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The Pascal stuff seemed to come out of nowhere and wasn't very well acted. Still, I kind of like how Wyndemere is now populated entirely by campy overactors, to the point that Lucas is now the most straight-acting man living there.

Van's emotional breakdown scenes today basically worked for me, but I don't think he's being well-served by the writing. I think the show is trying to convey this idea that Lucas is still in shock and the grief is coming in waves, so some days he's relatively calm while other times he's overwhelmed. But the writing hasn't totally gotten this across, and so in some scenes (like his scenes with Joss) he just seems a little bored. Still, he's doing a lot better with this material than Carlo Rota is.

No kidding. Though I can't recall the last time I saw a DOOL promo that looked interesting. It's actually a little astonishing to me that no one at either Peacock or Corday Productions apparently realizes how bad these weekly promos have gotten. Because even if the stories aren't especially exciting, any competent editor should be able to produce a promo that entices the audience.

Boy, those WSB guys must really hate Cullum if they left him alone in a hospital room with no security whatsoever guarding it. Although I did appreciate the parade of people stopping by to kill him today. I'm assuming that Lucas joins that list on Monday, and I hope he finally does the deed.

Just idle speculation, but I wonder if we're building towards a scene where Britt sneaks into Cullum's room to kill him... and finds that someone's already beaten her to the punch.

I've got to give Wednesday's show props in one other area: all those scenes where Jason was taken to a prison in an undisclosed location where his basic human rights will not apply by shadowy federal agents who sneer at the very notion of due process. This is about as political as a daytime soap can reasonably get in 2026, and I appreciated it.

Has Shen ever had onscreen romantic chemistry with anyone? I don't mean to be cruel, but I've always found the character of Brad to be so poorly written and poorly acted, I've never felt invested in any of his storylines, romantic or otherwise.

Some great dramatic scenes today, but I'm still pissed that the show again prioritized short-term drama over long-term romance by killing off Marco. Maybe they thought he'd done too many bad things in helping Sidwell, but I thought they gave him a pretty believable redemption arc over the past couple of months. Worst case scenario is that they try to pair Lucas with Brad again. Best case is that they bring Adrian Achondo back in a few months as Marco's long-lost twin Mario, who's also gay. Or that they bring on Eric Sheffer Stevens as a Steven Lars Webber recast, only more sarcastic than before and newly bisexual.

Finn Carr is going to have one hell of an Emmy reel this year. He did a great job of selling Rocco's shock and shame and fear, even when he wasn't saying a word.

Oh yeah! I think the dialogue writing has gotten better in the past couple of years, but every time I tried to tune into GH in the late 2010s, I was always struck by how leaden the dialogue seemed; it was mostly exposition, and while a few of the show's veteran actors were able to find some nuances in it, most of the younger cast just seemed to recite it flatly. But back to Ron's Soapy interview, another thing I liked was learning what a fan he was of some of the actors he brought onto the shows he was head-writing (including Jackee Harry). He tells a funny story about getting to watch from the production booth as Erika Slezak and Robin Strasser acted out one of the first scripts he wrote, a scene where they get trapped in a locked room and rehash old arguments, and producer Jill Farren Phelps turns to him and asks, "Why am I watching two old ladies in a basement?" and he tells her, "Because it's amazing." He also recalls the increasing budget pressure he was under at DOOL; when he started, he had permission to use up to 13 characters in each day's script, but that number kept going down, to 10 or 11 characters per day by the time he left.

I really liked Ron's interview, which contained a fascinating story of being in the right place at the right time to get hired as a writer's assistant for OLTL. And I was glad he sounded contrite about his Twitter feuds. I'd agree that by the end of his DOOL stint, he was running on fumes. But I think he does have a lot of good qualities, including a love for shows' veteran actors and old storylines, as well as a penchant for shocking twists that keep the audience engaged. That said, I think he benefits when he has strong EPs who are willing to veto some of his more self-indulgent ideas, and he also needs scriptwriters who are able to ground his campier plots in dialogue that still feels authentic to the characters (in the way that the Cullitons and David Kreizman were on DOOL).

I'm getting caught up on this week's episodes, and one thing that really struck me about Tuesday's episode was how Kai/Trina and Gio/Emma both got couple scenes with somewhat similar dialogue. But Braedyn Bruner and Giovanni Mazza have much stronger chemistry and were able to elevate their scene into something special where we could really believe this was a young couple in love. Whereas Tabyana Ali and Jens Austin Astrup just couldn't project that same sense of intimacy, so the dialogue rang hollow and Kai still seems like a placeholder. Honestly, I'm expecting him to get killed off any day now as part of the Drew/Willow storyline.

Listen, if you want a Portia/Jordan baby-switch storyline in time for November sweeps, you need to start setting that [!@#$%^&*] up now.

"Messieur Lucas, I could not nail you down if my life depended on it" There we go, canonical confirmation that Pascal is a bottom.

At least Van and Adrian acted the hell out of those scenes today. I totally believed that Marco loves Lucas deeply and thinks he can change, but is probably in too deep with Sidwell's plans and his own lust for revenge.