Vee

I also can't believe he's still dead but I don't need Morgan back any time soon if ever, and I also have always believed Carly switched the paternity results because she knew Morgan was not ready for a child and wanted to keep him away from Ava. And yes, Michael, Willow, etc. gotta go. Especially Wiley the glue-eater.

Enzo something. He's dreadful! But he wanders into scenes lollygagging with a dreamy smile on his face like he's thought about acting today and has decided he would rather chill and think about boys, and I appreciate that commitment.

They're going to have to start cutting, and fast. PM may be trying to adhere to the old Marland rule about waiting before cuts (which is taken to an extreme too often as immutable gospel, sometimes you have to cut quickly) or something, or worse he may be dealing with network/EP interference, or they simply are rolling out those changes slowly, who knows. But yes, while so much is improved for me it's time to start gutting the canvas lol. I think we all felt they finally sold us on Dante and Sam this week. Those scenes with her before and after he woke up were beautifully written and performed. I don't particularly want them to last as a couple but I do believe in their love now.

I mean, he's okay so far, lol. He frankly hasn't had much to do or say so far so I can't gauge him to that degree. It's largely reaction work. I would definitely not place him above Hudson, who has been outacting half the adult cast for almost ten years but YMMV. The kid playing Danny is seemingly the greenest of those three but has charisma and plays well off Rocco. He is cocky but sweet to Rocco who is more sensitive, and that's a nice beat to play. Aiden seems like a nice kid but is not an actor and needs to be replaced lol. He crashed that half-decent scene with Jake and Danny and made it truly hilarious.

I thought it was Garin Wolf.

It is literal malpractice that they introduced a Black youth on this show named T.J. (played by the very talented Tequan Richmond, the only T.J. I really acknowledge tbh) and it wasn't Tom Hardy Jr. It felt like trolling but it's just inept lol.

More good material at the end of the week with additional strong, unlikely character work - Sam and Stella and Sam reminiscing about the past (and her oft-forgotten engagement to Patrick) and Stella bringing up Mike as well. Molly and Alexis talking the law and its dimensions again, which feels like Mulcahey. Even the energy between Carly and Nina in their brief scene at the arraignment was refreshingly different; Nina pretty much blew it off without a big emotional outburst for once and they didn't spend the entire hour yowling at each other with Carly unloading both barrels on sniveling Neens as they've been wont to do for a couple years. Again, very annoying that Drew is finally hot again and intriguing with Nina of all people. The cutting and framing on Drew and Nina watching Jason and Carly seems deliberate. They really did speedrun the Drew/Carly break-up overnight over little to nothing lol, but I'm not complaining. The kid playing Rocco is indeed good as I suspected he might be from that brief set of scenes with Laura a couple weeks ago. I like the Danny/Rocco relationship and how the brash Danny seems to be kind to the more sensitive boy. It's these kind of distinguishing elements that help soap kids stand out on a show that has way too many already. Dante and Sam are still a very boring couple but I absolutely buy that Sam loves him now - the writing for her the last few days was very strong, and Kelly really came through too. The monologuing from Brennan after Valentin took off was interesting, and seems like it was all PM. They really are taking Jason back to the '90s basics, living above Kelly's/Bobbie's (he said his money was frozen for now) as he and Carly reminisce about the people they were back then - simpler, humbler. This is very deliberate from Mulcahey/Korte and makes me wonder what is actually next. Fúcked up that Avery drew a picture of comatose Dante frowning with some 'ZZZZ' lines by his head btw! I guffawed.

I've been wanting him back as a cocky doctor a la Patrick for some time. Though I would have his intro story be having a secret affair with the recently-separated, older Portia and scandalizing her upstanding life at first before moving him to someone entirely new (namely, Lucy and Scott's daughter Christina).

Week 1: Jealous Lily schemes against Nick and Sally Sharon whoever. Week 2: Lily burns down Sharon's house, forcing Sharon to move into Crimson Lights full time. Week 3: Lily is diagnosed with toxic paint madness from huffing bad fumes in her newly-painted home (offscreen). The house is fumigated, Lily is cured and all is forgiven (offscreen). JG takes a 30 minute power nap.

Ooh, Mac and Dara? JJY and Vanita could've been hot.

I had to half-watch a lot of episodes this week while working so I am diving deeper into 'em now. I'll be that guy: I thought the Jasons (get it) fight scenes were fine til non-acting Aiden wandered in as the hype man and it turned into camp hysteria. HW was just fine and the Danny kid is green but had energy and was no Andrew Trischitta. Could it have been better, sure, but anyone who watched the Shane Morasco bullying story on OLTL (or any of the child content on GH in the last 10+ years, paging the Spencer/Emma/Cameron/Joss fourth grade love quad) has seen far worse. I was also pleased with the Molly/Kristina stuff continuing to again explore them unpacking their past childhood romanticization of Jasam, which was so much a part of the girls back in the day. It was well written but would've hit better with at least one of the original actors. This Molly still feels like a random contest winning civilian to me. The baby plot now seems like a total afterthought; Kristina should miscarry tomorrow. Also very pleased with the Trina/Joss scenes which for once do not center Joss. Eden and Tabyana do have real rapport and warmth together. Kelly Monaco and Steve Burton both seem to have come back to work. I've been surprised and pleased with Steve especially, who rarely makes this much of an effort. Even Diane didn't piss me off in those scenes with Jason, because CH played them earnestly and with some heart and it wasn't all Diane complaining about the mobsters she loves to work for. Tristan really does not look well and I'm very concerned.

It's late June '92, like the last week of the month or something.

I still want to know more about that. It sounds bonkers.

No tweets rn, but I'd just like say the ground game in Michigan and elsewhere looks impressive for Biden. Trump seems underfunded. I would recommend checking out Simon Rosenberg's feed. Elite media pooh-poohed him last time and openly mocked him for not buying the red wave, but he's been right and he has a lot to say about current trends for this cycle.

I will defend the OLTL finale, I thought the show went out like gangbusters. Yes, the cliffhanger under the BTS circumstances was unfortunate on one level but the show was vibrant, vital and had some wonderful material in those last two weeks, especially Viki's big speech and Drew II's birth. More importantly, the cliffhanger for me does what I think all soaps should do if they go: Give a sense of a continuing world and continuing stories (a la Edge of Night's ending), even if you're not there to see it. I think that is a great comfort for a generational audience, I think permanently closing the book is a betrayal of the contract with the viewer. There were many bad stories in that last year on OLTL but the show went out fairly strong and with a bang and I was proud of that, it proved it was the strongest soap on the network at that time. It didn't slink off like a dying animal, which I felt ATWT did with the globe, etc. or crippled like GL. AMC's situation was more complex; they had a beautifully filmed ending apparently, and had to junk it and the cliffhanger felt very slapped on by comparison to OLTL. But they had some nice ending weeks too that did not feel funereal in the same way as ATWT and GL ending.

I just know I came to the same queasy conclusions many others did based on how Martha's been talking about it for several years.

Valentin (and Ava, hopefully) works for me for Pikeman - I suspect the original writers' plan was for Wagger to be deep in it as a bad guy, which, no lol. And the rumors about it originally being Jennifer Smith or Susan Moore, no. I just don't think we need another undead bad guy plotline right now. I would be all for adding Damian's young heirs as troublemakers.

If they truly had to bring someone back from the dead for Luke's exit I'd have chosen Damian. He's really a great villain rewatching now, he even comes on with links to Ned from their school days. He slots in everywhere and is such a sexy snake. I remembered his story spinning its wheels later on as a kid (and I think it got into some real goofy capers with the good guys putting stuff over on him before he died) but he's fun to watch. And it's fascinating rewatching Sonny slowly build his empire from a small time hood to a major player in the power vacuum post-Frank. I never really grasped that when I was young. I did not know MB was offered Damian - that's nuts, and yet Damian was the character who had true investment at the time of hiring. Even today they could bring on Damian's illegitimate kids, a la Damian to Frank. I just think Katherine makes a great villain and MBE played it very well. I enjoy watching her. I do agree Stefan and the DAYS revisit ruined it (and Stefan/Bobbie, which I am trying to revisit some of).

I think it was both him and (also gay) Frank. The fetishization of Yuri and the continued insistence on the awkward NB strip show reminds me of the Milo Hour tbh. Yuri is just another Milo to me, only on Scruff lol.

Yep. I would argue it's primarily the massive Ryan saga with Felicia (and some Karen/Jagger, and maybe the Lucas custody drama?) that got the show through the post-Monty doldrums til Labine; at least that's how my ex, who started watching in early '92, saw it. I was watching some of that stalker stuff again recently, it's good. Hadn't seen it in many years, including Felicia's brief 'dark' phase following the stalker story. I don't think KW did badly with it but it is pretty jarring to see Felicia completely shut down on warmth. Mac and Katherine always seems so bizarre to me when I see them together again. I think they were trying for good guy/bad girl but I did not care about Katherine like that. Mac and Felicia were already home for me as a viewer because they'd spent so much time on building them together (including before I started watching in late '93) and as a family unit with Robin, etc. I will say I think MBE is exceptional as Katherine then and now, a total departure from Kayla. She always brought 100% even when the audience detested her for years lol. Leigh McCloskey is still very good as Damian too.

Come on now.

Truly the Twilight Zone.

In the latter half of his career if RC absolutely has to write for conventionally 'good' characters he generally either gives them babies to be stolen or bartered around, turns them crazy with DID/mental issues or both. He tried a bit of the second option with Lulu after she got frozen by Stavros; tried to redo the insanely unpopular Teen Jessica story from OLTL where Lulu suddenly had amnesia or whatever and hung out with Milo of all people. BTS backlash blessedly killed that quickly.

I think it has to do with several factors I've ranted on about over and over: Baby stories allegedly being the most easy thing to get greenlit and eating up months of story while keeping the lights on at struggling soap operas, a perceived conservative backlash among the audience the network most values re: more edgy storytelling or overt sexuality, and of course good old-fashioned misogyny and lack of ideas. So instead we've gotten years of young hot people just settling down and either popping out babies or haggling over them or wondering who their parents are up til now. This is also a key issue on Y&R. It was clear early on RC saw most of GH's previously layered 'good' characters as plot pieces vs. the more exciting baddies, like he often did later at OLTL. (The men also got this big time - Dante became nothing more than a clueless plot widget, like most heroic male characters on RC shows). It still feels unreal when I remember how I watched babies become the center of young Lulu, Maxie and Dante's lives all of a sudden. Settling down with children had nothing to do with who they were prior to 2012 as young, vital characters and it took me a long time to accept that all parties now actually had small children. I still don't totally buy it when I've seen Dante or Lulu with a son lol.

Me too, for a long time. The key is Charlotte is older and currently blessedly offscreen in a padded cell, and Violet is the obnoxious little one lisping all her lines. And yeah I saw some of that Halloween ep. There's far too many kids.