Vee

I was poking around classic OLTL since Kamar de los Reyes' untimely passing, and a hilarious LOV reference aired on OLTL in early October '95 that I never knew existed: Todd Manning muses aloud whether Viki and her alters had 'been whacking everybody in Corinth.' "I got a reporter down there who says they're piling up bodies like firewood!" Good old ABC Daytime.

A hard pill to swallow for Y&R fans, especially given this week's GH news.

When did they start clearly, actively moving towards or hinting at the affair and unfinished business? I've heard a lot about the weird happy families ending to the Two Romans and I believe I heard the pit, Stella Lombard, etc. began John and Marlena's reconnection but I'm curious on the timetable. And whose idea it was (I presume all JER).

In honor of the return of Patrick Mulcahey, I can't guarantee this essential scene is his but I feel fairly certain; nonetheless it is a stellar part of his GH tenure, as Luke tells Lucky about his rape of Laura. A masterwork of editing and sound design, and one of the best and most layered, dark pieces of work Tony Geary ever did as Luke clearly either relishes or fetishizes the worst moment in his life he has dreaded returning to. I've been looking for this scene in decent quality for years and this is good enough. It's timestamped; watch to the end.

I'm convinced @carolineg is still unconscious re: this news. I know I saw her hanging.

I don't know that that's any more than usual tbh, nor will it produce a huge new youth vote than before IMO. I am not horribly worried about November, yet at the same time I'm incredibly nauseous about facing down the rest of this brutal election year and even daring to take the risk. If that makes sense.

I'll be stunned if Sony ever gives two shîts. But then I sure didn't expect this announcement either. What a wild, difficult and very occasionally joyous decade for soaps so far. There was a rumor going round that Mal Young was lobbying to take back Y&R. But who knows if that's true.

In fairness, wasn't he also part of the Curlee, etc. writer corps at GL for many years before being promoted? Those were several brilliant years and I believe he's been credited with some big stuff - some of the blackout?

Like I said: It's a retirement plan. Which is why I'm shocked PM returned, though I gather he left B&B a few years ago.

I am curious why they give a shít now. I could understand finally flushing Roger Howarth twice given the rapist-killer baggage of Franco post-#MeToo and then needing to pay for Steve, but this is a systemic, creative sea change and for years ABC has been mostly happy for GH to simply keep the lights on at 2-3 PM, which Frank has done while doing little else for many years. I don't see a reason it couldn't continue to simply trundle along half-alive, as it's done for years. It has improved a fair bit since the Passanante/Altman days, but it's still often very moribund and safe. So why now? If it's true other staff writers are out, that also indicates something more. Virtually anyone left on staff that I know of other than Korte is either a Frank/Ron-era hire or post-Ron. It shows. Dan and Chris were FV/RC proteges from OLTL (and one or both were allegedly once asked to take over at OLTL 2.0 as part of its revolving door of micromanaged HWs in summer '13, right before the whole thing went kaput). Several young writers of color, I believe, were hired in recent years and I'd heard some were fired but I think several remain. Today I was reminded of course about Mulcahey's somewhat-curtailed plans for the Avants on B&B (referencing the Great Migration, etc.) and his attempts to get Wendell Pierce hired on SB. What a wild world. MVJ congratulated PM and EK on Twitter, so I doubt she's in. Wouldn't entirely shock me though. Thank you for adopting my name for that simp. Cannot believe he gets behind the ivories and does this over and over. You know Stefan's Force Ghost is out there in the fog muttering Russian slurs.

Some of the OLTL staff followed him to GH I think, others did not. I remember finding it tacky that Ron took shots at the DOOL team for beating him for awards during Eileen Davidson's reprise era in the early 2010s, considering Melissa Salmons and others from OLTL had migrated to DOOL.

Would not shock me if she jumped.

I don't know that I agree with that; I don't recall much difference then or now, let alone beforehand under Ron's tenure. Long scenes were few and far between. But it is definitely even more the norm now.

That's if he gets his way. Frank has been very fond of the bite-size scenes for almost 20 years. His mid-late aughts demographic focus determined that. I'm curious to see how they gel if at all. As I said a few pages ago! B&B is the retirement camp where great writers go to chill with a paycheck, that's Brad Bell's fiefdom. Which is why I never expected MVJ or others to return, let alone Mulcahey. Who wants to work?

That would've been apeshît. I've been praying for her for years, I never dreamed Mulcahey would come out of the B&B retirement laurels. The scuttlebutt that other writers may be tossed is interesting.

I've already lived that test. This is gravy to me.

Received. You don't gotta be clearer than that.

Valentini has worked with both greats and idiots. He allegedly could barely tolerate Dena Higley but never said a word against her. As many BTS have attested, he started as Rauch's assistant at OLTL and worked his way up. He has been around a very long time. I cannot thank Frank enough for some of what he's done at OLTL and at GH, including saving the show at GH, saving Robin Scorpio from a permanent death, how he handled John Ingle's passing, and yes, the Jackie tribute too among many other things. I will always be very grateful for that and will always recognize his immense skill in keeping a show on budget and alive. I also think Frank fancied himself the last king of soaps due to early hype he and Ron got (partially from me!), took too much ownership over time of his shows, and has gotten very comfortable playing favorites, keeping a static, often staid or lifeless show running at all costs while catering mostly to his or the network's perception of elderly audiences and not challenging the viewers or themselves in any way. Frank presided over both the Kish era at OLTL (and its last overall renaissance in Ron's early tenure) and its brutal culling and replacement with a bunch of white str8 himbos, and he did that to save its ratings by catering to bigots. But I don't think Frank has any loyalty to anything but keeping his show running and on the air. I respect that a lot, to a point. I'm not sure anyone could've kept it alive this long. I also think his creative instincts have seemingly micromanaged the show for too long since Ron got fired (and he should've been fired, that's not in dispute for me), from scene length to taste to character preference and story flow and direction. And Mulcahey is a titan. So I wonder what will happen. Oh, dude, don't do us like that. Play charades, give us something!

However it turns out (Malone II v2: Electric Boogaloo being the worst option), it cannot possibly be what we've endured for years. I'll take it.

He never lost his fascination with Sarah. Which, I certainly don't think means LW is out of a job but is interesting.

I lived through Michael Malone's second run at OLTL, I've already watched all my favored legends topple. It was often disastrous but also insanely entertaining and had a literate heart beneath all the madness. Something GH has almost never been for at least 9 years. As bad as Ron's GH got at least it was often compulsively watchable for sheer insanity, much like Malone II. If that's all I get from this I'm calling it a win.

It could not possibly be worse than what we've had the last decade.

I have a very hard time believing this was Frank's idea. Frank likes a GH he can control and mold that is peppy and cheap and most of all, on the air. He's had GH all to himself for almost a decade. The attitude he (and Ron) have always had about it that I can see is 'apres moi, le deluge.'

Again, what people fail to factor in about Elizabeth Korte is that Korte has been there since 1996. She came up under the very, very, very good writers' corps from Labine and Guza I-II that was absolutely rock solid. You could've put the show on ABC at night at times in those years without disrupting primetime's pedigree. It was that good and that was because of those scripts and those actors. Many of those writers lingered even as the show slowly got bad and then very bad in the 2000s; even in really ugly times they could still turn out really shockingly great, literate scenes all the way to 2011. Then Guza was gone, Frank came in with Ron and almost everyone remaining was purged. Except Korte. I have a real long memory. Since I remember hearing her name in 2001 or so, Korte has been blamed online for everything imaginable on the show, especially re: Carly. But Korte has been there all along. She was, until now, maybe the last remaining writer on staff who knows what it is like to write this show for more than pure equilibrium and put it on without it being about 90 second scenes. And I don't think she's ever gotten enough credit for that. It takes more than one writer or creative or executive to make Carly the center of the show. And Carly took the rock plenty of times in those years. As for Mulcahey, his legend speaks for itself. I am 100% back for this, however it turns out. He also has talked about having much of his historical material for the family (as part of the Great Migration) cut. B&B is paid retirement for good writers. Brad writes that show.