Vee

Finally, some breakthroughs:

Dude did fine.

A sad update.

After the 2000s, a lot of Liz fans will throw themselves in front of a bus to get her a major pairing with someone valued by the show vs. being sloppy seconds for Jason or the latest villain/failed hire du jour. If that meant committing to her being paired with Roger Howarth as he plays a gentle serial killer, a lot of them were willing to swallow that. It's a symbiotic relationship: On Frank's GH, being paired with Michael Easton or Howarth = job security and story, and Frank knows the desperate fanbase will keep those characters reasonably popular and therefore able to justify his favorite OLTL stars' continued employment (unless, in Roger's case, the new management at ABC notices you are still playing a rape-adjacent serial killer in 2021). All in all, they'll take it. Sad but true.

God, amen.

Re: the late Clarence Williams, who guest-starred in Season 2:

A good thread:

I'm not particularly happy about that, nor am I happy about Garland upholding the old institutionalist turn-the-page norms on certain things where it's not wholly necessary (and that's not just a question of the Carroll case). There's a number of things I can not be happy with. But that would happen in any administration, and it won't be the last time. The key is it's also a process, and a series of moving conveyors. I understand the urgency of the moment, nobody needs to remind me. This is a frustrating and tedious period with the infrastructure logjam and the uncertainty over voting rights. But it's not the first. A lot of that is just the nature of the Senate. I think the trajectory now, as all the bipartisan kerfuffle slowly dissolves by the hour, is that things are going to get done, if clearly less swiftly than I'd like, over the next few weeks and months as all this crap fades away. I'm tending to tune out the minute by minute cat-herding tweets about the Senate atm (often from giddy Capitol Hill reporters like Sherman who hero-worship the 'savvy' of McConnell and scoff at Democrats who work to make deals, then ignore them when they actually pass legislation) and am going to give them a pass on posting until real results begin to manifest, which will probably only begin sometime next week. Maybe. That's the Senate for you. If I spent all my time watching leftist accounts I'd think everything is fucked, that the Dems don't want to win and it's all doomed. That's not the case; that's simply what they want because they value vindication and perceived moral superiority over progress. I don't believe for a second the Senate Dems didn't want to win. That doesn't mean there weren't and aren't plenty of blinkered Democrats in the Senate who made mistakes last year and some who are making them now. Same old story for many years. Doesn't mean we can't do anything right. Right now, the force within the party rank and file is to go it alone. There are a lot of things we can eternally criticize Democrats for, especially Democrats in the Senate, especially re: messaging and tactics which will be a generational reeducation process to be honest, but I think ultimately the train will come down the track on some of the key issues of this month - possibly while I'm ready to throttle everyone involved. That's bureaucracy. In the meantime, I am not going to take my mood cues from leftists or CNN.

This guy rapidly became a professional scold and drama chaser. It doesn't surprise me. This explains his recent Twitter meltdowns. Here is the long-form LA Magazine piece the DB story links to - the bigger story.

I'm glad. They need to force him to vote no.

I never understood or accepted the Corday/Greene pairing despite loving both characters, and never will. I think Ming-Na hangs in for awhile but I felt they never, ever used her to her full potential. They should've paired her with Carter IMO but as you'll see, the all-encompassing Carter love dynasty is a different quadrant of characters. I think Susan and Carter may have been involved when she returned, but I don't think they ever committed to it. I don't remember, bc around then I stopped watching.

Trump is never going to jail IMO, but I never thought he was. I do think there will be a House committee on 1/6 which will be more effective than whatever weak tea compromise the Senate would've slapped together to appease McConnell. DOJ isn't the most effective agent for voting rights. The best we can do to protect voting rights starts with passing something - that's what the next month or two is going to be all about. And I think an expanded VRA likely will pass soon, and that will be very good. But leaving it all up to DOJ and executive orders isn't going to do it. As for something I really don't like, if separating Trump from DOJ so he can be prosecuted as a citizen is the angle then DOJ needs to make it clear, IMO. Because right now it looks and feels to a lot of people like the DOJ choosing to simply uphold the old norms and institutional mores, protect the outgoing admin like it was any other and 'move on' as opposed to taking the situation on the individual merits, which is flashbacks to a lot of Bush/Cheney hangover stuff. That's not more #bothsides ammunition anyone needs this month.

It's a stupid move on Garland's part re: the old norms of the institution closing ranks regardless of conduct or past behavior because of longstanding protocol vs. context. It's a mistake.

Tester throws shade at Manchin:

Luka and Abby are pretty transparent attempts to replace Doug and Carol on the canvas - their trials and tribulations, romantic and otherwise. It gets worse later on. I liked both initially but stopped watching when they began all-consuming along with Carter. ER then promptly repeated this with Linda Cardellini's character when Maura Tierney left. They all just felt like new iterations of Carol to me as opposed to trying something new. I'll be curious to see how Chris reacts to Carol's exit. The events that play out there were a big deal at the time BTS, a big surprise watching live, and this article lays it out. Don't read that or click this part til you see the episode: Meanwhile: Gloria Reuben stays busy.

Sad news: Lisa Banes played the first Eve McBain, John and Michael's mother, on OLTL in 2004. I used to refer to her arch character who sang spooky torch songs in dark clubs while the show attempted to poorly chemistry test her with Bo Buchanan as "Scary Death Lady," but Banes is in fact a very talented star of the NY stage as well as countless films (like Gone Girl) and television shows. This story is awful.

I don't think most voters will see it that way. Not with the polarization today.