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I can actually buy Brook Lynn being so self-absorbed and incurious that she never thought to question why her mom and grandma were so attached to Gio.

I know some of y'all really like Brooke Kerr, and so I've tried to give her a shot, despite her frequent flat line readings and distracted "did I leave the front door unlocked?" facial expressions. But lord, she is so bad at playing a tough-talking badass that I was actually rooting for Brad today to spill the beans to Drew.

I think it gets confusing because of the mixing of genre codes. Sure, a realistic character might contain multitudes and might do bad things but also be an enthusiastic supporter of his gay son. But in nearly every other way, from writing to performance choices, Sidwell is not a realistic character--he can only be perceived as a comic book villain or James Bond villain. It's like if you had a drawing of Donald Duck, but the bottom half of his face was replaced with a photograph of an actual duck's beak. It would be really really weird, right?

I'm not sure even the writers know what they're trying to achieve with Sidwell. Most of the time they write him as a Bond villain. But one who has a PFLAG sticker on one of the rotors of his private helicopter, I guess.

Really? A few months ago, before Marco was introduced, Sidwell had some scenes where he seemed to be flirting pretty hard with Lucas. Now, I guess I could see Sidwell being disappointed like, "I raised you to be a fey bisexual like me! But you're just so butch, Marco!"

Okay, those drugged party-boy Drew scenes today were hilarious. Hats off to the writers for contriving a way to get so many characters in the Savoy watching him do body shots off the escort Nina and Portia hired to seduce him. So many great reaction shots, but I think my favorite belonged to Joss:

I remember getting my hopes up back in 2012, when Ron and Frank came in and reduced the focus on Sonny. So I'm wary. And I don't even need MB to leave. If they just write up a new contract that cuts his episode count in half, I'll be happy.

Boy this is the kind of Sonny-centric episode that makes me wish they really were killing him off. It's like they're playing the "greatest hits" of all the annoying Sonny storylines they've done in the past, including mawkish scenes with Max Gail's Mike plus Stephen A Smith having a slow-motion shootout in a hospital room.

That's a great idea! Maybe Jordan could take a moment in one of her scenes with Isaiah and go, "Say, thanks for recommending Doctors Without Borders to TJ. He called this morning, and he's really loving it there in Zambia." And then they could go back to arguing about Sidwell or whatever. Or better still, Jordan could say, "You know what, I'm tired talking about Sidwell. Let's talk about you. You've been in Port Charles for nearly 8 months now, and I still know almost nothing about your past. Are you related to the Llanview Gannons by any chance?"

Absolutely--they need to cut some people first. They can start with the Sidwell-Ramirez family (though keep Marco for a while). And before they give Molly a new boyfriend, they could start with baby steps, like giving her some kind of interior life that doesn't revolve around her sister and mother. I mean, at least half of Molly and Cody's scenes together have been set at the hospital. Would it kill the writers to have Molly say something like "I hope I don't run into my ex here," then have her open up to Cody about how tough the breakup has been on her? Or better still, she could say something like, "It still feels so weird coming to GH and not seeing TJ here. After we broke up, he took a fellowship at a research hospital in California..." and then open up about her feelings. It still boggles the mind that TJ, by far one of the longest-running black characters in the show's 62-year history, just basically vanished from the canvas and no longer even gets mentioned.

I have mixed feelings about Molly. I think that the character is so thinly written that she could be written off the show tomorrow, and we'd barely notice. But I do think that Kristen Vaganos is doing a good job of bringing some specificity to the character, and with a bit of care, the writers could actually turn her into a key part of the canvas. The big thing Molly has going for her is that she's very different from most of the female characters in her general age range. GH has way too many "spoiled princess" characters (Kristina, Brook Lynn, Lulu, Maxie) who are played by actresses pushing 40 but who frequently act like they're sorority girls. Molly is their complete opposite; she's actually too mature for her age, neurotic and responsible to a fault. I think the best thing they could do for Molly would be to match her up with a guy who has some of those same qualities, who's a bit nerdy and introverted and OCD. You're absolutely right that this would go against Frank's general tendencies to "Insert Person A into Person B" to maximize his budget. But if he can afford to bring two new guys onto the show to support Joss's spy storyline, then he could bring a guy on to be Molly's boyfriend (and to introduce a fresh male character type).

I can see the actors trying hard to make it work, but Molly-Cody seems like such a forced coupling. I can understand why the writers wanted to try the "opposites attract" formula with them, but Cody already had a perfectly good "opposites attract" relationship with Tracy that felt like it could blossom into a full-fledged romance. And Molly is in the middle of the Kristina/Alexis/Ric/Ava storyline, so she has plenty to do right now. There's no need to rush her into another romance after she lost her child and broke up with her weirdly memory-holed partner of over a decade.

I totally agree that the show has been misusing Josh Kelly badly for the past few months, but I hope they don't get rid of him. He's one of the very few actors in his age range on the show who projects warmth and a sense of humor, so I'd definitely keep him over guys like Josh Swickard or Donnell Turner. There's always a place on a soap for a handsome loveable rogue; they just need to start writing some material that taps into that side of his character.

100% agree. I just think Jason works best when placed into storylines about his family relationships. Steve usually has Jason speaking slowly and deliberately, which makes sense for the character. But it doesn't always work when the show is doing action/mob scenes, as his slow-paced speech can take already-boring expository dialogue and make it more sluggish. But in family storylines like his scenes with Danny today, the slower pace gives the actors more time to react and convey things with their facial expressions. It feels more like old-school soap opera, which is very welcome on the frenetically-edited GH.

I actually think Drew's heel turn is an extremely smart use of Cameron Mathison's screen persona. I don't think Drew is all that different from Ryan Lavery (post-Gillian) on AMC. The difference is that GH isn't trying to pitch this smarmy, slick, self-righteous guy to us as a romantic lead. Instead, Drew likes to think of himself as a romantic lead and has sold Willow on the fantasy that they're the protagonists in a romance, but the show takes care to point out how he's manipulating her. And Cam really does have a talent for portraying all of Drew's smug entitlement and sliminess.

Ric and Ava are 🔥. I loved their hospital room scenes today. I'm also a bit impressed that GH is taking Ric and Elizabeth's car accident seriously by showing them each having a lengthy recovery process. Usually on this show, even if you're shot or poisoned by polonium or whatever, you're back to normal within a week.

This was from when Sheffer was still cowriting with Passanante. That horrible Adam Hughes story comes from the next regime, with Passanante, Laiman, and Whitesell.

I think the one good thing that came out of the Rose's death storyline was the institutionalization of Will and then his reintroduction as a teen played by Jesse Lee Soffer. In his first few weeks, he got some great scenes with Barbara where he plays her to get out of the mental institution. Soffer is great at playing a smirking sociopathic teen, and it would have been great fun to see him causing chaos all over Oakdale. But then they pulled back from this conception of the character pretty quickly, and once Gwen arrived six months later, nearly all the dark parts of the character got covered over.

After the end of today's episode, I'm thinking that Eva La Rue is not long for this show. Are we headed for some kind of "Who Killed Natalia?" storyline? And will it be dropped after a couple of weeks, like the "Who Killed Jagger?" and "Who Killed Cyrus?" storylines, as everyone in Port Charles could care less, including the cops investigating the murder?

I remember when Chase was one of the bright spots of the young male cast, but now it seems like he spends every scene frowning and sulking about his weak sperm. Can he just go back to being a sweet happy himbo cop? On a more positive note, I think Van Hansis and Laura Wright have amazing onscreen sibling chemistry. His Lucas really does bring out the best side of her Carly.

This might sound harsh, but I think the show killed off the wrong twin. Lily had reached a dead end story-wise, but Rose still had years of story left in her, and Byrne had great chemistry with Scott Holroyd's Paul (who also never should have been fired). I'm sure the Lily and Holden fans would have protested, but in the years I was watching the show (2000-2010), the two of them were just kind of depressing to watch, like an all-too-realistic look at what happens to a pair of high school sweethearts when they start aging and the sexual chemistry fades away.

I think that by her final years on the show, she had slipped into caricature a bit, but I was watching some 80s clips of Amy, and she seems like a well-defined comic supporting character. There are some clips of her interacting with Duke where they bounce off each other perfectly: Back to today's episodes, I'm not a fan of either Sidwell or of Carlo Rota's "Iago in a community theatre production of Othello"-style performance. But I did really enjoy his scenes with Tracy today. Jane Elliott always brings her A-game and brings out the best in her scene partners.

I remember Shell Kepler's character Amy Vining fondly, but she always seemed like a real person, even as she was being used as a plot device to spread gossip around the hospital. These were often fairly comic scenes, but Amy Vining was rarely the object of ridicule like her namesake Amy Driscoll was this week.

English and Communications. Sadly I haven't gotten to teach a course in Television Studies yet, but I have gotten to direct several senior theses on TV. I've got a student right now who's writing on the representation of food and eating on Gilmore Girls. Back to GH, has Nurse Amy always been so annoying and cartoonish? I've been cringing through her scenes this week, especially knowing that she's the show's only representation of a plus-size woman.

He'll probably turn out to be an ecoterrorist who holds Emma and Joss hostage in a few months, but for now I'm enjoying Daniel Goddard's professor character. As a college professor myself, I was on his side immediately when I saw his bemused reaction to Joss. We've all been there with the student who misses the first three weeks of class then confidently tells us that she's sure she can catch up.