Vee

Been preoccupied with other things for a few days, so I've had these in the chamber waiting to go but wanted to do one more to maximize space. Here you are: Episode 12 (The Block Party): Another cute suburban setpiece episode, even if the block party was a tad over the top. I did love seeing the neighborhood once again used as the larger canvas. A great exchange early on: Karen: Laura, in all the years you've known me, have you ever, ever known me to nag? An objective opinion! Laura (deadpan): Well, if you'd stop nagging me, maybe I'd tell you. Constance McCashin's consistent dry wit really adds to Laura's character; she's different than the other women, more prickly but also more blunt, and I always enjoy seeing it. The cliche Irish musical cue for Mack's dad was a bit much. I did like Lilimae flirting with him - I lost it at Val facepalming in the background as Lilimae broke out the autoharp and began singing that one damn song yet again. But the duet at the end with Ciji on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" was really lovely, which brought Val over as well. I think Lilimae's take that she offers to MacKenzie Sr. on how she and Val have 'moved on' from their past is slightly more charitable to her than the facts, but that's Lilimae for you. Not sure the terrifying clown picture on Diana's nightstand is great bedtime material. Is that supposed to be her from the horrific talent show number in Season 2? I did like Karen and Val talking about how much the neighborhood has changed, 'what's left of us,' etc from how they started. Of course it's now about to change even more. I did love the moment with Karen embracing the nervous Olivia, who wasn't sure she was still welcome. That sense of community is what I cherish about the show and its suburban atmosphere, even as the characters are upwardly mobile and ascending higher into the '80s. A fairly uneventful breather episode, but with some wonderful emotional work from Kevin Dobson that gives us more insight into Mack's volatility, and some great moments for the ensemble. Props to the SoapNet taping of this episode for running a "NEXT: Ciji finds out she's pregnant!" ticker mid-episode on this one. Episode 13 (Cutting the Ties That Bind): Finally, Val is ready to divorce Gary. I love that she already has a proper office/study and writing space in her home - such a far cry from the all but barefoot and pregnant hick homebody with the hippie blouse from the first couple seasons with the '70s hangover. Initially I thought Jeff Munson was perhaps the most boring love interest this show has seen so far, save perhaps that dreary guy from last season who Karen and Abby were inexplicably both into. But he's sweet to Val, kinder to dim Kenny than he knows and has a dry wit. He's right about Abby and her 'pragmatist' take on things, too: "It's admirable. I'd just hate to be on the receiving end of your pragmatism." Abby does play things masterfully with Kenny and Gary (in addition to keeping her options open on Gary should things go south re: his divorce from Val), and Kenny is grinnin' no more. Oh well. Gary is easily led around by Abby at this point in her various machinations. I'm not sure why she's so adamant at getting Kenny out - maybe she just doesn't like him, and who can blame her? Anyway, Gary's still a neophyte in an arena he wants to become a real player in. I wonder how long that can go on. Yes, the whole Little Italy sequence with Jeff showing Val his old neighborhood had stereotypes right out of Super Mario, but as a longtime New Yorker who misses it terribly and remembers that whole part of town I can't be too upset. Jeff isn't exactly setting the world on fire but he has some gravitas and is helping liberate Val's character, so that's nice enough. The talk they have about how things like this don't happen to her, she doesn't travel in these spheres, etc. seems like a bit of a meta-statement for the whole show - all these women on the show started as domestic housewives and look at them now. Things with Ciji and Chip are beginning to go south, what with the hair-pulling, threats and so on, and now him stealing some of Val's next manuscript. The Ciji/Laura relationship remains intriguing, while ol' Richard realizes with some dismay that Laura has next to no interest in going back to bed with him. Who can blame her after being literally held hostage? No relationship can ever really survive that, IMO. Episode 14 (And Teddy Makes Three): Yes, Teddy, Karen's first boyfriend is back, but it's not Terry Kiser of "Weekend at Bernie's" fame this time, who had that amazing monologue in Season 3. No, this is Fake Shemp Teddy played by someone else, who has considerably less impact and charisma though that may just be the rather forward writing - I know the actor, Steven Keats, from things like Black Sunday and Death Wish, and he is talented, but woof he's down bad for Karen. I dug the cute opening with Mack and Val searching for an engagement ring. Any time I get to see Val, such a sad striver for so much of her early appearances, living large with money and having fun it makes me happy and more invested. It seems she's repainted the entire house between episodes; I was enjoying the sky blue before. The breastfeeding interlude with what I must assume was Constance McCashin's own recent newborn baby and Ciji sitting beside her was interesting. I don't get as many lesbian vibes from these people as some do, but Laura suggesting they go watch a dirty movie was definitely in the zone. The relationship with Richard continues to deteriorate as Laura honestly just seems over it, and has been ever since he began leaning into his deal with Abby at the restaurant. But I also don't think she ever really wanted to go back after the whole, y'know, hostage crisis. There was a brief moment of happiness with the Daniels (no relation to the directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once), but it was a facade for the trap she'd let herself be pulled back into. Kenny was stupid to turn down Munson's deal after pulling a George Costanza at the recording studio. As for other elements of the Gary/Abby storyline, I dunno who was responsible for the incredibly form-fitting and revealing pants Gary was wearing in his gratuitous barechested workout sequence but I doubt that would get past the network censors today. God bless. I wish we'd seen the scene with Karen talking to the kids about marrying Mack. Mack was his usual - sometimes unctuous and overbearing, sometimes tender, sometimes very funny. But I do like them together a lot and I'm glad they're going to marry; it would be fast by most standards but here it feels like they've taken the time to let Karen mourn and grow for a year and then built the relationship with Mack carefully (it helps a bit that it started in media res - when we first saw Mack, they already knew each other). Poor Ciji, scheming Chip. What more can you say about that in its current state?

A Martinez (Santa Barbara, GH, DAYS, OLTL) was just in the latest Michael Bay film Ambulance, and next will be in Netflix's likely ill-fated live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series.

So I finally got to watch this and I gotta say, I really liked it. Fluffy? Yes. Was the voice-over a bit too much at some unnecessary moments? Yes, but that exposition plays better for a general audience sometimes. It's not gonna win an Oscar. But I really liked Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang, and Conrad Ricamora was giving some serious smoldering energy I'd never seen him put out from his overly broad 'nerd' role on How to Get Away with Murder - he was channeling Benedict Cumberbatch, Harrison Ford in Working Girl, you name it, to say nothing of Colin Firth. It was a cute Austen adaptation in a gay universe and that will play really well for young people going forward, and that's important. I know Andrew Ahn did the well-received Spa Night which I have yet to see, but now I want to. I consume so much queer cinema and media that is either coded in a variety of ways, using a lot of gritty genre trappings or whatever else, and that's my own choice. I watch a lot of weird queer shít from all over the world too. But sometimes you just want to see an American-made, sweet gay romantic comedy with a degree of artistry along with humor and heartfelt performances. They're still pretty rare over here without looking like they were made for a grand tops. This gave me that and it was well-made, so I didn't find it as disposable as I expected. It's not the comic equivalent of, say, Bridesmaids, but the emotional content got me in the same way. There's stuff a lot of us can relate to, especially as we get older or don't fit into this or that ethnic or abled or body type. I was pleased with it. A solid, sweet piece of work.

Oh wow. I had no idea that existed. I could not have handled that as a kid; I was terrified of Hamilton in the movie as a child (the music was a big part of it).

For people checking it out, he talks about it starting around 27:30 (in considerable detail!). Classy guy.

Dialogue here can be overheard: Possibly a new character - there have been rumors of one named Melody - or of course, the long-awaited return of Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.

Stupid shít.

I'll eat my hat if they sign him to a contract in time. I assume they'll just recast with a conventional and slightly older hunk, which is dumb because West has been one of the most talented recent (or relatively recent) additions in the cast for years running, even when he was a tyke. And if I'm saying that about a recurring kid consider how barren the field has been for almost ten years. He's not the equal of a JJ or Kimberly McCullough at that age yet, but he's pretty strong and can hold his own as a junior to Chavez, TA and Lipton (or Avery Pohl) not unlike how Amber Tamblyn did or Kimberly did when they were the juniors to the older teens. He can do that kind of story, and I'm betting a lot more. Dominic has been wasted since Frank and Ron took over and it's a sin. There was a time that somehow doesn't seem so long ago when he was one of the new central leads of the show, but Frank and Ron (and the subsequent writers since Ron) didn't and don't know how to write for complex male leads and aren't interested. They write for dumb hunks and men who are scheming villains or plot movers. Leading men, male heroic characters, are not relevant if they're not Sonny or Jason. Watching DZ go from the most vibrant and layered stars on the show to carrying water for dumb scheme after dumb scheme for years running has been truly draining.

Thanks for this. My slow ride through 1986-onward continues through the pandemic, but I'm always willing to jump ahead and take a look at good stuff.

Rae never worked anywhere.

She's right.

I think the recast is exceptional and IMO better than Sydney Mikayla, but it doesn't make a difference. It's been clear to me under both actors that FV's GH is ambivalent at best about showcasing an interracial couple and a Black heroine with the same force and frontburner consistency as someone like Joss (who IIRC started out as a temp hire, but fit the bill for the Kristen Alderson-esque teen lead FV's been chasing for years). I think some days, weeks, months are better than others, but ultimately too much of the story is still fitted around the white characters - Esme, Joss, Joss reacting to what's happening to Trina, etc. It's not that Spencer and Trina is not a key story, it's in the execution of it and how it seems to keep looping back to the white characters for me. I think they know the fanbase is there and the audience interest with Trina and Spencer, but FV is stuck in both his conception of their aging and narrow-minded audience (old, white, at least half-bigoted) that he is afraid to lose, and also in what he thinks will sell to both them and the kids from back in 2008 with Starr on OLTL. So he is at the very least trying to have it both ways atm, while in the past he would've been content to keep Trina as the Langston from OLTL to Joss' Starr; her ethnic, non-blonde sidekick clucking over her problems with a B or C-story. And that's frankly still a role they sometimes are relegating Trina to. I don't know how it will end up.

FV seems to have learned from OLTL not to do that. They went full bore with a frontburner LGBT story and canvas there, only to take a hit in the demos he and Frons prized. As far as I can tell, the 'lesson' he learned from that experience was to fire all minorities, hire more hot white str8 guys and keep any minority characters to the margins from then on so as to preserve what he sees as their only solid, shrinking audience. It's a rule he has mostly adhered to since, with a few current if uncertain exceptions.

Episode 10/11 (Emergency/Abby's Choice): A big two-parter. Diana going off with Gary and Abby re-ignites more of the domestic/suburban linkages that are so layered and rich for the show and its canvas - just Val catching sight of Gary's car across the cul-de-sac is a moment unto itself. And I loved her telling Karen "I got more important things to do" than pine after Gary forever. The languorous pan across the limos, sports cars, etc. on the horse riding grounds for their trip was a deliberate look at how the other half lives, an other half Gary and Abby have now bought their way into. And Abby is determined to lojack it for all she's worth, as it seems her whole trip up there was a ploy to get closer to Munson. I still can't tell how long Chip and Ciji have known each other. I'm not sure I buy that they first met onscreen, given how close the relationship seems to be. And Grinnin' Kenny is as clueless and thoughtless as ever! Poor Ginger has barely had five lines in the last ten episodes and now Ciji is poaching her songs. The look on Kim Lankford's face was powerful, though, and she held her own with Lisa Hartman. Abby is right about Kenny - if he was going to make the big time he would've by now. The big sting and sinister music at the climax of Ginger and Ciji's confrontation and then carrying throughout the hospital scenes, plus some very atmospheric lighting in the corridors, was really effective and haunting. I've never heard music like that on this show before. Diana's pallid makeup in her hospital bed was also really unsettling. The slow zoom in on Karen as she's slowly totally overwhelmed by what the doctors are telling her, still with the creepy music, then as they dash back out into the darkened hallway from her POV - so great. It's not the same director as the key hospital sequences in the first two episodes of Season 3 with Sid's death, but the visuals and music are equally haunting if not moreso. And for an illness plotline with one of the most annoying characters on the show it's remarkable they can still maximize the drama and emotional and suspenseful weight of it. As usual, it's Michele Lee carrying so much of the performance element. Val confronted by Gary and Abby up close and personal finally at the hospital cafeteria. I wish Val and Mack had been able to talk about the situation with him and Karen, and his bachelor life. I did love Karen finally succumbing in Mack's arms, and the two-shot at the end of the first episode - Karen and Diana's hands clenched together, eye to eye - was great. So was Abby losing it after arguing with Gary about Munson, starting to cry over Diana. Abby and Diana's doctor was some amazing stuff, as Abby plays both sides of the fences re: donating her kidney and grows more and more upset; later, she tries to use sex with Gary to balm her feelings and can't do it. Again, more credit given to Mills' wonderful performance and the writers for allowing Abby to be much more than the show's resident bitch queen. They've (so far) always kept her nuanced, layered and somewhat relatable. There's some nice reconnection with Gary and Val which feels well-timed, as even Val offers sympathy re: Abby, and then Val and Olivia who try to openly parse the complexities of their little relationship, from adult to child on the outside. And of course the moment at the end with Karen kissing Abby as she sleeps was lovely. The Laura/Ciji friendship (or whatever) I've heard so much about begins here, fairly innocuously. They are definitely engaging together. I did like Laura telling her shrink she no longer knows what to do or how to feel about Richard from day to day - that's fairly evident onscreen.

So I've been taking a beat on this for a couple days due to some IRL family medical stuff. I'm getting back in the swing of things but I may or may not stay a bit slower, we'll see. The show keeps getting better and better and my family seems to be holding steady, so who knows if I can tear myself away from the escape of Knots Landing for very long. Season 3, Episode 9 (The Best Kept Secret): Again, a lovely opening with Karen and Val actually chatting and having fun together as opposed to more agony aunt material that often pervaded the last few seasons, with Val weeping or worrying and Karen giving advice. Here, Val's the talk-to and Karen is gabbing away about Mack. It doesn't hurt that Val is now considerably upwardly mobile, more than ever before; Karen marvels at her answering service (ah, the early '80s) and Val sighs about needing to hire an assistant and getting fan mail, while dressed to the nines prepared for a radio show. It's a world of difference from the wilting, weary housewife Val of the last few seasons, but that's what a new sense of self and a personal drive has gotten her. Welcome to the '80s. What are the Fairgate kids playing, Atari? Coleco? I was expecting the whole teaser with the woman in Mack's apartment to turn out to be some crazy misunderstanding (a very old soap/drama trick), so color me amazed when Mack showed up at Karen's and did not immediately tell Karen he wasn't sleeping with his neighbor - I was as stunned as her to realize that yes, he did. And then he shrugged it off and attributed to his bachelor lifestyle! That kind of candid hook-up culture stuff being interwoven into these kind of major love stories does not and did not happen on almost any soaps, anywhere, period, then or now, and I admire the show for tackling it, but I'm siding with Karen. This is a widowed mother of three over 35 who believed she'd made a commitment to a man, only the third man she's slept with in her life. Mack was fooling himself pretending it was casual, and to his credit he does realize it and try to make amends; the show wasn't afraid to make Mack come off both insensitive and vulnerable before he faced up to his own fears and admitted he's in love, and it terrifies him. The scene with Karen and Val on the stairs talking about it, and the classic shitty excuse ('it had nothing to do with us') was beautifully performed by both of them. Michele Lee has such modulated control of her emotions, tempo, pace - presumably all that theater work - that you can't really dare take your eyes off her when she goes for it in the big scenes, like when she compares Mack to Sid: "I had the best!" Richard is meeting Abby halfway about the restaurant but Laura doesn't like it, probably because she just doesn't like Abby. Can't blame her, but IMO Abby is right about Daniel, even if she is shredding Richard's frail ego to do it. Laura could probably handle these things with twice the ease in half the time if Abby would delegate instead of riding herd like a slavedriver - but she didn't even know about Abby's note and lien until now. (Is Laura on maternity leave from the real estate office while helping out? She was making money hand over fist there.) The cold war between Richard and his French chef Henri continues. Every time they weave another bit in with Henri's withering contempt for Richard I just cackle. There is a really great touch with Olivia and her little friend playing Monopoly at the new beach house, listening in with the child's eye view on Gary and Abby arguing about their businesses - Abby wanting to put the screws to Richard and Kenny, Gary still seeing them as neighbors and friends. The moment gets amusingly defused after Gary leaves in a way you don't usually see in primetime soap battles, with Abby loosening up and smiling at Olivia with affection as Olivia punctures her bubble of haughty fury. But Olivia's still learned at Abby's feet, telling her friend she has her over a barrel in the game: "Business is business." Again, this is multifaceted family stuff you just don't see on most primetime soaps of any era, where character and specific, nuanced relationships are able to be woven in with the overarching dramatic plot without either being compromised or slaved to too much melodrama. Abby overstepped with Jeff Munson, who it seems has a thing for Val - are they really going to stick her with this old dude for the rest of the season? Meanwhile, Gary and Ciji are getting closer, and they leave it surprisingly ambiguous what happened with them in her apartment. The silent quadrangle moment in Daniel, though - Val at her table as Abby bristles at her presence and proximity, then both of them spotting Gary and Ciji together and finally locking eyes, saying so much with nothing - was fantastic. I really wanted Val to toast Abby in that moment, but that would probably have been too camp. I did like Claudia going to Abby to confide in - those connections are still deeply rooted in the show. There's so many lovely Val/Karen moments in this episode, like Val once again showing up in her new finery and confidence, asking Karen how she looks as she prepares to enter the Gary Ewing-funded Daniel, and then admitting she already knows she looks damn good. Ciji brings it home for all the characters again with another musical number (as Ginger notably hangs off Kenny, marking her territory) and the ending shots of Karen breaking down listening to the song are really wonderful and sad. Michele Lee kills it again.

I don't think wanting to leave Days of our Lives is a clear indicator of retiring from Hollywood, lol.

DAYS' foolishness should still be GH's gain IMO. Marci is too talented for this show, I've always said so, but tbh if she's gonna make it outside of daytime it will likely need to be soon. There's even money that that won't happen (sadly for her), and if it doesn't a smart GH could snap her up as Serena Baldwin, cosmetics wunderkind. But they won't.

Is Adam Woodyatt actually having beef with the production? I didn't realize.

He learned it from Chandler Massey. None of these actors are getting proper direction or being reined in and the young guns just clown half the time.

Haberman and Baker, who were still attempting to carry water for Kushner less than 48 hours ago, are now trying to hitch their wagon to the mood of the major coverage instead with these decent readouts. But make no mistake, they are both access-driven opportunists.

What a week. RIP. @DRW50 Her husband spoke to a B-52 fan group on FB (Julee subbed for Cindy Wilson in the group in the '90s):