I picked up in November 1997 where I left off a while ago starting with November 10. I finished off the month making it to Thanksgiving, 1997. This would be the start of the second month of Lynn Marie Latham's run. I do think the show is getting a bit stronger in most areas, but I don't think there is a strong enough big story to keep an audience tuning in day in and day out. Port Charles is a quieter show in that sense, which seems odd to say about Latham's work.
My favorite material involves the Devlin family. In the Loving / The City thread, we've discussed Harding Lemay's comment about The City not being compelling in it's early sequences because it was all set among one generation of characters. This comment would also apply to early Port Charles. I think it helps that they have started to explore multigenerational dynamics more. The Bennett / Nicole / Chris / Eve story has developed nicely in terms of story and characterization with some interesting structural decisions made in the process. The Ellen / Matt / Grace triangle is benefitting from the recognition of the non-traditional family dynamcis with Ellen's role of supervisor of the interns preventing Ellen to committing to a relationship with Matt. Joe and Karen's romance is more interesting because of the needling from all of their assorted family members about what their relationship status is.
The Devlin family scenes are some of my favorites. Bennett and Nicole's marriage is toxic. Bennett is a philandeerer and Nicole seems to be having her own mid life crisis by throwing herself into an affair with Dr. Chris Ramsay, who Nicole describes in one scene as a mirror image of Bennett in his youth. Chris and Bennett as the same type makes not only the Nicole / Chris and Nicole / Bennett dynamic intersting, it sets in motion what should be a more solid foundation for Chris and Julie in the future. Nicole isn't really going to bed with Chris; she is trying to relive the love she experienced with Bennett. Barabara Stock does well with the little she gets, but I wish they'd dig deeper. After learning the Julie knew about Eve and Bennett's affair, Nicole berates her daughter only days after Julie has been rescued from Greg Cooper's clutches. Julie's role as Nicole's confidante and Nicole's need for Julie to parent her sets up an interesting role reversal that explains why Julie is such a neurotic mess. Bennett also uses Julie as mediator in his attempts to reconcile with Nicole.
All of this culminates in a rather purposely bizarre sequence where Julie dreams of performing surgery with Greg Cooper on her mother while Greg morphs into Bennett during the course of the dream and Nicole into Eve. The sequence ends with Julie stabbing Eve in the stomach on the operating table. I have to wonder at what point Latham was considering going the serial killer route.
There are other interesting structural choices made in these episodes. On the way to the Scanlons house to see Julie, Bennett and Nicole both offer up their own versions of how Bennett and Eve's affair began each including competing filmed versions of the stories that play out one after the other. It's an interesting gimmick I have rarely scene in daytime, but it allows the audience to draw their own conclusion. Once the Devlins arrive at the Scanlons, they are surprised by the arrival of Eve and Chris (pre-affair with Nicole) when Eve arrives to get some notes she left in the Scanlon basement from when she shared the space with Julie. Eve walks right between Nicole and Bennett, which is played lowkey but is a delicious visual representation of the role Eve plays in their marriage.
Pinson is charismatic and has a nice comedic flair, but occassionally will fall flat in some of the more dramatic material. At one point, Bennett attempts to persuade Eve to tell Nicole that neither Bennett nor Eve loved each other and that was little more than a one-night stand. This lie devastates Eve as there was a time she expected Bennett to leave Nicole for her. Eve confronts Bennett over whether he ever truly loved her, and Bennett backtracks. It's increasingly clear that Bennett is someone who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Albert underplays a lot of Bennett's swarminess which is fairly effective, but I'm not convinced it's as nuanced as I would like. Anyway, when Eve does goes to Nicole, Eve reveals what Eve now beleives to be the truth; Eve's love for Benentt was one-sided. He only loved Nikki, but Eve.
All of this culiminates in Nicole's proclamation that she will be staying in Port Charles and later informs Bennett and Julie of her plans to divorce Bennett. Julie's reaction to this is pretty prominent, and, if I remember correctly, it plays a role in how she will react to her relationship with Frank down the line. Frank and Julie are very comfortable in their relationship after Julie's kidnapping. Bennett offers Frank the reward money, which he initialyl refuses before telling Bennett to donate the money to the Dominque Baldwin Pediatrics AIDS Wing at General Hospital. Julie and Frank mostly appear in their own stories, which is fine.
I like how Frank Scanlon maintains two different jobs. I don't think soaps always do this well. Frank's work as an EMT and a substitute teacher put him in the center of several stories and effectively crosses over nicely at the end of the month in a much larger story that doesn't focus on Frank. Slowly, throughout the month, Frank's next story starts with the arrival of Lark Madison, a student in his class who has an injured arm. Frank has taken Lark to GH in order to have her treated. Karen is the attending who sees Lark, who claims she is just clumsy. Later, Karen is unable to confirm Lark's address, while Lark also skips school to work at Mario's restaurant, which seems to be the new, more upscale, dining location. When Frank stops by Mario's to confront Lark, the teenager has alcohol on her breathe. It's an interesting beat in a mystery that is slowly spiraling out.
Speaking of Mario's, Joe and Karen treat Mario, Jr., the owner, for heartburn that he assumes is a heart attack and Mario thanks them with a dinner at his restaurant. It's a comedy of errors as Karen and Joe both get ready for their non-date with Mary, Frank, Julie, and Rhonda all clucking over the date that isn't a date. This is also involves a well directed sequence where Joe and Karen pick up each other lines and the camera matches body movements with Karen going to sit down in her scenes with Rhonda while Joe stands up in his sequence with Frank and Julie. After the non-date, Joe asks Karen out for real.
Joe and Karen as played by Dietz and Hammon have a nice rapport. It's not a love for the ages, but it's clear that we are in an era of shows like Chicago Hope and ER where we are firmly in a world where medical romances are popular. There's also a lot of gratuitious shirtless scenes with Karen trying on the dresses for Julie and Julie stripping down for work with Matt walking in on both women shirtless. Later, you have Eve down to her underwear to get Chris out of bed. Chris also walks around in a towel at one poitn. It's all very obvious at times and slightly cheapens the drama.
There are some nice beats hit in the Karen / Joe material. Karen talks about how this will be the first time she has been out with anyone since she's been married and how nervous that makes her. When Joe and Karen do go out, it is Joe who wants to slow it down because he doesn't want to be Karen's rebound after Jagger. Joe wants to be there for the long haul. Karen also talks about how hard it is for her constantly wrap her mind around the idea from Joe going from being just her buddy to something more. When Danielle dies at the end of the month, it is Joe and Karen in the operating room. Karen speaks to Joe about how hard she is taking Danielle's death because she was just getting use to patients dying when she didn't know them and how she knew Danielle. I think this story is in a good place, but it was going to need a catalyst for drama that wasn't there.
Danielle's death was well done for a character who has had little to no story for much of the last two months that I have seen. In her final days, a run in with Serena at the hospital leads to Danielle have a change of heart and decides she is going to confess to Scott the truth: she is Dominique's half-sister, but she is not Serena's mother. Danielle has planned to flee Port Charles because she has nothing left and to escape Rex's control. In addition, Rex told Danielle that Scott was a danger to Serena, which is why she went along with the scheme. While awaiting the FBI agent at the firehouse, Danielle gets a call from Rex, posing as Jake, saying that he has the FBI agent on his payroll and then alludes to Danielle's impending death. Danielle flees before telling the FBI agent what her role was but leaves a message on Scott's machine before disappearing.
Danielle's accident occurs offscreen. Instead, the episode ends with a woman being brought into the ER after a car accident and everyone learning it is Danielle. The next episode only deals with Danielle's surgery and everyone waiting to find out the results. There are a lot of nice character beats. Matt wants to know what caused the accident for Jake's sake seemingly alluding to the nature of his own accident that left him paralyzed. Scott tells Jake he knows what he's going through alluding to Dominique. After we are told Danielle has died in surgery, Kevin goes as far as to speak about Grace's death (without naming her). There's a lot of assumption of GH lore in these scenes and I am starting to see why the show felt in the long run they wanted to cut ties from that. I still think its fairly well done. Rib Hillis, while a beautiful man, isn't the strongest dramatic actor. With that said, Pinson's scenes had me cringing more than Hillis, but Pinson's presence is more laid back overall than Hillis'.
The Scott / Lucy / Kevin stuff involving Rex has been slightly more enjoyable than I remember it. Lucy and Kevin go to the Cayman Islands in a sequence that seems like a more subdued version of the Eve / Kevin stuff I saw in the summer of 1999. Andrew Lee was the director of an episode that had a very nice overhead shot of the Cayman Islands hotel room from the view of the ceiling fan. These kind of shots are not done often in daytime anymore so it stood out. Honestly, the production values in terms of how scenes are put together and some of the filming techniques are surprising. There was another sequence (a surgery) that was filmed using the hand held cameras which were shaky. It worked for the intensity of the situation, but it was carried over into some other scenes and it was less effective. I believe one of the medical shows had used a similar format.
The bulk of the plot in the story is Scott and Rex each trying to gaslight the other. Scott manages to lure Rex's PI to his side and then claims he has Rex's chef on the payroll. Rex claims he has the FBI agent in his pocket. It's a lot of back and forth and often things are purposely ambigious, which I don't mind but I could see as bothering others. I've seen better Riche produced gaslighting tales. In an exposition dump to Danielle, we get more details about Rex's stint in a mental institution which Rex claim was instigated by his brother Avery Stanton (Domique and Danielle's father) and insinuated that he was very aware that he was surrounded by psychopaths. It leaves the source of Rex's mental health issues up in the air as well as giving motivation to why Rex is so determined to get the money.
Lucy's sidequest to find information about Serena Ltd, which was a shell company I believe that Rex funneled money into to make it look like Scott was stealing the inheritance, has her doing her schtick with a Cayman Islands banker which is fine. Then, she comes up with the idea to kill off Scott so that they don't need Scott there. It plays out better than I can explain it. It's not my favorite stuff, but its solid plot movement in the story. Towards the end of the month, Lucy thinks the only way to get to Rex is to fake a break up with both Kevin and Scott in order to allign herself with Rex with Rex believing this will be the only way Lucy can get access to Serena. This arc makes sense to me and is messy as you have Lucy and Kevin still trying to have a baby and talking about their wedding at some point.
The other noteworthy thing to mention is the brief custody hearing where Justus Ward defends Scotty and the Baldwins (Gail and Lee) securing temporary guardianship of Serena for Gail and Lee. Interesting enough, Dominic Hoffman appears as Byron Rollins, Rex's attorney. I believe this is the same character who defended Tiffany Donnelly in her suit against the Jones for Lucas back in 1993.
I think Latham is making strides, but I feel like I don't remember there being much of an energy shift in the January 1998 episodes I watched within the last few years.
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