Vee

You can also read any NYT/WP/etc. article behind the paywall by plugging its URL into archive.is. Meanwhile:

Meanwhile, guess who's deleted apparently all her tweets and is refusing to answer a simple question (posed by many people, not just this example). Not really sorry to anyone on the left who ever thought Liz Bru*nig was some sort of committed leftist as opposed to an evangelical who smokes weed and owns a copy of Reds - I've seen this hustle too many times in my too few years. She and her husband have always been scum and she has always been a devoted fundamentalist who has giggled and danced around answering questions about her explicitly-outlined beliefs while siccing her followers on people, but it was excused by both hairy/horny dudes on the left and the eager center-right media who wanted to present her as "a central voice of the left' who could punch at Biden and Democrats because she was young, pretty, 'hip' and white. She has never represented sensible liberals or progressives, but she was useful for the media and a fantasy for the burnouts. Dobbs passing was in a way Bru*nig's nightmare, because she immediately went dark when it happened trying to formulate a public position that would avoid scrutiny based on her stated views that she's tried to keep quiet. This has not panned out for her.

Manchin was always going to do this, and any senator, official, aide or advisor who seriously thought differently at this point needs their head examined. Manchin is like Michael Biehn said in The Terminator: "It's what he does! It's all he does!" Negotiating with him in earnest and hoping for good faith is completely pointless.

I have no particular deep affection for Ivana Trump, but I'm just glad she scalped Donald for what little he was worth.

I'm glad they came out and said this, because there's been people in online circles for literal years who have ignored the leaked series bible from before the first season began production (which all but says Will is gay), deleted sequences from Season 2 and the very obvious inference in Season 3, let alone the storyline that made it explicit this season, all insisting it's 'up for interpretation' and 'he could just be stunted in development' lol.

I knew all the rest, but didn't know that about Kamala. It doesn't surprise me. That initiative from Perlmutter was also responsible for de-mutanting Wanda Maximoff and her brother Quicksilver and making them no longer the children of Magneto, something which has been all but officially reversed again in recent story since as Wanda is heavily tied to Magneto and the mutant books again today. I'm counting the days til they declare both are Magneto's mutant kids again at this point.

I don't think they've moved her away from Carol, just the Inhumans.

Dig up, Kessler:

I liked Tamara a lot. I enjoyed her in the role. I just think Laura's Carly is tougher.

I've discussed a lot of this before so I won't repeat myself too much more, no offense to any of you, but yes, I do agree they transitioned the role into a different zone when LW took over. Carly became more of a foundational character who was used as a town [!@#$%^&*]-stirrer and schemer vs. a romantic antiheroine, and was settled with Jax, but I think it worked because LW still had the throughline of the character and so did the day to day writing in the 2000s from the longtime writing staff, despite the show being full of bad storylines and mob obsession. She was still central, but she was not bouncing between men - her agency was about what she did with her new power and how she managed her new life with Jax and her sons vs. her ties to the mob. It mostly worked until it didn't, and it tanked when Frank and Ron came in and dumped most of the existing writing staff that largely dated back to the early '90s if not earlier in some cases (possibly). She's a much more rote character now because she doesn't even really have the separate life Carly had when LW first came on; her Drew thing or whatever is an afterthought. She is there as an extension of Sonny and is there to tell the fans Carly is still on the show. No one invested in her from the beginning in the writers room is still at the show, as far as I can tell, except maybe Liz Korte and look how well she's turned out. I do believe Laura had issues with the Josh/Cassie thing at GL and that was part of the reason she split. I believe she's discussed it; I know Kim Zimmer has. Ironically, I think Laura could've actually made it work.

I don't think Carly is tailored to anyone's strengths anymore, lol. They gave up on writing for Carly as Carly around at the latest 2012. She is a utility character with a few key traits who is there to move plot, shore up Sonny or get plugged into the lead of the moment (or just sidelined with Drew, who they don't know how to write for - that is a holding position for her). I can imagine the latter-day, more mature Sarah from DAYS, etc. doing the Metro Court and Jax as her ex stuff but still keeping the OG throughline threaded into the new iteration. She could pick it back up like that because again, Laura has fire. But you could also easily reposition her and revert the character to her type. I do think LW knew GL was going down and acted accordingly, but I don't know how long it was in the works.

I do think Guza partly tanked her because JB was forced on him in a tight spot. But I don't think they necessarily knew they had Laura in waiting until that came together later on (I'm not entirely sure on the timeline, but IIRC LW's exit from GL was largely storyline-based). I think Guza gambled that he could make sure the recast didn't work and get someone more to his liking, and he bet correctly. You knew they didn't care about her when they let JB's Carly marry Alcazar, a character they had worked hard to neuter and marginalize to protect Sonny/Jason ever since that same couple had taken off with Tamara in the role. They would never have dared go there again with a recast they were invested in, and didn't with Laura Wright (who had scorching chemistry with Ted King on LOV/TC). We've been over this before lol, but I just don't agree. I think LW has more than enough grit and steel to sell Carly and has always succeeded. The fairy princess shít on GL is what I didn't buy - it was when they had her all but doing Skinemax softcore porn with David Andrew Macdonald in the Conboy era at GL that she was at home again. It's her material as Carly that is often mediocre, especially in the 2010s-on. Domesticating her was a choice, but again I think she has a force onscreen and physicality to her that Sarah had (and even Bransford did, resulting in the now-legendary story Kelly Monaco still tells about Bransford actually whacking her during their catfight) and Tamara didn't. When Laura's Carly makes a vow to fùck up someone's life you 100% believe it is her mission in life. She made Dante and Lulu's lives hell. I didn't believe it when Tamara would try. She was great at certain things but she didn't have that edge. No one touches Sarah Brown to me, but I think Laura is as good a ringer as you'll get for her type of Carly. JMO! The things she did onscreen were primetime/cable ready, especially with Maurice, especially when they first put them together, and I'm not talking necessarily about sex. I am fine with Laura, but I'd still bring Sarah back in a heartbeat if control was no object.

It was unspeakably bad. The whole thing, Trey included. If I didn't care about Connie I definitely didn't care about her long-lost reality TV host smarmy son, a character type repeated from one of Ron's worst on OLTL. Guza did know GH well. He had a long, long history with it before becoming HW. He's done great work. The problem is that in his second stint he preferred mostly his vision of it to the larger tapestry of the show's history, and his ballooning ego and clear desire to use the show to vent his frustrations over never making it in primetime or cable - bigger stars, bigger stunts, edgier violence and shocks - toppled him. It got lazy and embarrassingly adolescent. and then repetitious and often unwatchable or nihilistic, even with an excellent daily writing team still in place spinning decent dialogue from increasingly bad stuff, or good story outlines or couples that would get poorly handled just to do more Jason and Sonny stuff. Frons allegedly felt Guza was the only steward capable of running GH, but that was a big part what undid them both in the end. No one man is the show. But it still isn't as bad as some of the last half-decade. I would potentially, hesitantly welcome him back at this point provided there was a check on him with a very different co-HW, but that would never happen. It really did, even as she got next to no airtime near the end, coming in and out to moan to Ric about her problems. I just remember her wandering those cave tunnels after the train crash slowly dying and no one caring, including the audience. I think JB was absolutely a flop. It was a disaster with fans and onscreen from the jump. Part of it was having to replace Tamara with a virtual unknown - even though Tamara had been filling in for Sarah the same way, it had a different tone given that online fans at least knew Bransford was a Friend of Jill Phelps from OLTL - and part of it was Bransford's way of carrying herself as well as the material. She's not untalented, but it was never going to work. And I do believe JFP, in one of her rare moments of real creative input post-Guza, hoped she could put it over when they were in a bind with Tamara quitting lol. But she couldn't do it. I do think LW's previous characters on LOV/TC and GL were very Carly-adjacent - gritty, hardscrabble scrappers with schemer tendencies but a heart of gold. It's all the same type, albeit not as dark or edgy as Carly.

The irony is I think the only real reason those changes were made was because ABC wanted to can all three soaps and Frons had to fall on his sword to save GH. The price, I think, was Guza, who'd lost several steps during the interminable previous year. But once again they had no idea who to replace him with, and fully intended to can the show in 2012 (until Frank and Ron saved it). I think the backstory with Carly could've worked, but it was a clear last minute retcon to try to spice the Reese character up and it went absolutely nowhere. Durant was horribly wasted, but that's another story.

Exactly. IIRC, Ron is not actually very familiar with Days (which really surprised me to hear when he was hired, as he is a soap devotee, not a tourist). And yes, as I said above, Ron is more than capable of fúcking the chicken on his own.

I'm not sure most MCU fans or the general public really give a shít about the change. The early 2010s Inhumans push that was linked to Kamala's introduction was wildly unpopular with both readers and creative personnel at Marvel, pushed from on high by people who were directly in opposition to Kevin Feige. Their subsequent banishment from key story was welcomed. So while a handful of loud people on Twitter might complain, I think most fans and audiences are surprised and relieved.

I know you weren't, I was just adding my thoughts.

Meanwhile: More Ben Smith follies:

I think she did some decent work on 90210 and possibly MP in the '90s, and I know she was on the OLTL 2.0 team in 2013.

...James Cromwell, Donna. Oliver Cromwell was the English general from the 15th century.

The writing was at its worst that year, and Kari Wuhrer was so terrible. I knew she would never fit on that show, because she's only ever been a barely serviceable actor at best. Even with GH at a low place, a lot of its vets back then (including Maurice) were still very seasoned and able to go deep into lesser writing and elevate it; Wuhrer has always been a very surface actress used to the frankly more flashy and cosmetic writing for her supporting characters on shows like 90210, Sliders, etc. where she was not supposed to be a fleshed-out person (that's not to say all writing on 90210 in that past era was bad; the regular characters or others could be fleshed out, but she was just brought onto that show or others to play a vixen or sexbomb). She came on doing late-stage Spelling soap acting and didn't fit. The show was at a nadir, they knew it and reworked half the show (including the Michael/Dr. Thomas twist) and it did improve a considerable amount when they revamped it with the renewed hospital focus, Robin and Patrick, etc. and I believe Pratt's exit.

Glenn Kessler, the gleefully obtuse "Five Pinocchios" 'fact-checker' guy from the WP who has zero sense of context and constantly does false equivalencies to benefit the GOP, got himself in a mess today following the lead of a WSJ editorial which tried to 'debunk' Biden's story of the ten-year-old girl who was forced to get an abortion after being raped. Then a perpetrator was identified. Well: Kessler attempts to whitewash his original article, then notes he will not be reading comments lol: Followed by... And blaming everyone else for him just believing the WSJ/the local Republican legislature, like the Ohio AG who is also walking back his claims today: This is the WSJ editorial Kessler was chasing, which has also been updated:

I think Jamey's taste is, uh, variable at best lol, but Ron was plenty lazy and slapdash about plotting and character beats long before Jamey got there.

I sympathize with Donna's struggles but she clearly believes she is still ruling the roost on USENET 25 years ago.