years Maurice and Laura just don't have it, and FV parked them together to try to keep the show stable and thought the FB, etc. or casual audience's loyalty for them would carry the day through endless mind-numbing couplehood sagas. Then that ended for a variety of reasons, probably not by his choice. It's always been a stopgap with LW in the role. And now that they've broken apart again I think it's more likely to stay that way than it was for far too long. JMO.

It has always felt like a low-energy effort in those many years of the show merely treading water and holding space with FV trying to keep FB fans happy. Then MB clearly asked to be paired with Watros and things changed.

Changed my life on the PP soaps. Though they really probably shouldn't have sprung for the Rolling Stones in one of those last eps where Jack Manning banged his teacher when they knew they already couldn't pay 90% of the cast. 😅 I have my doubts. They were apart for a long time before the mid-2010s.

I suspect the Saga of Heather's Hip is intended to transition AM/Heather into a role of Laura's kooky cousin/talk-to on canvas, still making mischief but not psychotic. It's certainly not something I'd come up with but so far I've been impressed with the performances and writing involved, and I appreciate their mining of the Webber family connectivity with the two women. So I'm provisionally open to it.

I think like with a lot of online things the truth is somewhere in between. If you spend a lot of time on GH Twitter these days you'd get the sense that Sonny and Nina are a supercouple lol, that the average viewer gives a shít or has any idea whether or not Chris Van Etten still works at the show and that this is some major controversy, that people are deeply invested in Ava being a heroine, etc. I don't think most of that is true. There's a lot of self-important amateur social media pundits on there who want to sound very authoritative but don't really have their fingers on the pulse of anything in terms of broad viewership. And at the other end of the spectrum I tnink there are a lot of very basic, easy to please fans on FB or casual viewing or whatever who have been trained to adore Sonny, Carly, Jason, etc. and just want more of that or their families. But ultimately they'll watch what is put in front of them. I don't particularly love either of those camps. But I do think Sonny, Carly and Jason are inextricable until certain actors choose to leave at this point. And I agree that cutting Sonny would hurt the bottom line in terms of existing viewership. So for me, again, these things are about execution - how you handle these characters you have to work with, how you write for them or make the situation more nuanced, and if they can move Sonny back into the kind of role he had in the late 2000s/early 2010s that would be for the best. I think the show has been pretty hospital-centric again for a long time tbh. I think it swung heavily back to that in 2005-2006 when Kimberly McCullough returned, when they hired Jason Thompson for her and brought in Epiphany and many others with the advent of Grey's Anatomy on the network, and I think it's stayed that way since. Not all those stories/characters worked, but some did and the focus on the hospital has continued. They even had another spinoff all about it. There have been a lot of doctors, nurses etc. on contract over the last decade-plus. A lot of story is either centered around it or at the very least is backdropped inside of the hospital. Yes, the mob is still a part of the show but it's the part of the show that feels more vestigial and left over from the past now to me. The hospital has been a constant for almost 20 years again, and hospital stories, hospital characters feature a lot. The issue there for me is the quality of some of those stories or characters.

I definitely didn't figure that Magneto wasn't dead! I was very annoyed by the distinct lack of mention of him (or a funeral) throughout until the end. I was also pleased they had Diamond Emma turn up, just like in the comics during the original Genosha holocaust. Operation: Zero Tolerance was a good idea in the comics that created or showcased fun characters like Cecilia Reyes, Marrow and Maggott, even if its actual plotline (like so many in the '90s) left a lot to be desired. IIRC at the time it was intended as a major reset for the staid X-line - they were supposed to be back on the run, out of the mansion, etc. as Bastion hunted them down for an extended length of time, not just one crossover. As a lapsed fan that interested me and I liked some of the new team members, so I came back for a bit. Soon enough though the typical overbearing editorial of the era intervened and the actual fallout was contained to just one storyline, with little else changing. The three new members stuck around with a new writing team, but within a year or so most of them were flushed along with the writers as the X-office pivoted yet again and finally brought back the long-lost classic characters (Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Colossus) back to the main book and out of Excalibur hoping to boost increasingly sluggish sales as the company spiraled into bankruptcy. I've had a soft spot for Cecilia Reyes in particular since, and when Claremont returned a few years later in 2000 he made a point of using her heavily again. Anyway, that's just remembrance. Very weird seeing Captain America and Thunderbolt Ross, the Hulk, etc. referenced or shown in this cartoon vs. back in the day, when IIRC the most they got away with was a few cameos here and there. (I wonder if we'll see Carol Danvers again.) I liked seeing Bella Donna and the Thieves Guild at Gambit's funeral even if those characters always annoyed me. And I liked Morph turning into Quicksilver. Amelia Voght (one of Xavier's many slampieces) turning up to talk to Beast in Genosha was a deep cut - I saw Mimic in the background of one of those shots too. Notable that Val Cooper is explicitly not counted among the dead. That is not coincidence. It has to be Mystique. Does it really take Storm that long to fly across the country? It's been a few days at least. Get the lead out!

I do think Steve has come to work so far. I thought the scenes where he monologued about how he got the tattoo, etc. to Carly last week were very well-written and well-performed by both of them - the closest he and LW have ever had to romantic/sexual chemistry. The writing for Jason and/or rather how they handle him in relation to the town and his family/children is more nuanced, which I appreciate. The idea of Jason being less corrupt or fundamentally flawed than Sonny has been something the show has been laying in for many years going back to the late Guza era, as @titan1978 and I have talked about a number of times. I think it's true, as much as I so often despise Jason. But I'm also glad they have his loved ones and kids giving him the business about who he is and the choices he's made. I also like PM making the clear choice to have him back above Bobbie's/Kelly's again, and the echo of the classic scene of Carly in Bobbie's room from '96 with Danny in Jason's. I agree the big 3 only hold so much interest for me. But again, like Delia I am far from convinced ABC gives a shít about horning in on GH's stories that much these days (so long as they're not showcasing rapists or serial killers, or Roger Howarth). What will matter or show us something is when the show has new stories going that aren't the Jason return arc, and besides maybe Drew and Nina's hate sex affair which is only the beginnings of a story/couple they don't really have that yet. So we'll see. I don't think there is that much intense oversight, but nonetheless I think they'd have a hard time actively pushing MB or Burton off the show unless (current) BTS conduct warranted it. If they start phasing Sonny into a different role again, as they did in the late 2000s, then that is a good move.