bossruen

Another month, another magazine cover.

Ava matchmaking Nina with Portia so that they can ruin Drew (a person with whom Ava has no specific beef herself) is an example of why I love that character. She’s amoral in a fun way.

I want her back. Bring Esme back to life as a DVX agent opposed to Joss. Yes please.

And yet Avery Kristen Pohl is the rare actor that they let go too soon, IMO. She was such a power hitter that I would’ve liked them to try to keep her around. The show needs villains who aren’t elderly serial killers or doomed Sonny adversaries.

One thing I’ll say about Willow is that they’re starting to acknowledge how willfully blind and self-destructive she is, an easy target for con men and megalomaniacs like Shiloh and Drew. And MacMullen has improved; her performance perks up when she gets to play Willow as more than just a passive victim. This, to me, is an upgrade from when she spent half a year reclining on the couch because she was keeping her cancer a secret.

Mansi is giving a rigorous, fully committed performance as the unbearable, emotionally stunted, obsessive lunatic that Kristina has unfortunately become.

I prefer Chris McKenna’s Brennan to Mesure’s at this point. He has chemistry with LW, which most actors don’t. Lot of smoothing over retcons in the dialogue today: Valentin explaining to Sonny why Brennan forced him to tamper with his meds, Brook Lynn explaining to Chase why her previous fling with Dante didn’t come up when she tried to break up him and Lulu later on. Some nice work from Swickard, too.

They’re using Mo *slightly* less. Year to date, he’s tied for 5th most episodes of any actor on the show (after Burton, Wright, Havins, Mathison), and he’s usually number 1 with a bullet. And there are episodes in which he appears but is centered less than usual. He’s still giving nothing in his scenes, but it’s something.

I assumed they saw the reaction to the Jason/Anna kiss and backed off. It happened, what, sixth months ago?

That’s my understanding as well, but it’s ultimately on TPTB for letting the actor’s desire for a flexible workload supersede the needs of the story.

I actually like JPS as Valentin but find it bizarre that the show has found itself in a situation in which he’s been the only viable romantic option for Anna for years. JPS and Finola have more chemistry than almost any of the other current pairings on the show IMO but it shouldn’t be hard to find other options for her if they can’t or won’t commit to making Valentin a consistent presence.

Official announcement of the movie Nicholas Alexander Chavez has been shooting in New York. Cool cast.

Yes, Charlotte’s father (Valentin) is Danny’s grandmother’s (Alexis) first cousin.

Drew’s blackmail scheme doesn’t make a ton of sense because exposing Portia would require him to come out in favor of Heather’s release…which happened already anyway. Politically it seems like it would behoove him to stay away from the whole situation.

At the Vanity Fair Oscar party. I can’t believe he’s pulling off this look.

I was cheering for Ric when he yelled at Kristina. Alexis should’ve intervened and backed him up. The Molly/Cody stuff is working for me, mostly because both actors are funny and resourceful and don’t sleepwalk through scenes.

Joss can be annoying as a character (by design—she is mini Carly, after all), but I’ve always thought Eden gave a strong performance.

NAC was a presenter at last night’s WGA awards in New York. (Not crazy about the ‘stache, but I assume it’s for a role, as he’s been shooting in NYC over the last few weeks.)

Weird that he would leave 13 weeks into his first contract cycle. I wonder what happened.

FWIW, NAC told an interviewer at one of the Fashion Week events that he’s shooting a movie in New York. (He couldn’t say what movie, though; it’s embargoed.)

Longtime lurker here but I thought I’d weigh in on this topic—episode 5 of Monsters seemed like *such* a calculated awards play that it made it me wonder if they wrote the part in Grotesquerie for NAC as a make good. Regardless, the Golden Globes are a for-profit operation designed to get as many big names as possible to their televised party. They were never going to nominate two relative unknowns from the same series when they can get Ewan McGregor to show up for a Showtime show that bombed in March.