GH: Discussion

[JackPeyton]

Im sure that 98% of the poeple jason kills do the same thing to other poeple. kill them that is. in the mob world isnt it a kill before be killed way of life? idk. im not in the mob...

her not thinking the kids would be there was my point. she also didnt know how far those guys would have gone.

Thats my point on why Alexis cant judge Liz. SHE DID THE EXACT SAME THING. and im sorry but i still think that is sonny wanted alexis she would be there in a heartbeat.

OMFG. IT HAPPEND. WE AGREE ON SOMETHING! lol. re SvJvLvL. i agree they are all shades of grey.

and i soooo respect ur view as well RC. I couldnt agree more. I am so glad to see that there are still some posters who can depate soaps without getting personal and attacking.

on another note... this show needs more Maxie. Like why cant Lulu's screentime be cut down 1/10th for Maxie? and why cant Carly's time be cut 1/20th for Monica? Bobbie?

[Ryan]

Your logic is breathtaking is you believe that just because you sign up with a new name, people don't realize who you are. It has nothing to do with your opinions....or the fact that you post oh so similar to those banned members. You don't have to prove anything to me or anyone.

[Kylie]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people buy the Jason/Sonny love that Guza is selling. We all understand that these two are mobsters, don't we? They don't get picked on by random people. They're not targetted for the hell of it. They're not honorable, noble, upstanding business men who are unfairly picked on. They are mobsters. They compete for territory. They compete for drug money. Yes, Sonny is a drug runner, IMO. They battle to be Kingpin of an illegal industry that puts lying, cheating, stealing and killing on a pedastal. Sonny and Jason are not victims. They are theefs and liars. They are cold blooded killers. There's nothing moral or noble about what they do. There's nothing "heroic" about having to sheild your family behind bullet proof glass. There's no honor in having to travel with bodyguards. There's no respect in murdering in cold blood, because that's how you get (steal, lie, con) what you want.

This whole idea that Rexis was over before Sic is complete bullshit. I'll be happy to get into the reasons why they were completely and totally fucked over if need be.

[Ryan]

Oh Kylie, will you marry me? I gave a perfect example of the agenda based writing over in the ratings thread. I mentioned Rexis in it (w/o saying their name). And please, for the sake of what a great post it'll be, can you get into those reasons?

[Cat]

THANK YOU! For speaking the truth!

Unless GH deals with this mob issue truthfully, this show will never be able to regain its glory days. Ever!

And ITA about Rexis. GH has always played teacher's pet, purposely stratifying its "stars" into an A, B and C-list. Destroying Rexis was a way of letting Rick Hearst and NLG (and their fans!) know that they are strictly on the B-list. KeMo, though? Whole other story (even though I suspect Guza secretly despises writing for her).

[Wales2004]

First of all I didn't say the audience was going to hate Lucky with a fire of a thousand suns. I believe the emergency custody plot is about making the viewers side with Elizabeth. I'm not implying that all of the viewers will but I do personally believe that most viewers would take a mother over a father provided that the mother is not clearly unfit. Sure, the ideal is both parents but we clearly don't live in the perfect world.

If you were asking me does a real father deserve to lose his children when he has been devoted to them then my answer is no. But I don't think a child can be split in half so I will always believe a mother should have primary custody of her children unless she's abusive, on drugs, a pedophile, etc. Their father should have liberal visitation rights. Any parents that have their children's best interest at heart will try to amicably work out visitation schedules plain and simple because no one would want their children shuffled between homes every other week or every week knowing the negative impact it creates.

Elizabeth isn't trying her hardest to do anything but retain physical custody of her kids and she already told Lucky he could see them whenever he wanted to and if he didn't believe her then he should have gotten that in writing. If she went back on her word then he would have cause to pursue an action against her. All he did was set in motion the escalation of something that wasn't initially a problem by threatening her. I'm glad you agree with those kind of tactics but most people when attacked will fight back instinctively so by all means advocate Elizabeth rolling over and caving in. I would let him have the kids then he can later explain to them how his ego led to their emotional trauma. Like it or not, mothers and fathers are not emotionally equivalent figures in a child's life. Unless you have statitistics that prove that the majority of adopted children that go in search of their birth parents look for the father over the mother then it's much more likely that people side with a mother over a father no matter how unfair it may seem. If we look at animals and say that a mother instinctively protects her young then how would we justify snatching a human baby from his mother in favor of a father when the mother has done nothing wrong to the child? Is daddy going to breast feed the baby? No and mothers and fathers are not on equal footing.

As for the majority of people online siding with Lucky, that may be the case. But online viewers probably represent a small percentage of viewers and are probably more invested than the average viewer. I would guess that most people watch a show, discuss it (or not) and then move on. They don't spend hours dissecting it and getting into a huff over a character every day of the week. You have a wide range of people online and some of them are very extreme and take all of this way too personally. I may be totally wrong but I think more people than not tend to deal with what's going on at the moment in front of them and they retain the more immediate or bigger type facts. In this case you have Elizabeth who thought her marriage was over because her drug addicted husband was in their home in bed with another woman. She goes to Jason and they sleep together one night. She ends up pregnant with his child and keeps the info from her husband because he's somewhat fragile. She eventually lies outright in court and then to him about the paternity and all the new reason is for her child's safety---a concept to which most people might relate without giving it another thought Now unless a viewer has developed a special kind of hatred or contempt for Elizabeth, then she's like any other soap character. Unless a person has developed a special soft spot for Lucky then he's like any other cheating husband. On a level playing field where viewers are basicaly neutral about both characters, I still say that they would side with the mother getting custody over the father because Elizabeth has not been shown to be an unfit mother which is the key. If the key to determining who should have custody of their children was based on who lies, then no one on GH would have custody of any kids because they all have lied about something and some lies more deadly than others.

[Kylie]

LMFAO you're opening up a can of worms that I'm going to have trouble closing, but....

We all watched the Train Wreck, correct?

Good. Molly's birth. Hell, that alone makes my case. Her birth and the scenes that followed for Rexis were a turning point, that IMO, was on their way to sealing their fate as one of the great GH duo's. All of their problems, mistrusts, lies, came to a head and when they could have should have pulled apart, they united and fought together. Surviving all the odds together, and getting Molly into the world safe and healthy. Ric choose Alexis in those moments. He chose her as his love. As his wife. As his partner. He wept openly over her body when he thought she'd died, and told her that they were going to be okay as long as they were together.

The months following, they stayed with that mentality. Sure they fought. Sure Sonny was still an issue. But they begin to mold their little family into something solid and something good. There were many family scenes and Rexis alone scenes (Chinese anyone?) where they showed their new found relationship beliefs and strength together. And going into the Virus, they were stronger then ever.

We've all seen the Virus Rexis, yes? Good. If you haven't, go watch them and then come back and we'll talk. Best part of that storyline, IMO. They were each others rocks. They fought together, fought apart, fought for one another. Alexis took care of Ric, and Ric took care of Alexis. Alexis confided her deepest, darkest secret to Ric, and he took her hand and told her to hold onto him and that they'd get through it together.

They got well, reunited with their girls, and bought a house. Ready to start the rest of their lives together, and raise their family in a warm loving family. They went in search of Alexis' daughter together. Hand in hand confornting the world as it was thrown at them. Ric was the one encouraging her to find the woman. To form a realtionship wtih her. He knew Alexis needed to find her to finally let go and let herself be loved.

Don't get me wrong, all of their underlying issues were still there, just less drastic and taxing on their relationship.

So then we have Rexis happy, in love, raising their family in their new dream house, when Alexis finally finds her daugther. Sam. What was it, a couple of weeks before Ric all of the sudden, did a complete 360 and reverted back to the assh*ole, pig bastard that he was before Molly's birth. He was ogoogling Sam. Getting all hot and bothered by her. He was all of the sudden getting sucked back into Sonny's world. It was one minute he's happy Ric and the next he's a scum sucking bastard, for no reason.

Alexis gets cancer and doesn't tell Ric. Yeah, sure, she'd confided her deepest darkest secret ever to him, and he couldn't handle knowing she was sick? Especially after he'd been her rock during the virus storyline. No, she doesn't trust him again. She's keeping secrets, he's back in Sonny's World, and Ric has to catch her in what seems to a compromising position with the major.

So Ric does what Ric does, acting out after getting hurt to his core...he hurts the other person to their core. So, he bangs Sam, while his dying wife, watches. Oh no to mention Jason, but I'll get to that in my next post...

[Ryan]

LOVE YOU! Kylie Fan Forever!

[Kylie]

So in the course of two-three works, almost a full year of progress with Rexis was thrown to hell, so that Jason could have a little angst and make a baby with Saint Lizzie.

The Rexis fall out was what, a couple of day. Alexis cried. The cancer treatment started. (I recommend the Rexis wig scenes, BEST SCENES of GH, EVER!). They broke up. It was over. Molly and Kristina lost their family and no one seemed to care, or give us a moment to see how they were handling things. No one gave Ric or Alexis a moment to mourn their relationship, or miss each other. It was all anger and hate, that has gone no where in over a year.

But Jason, Jason got a primo story out of it. He got to cry. He got to yell. He got to have sex. He got to rant. He got to be a bastard and tell Sam that she betrayed him. He got to be the victim and the scorned ex. It was all about Jason. Liason gets to do it. They get to dance around each other and make gooey eyes. They get angst and drama, and we have to watch every f'ing moment of it.

And yet, we don't see Kristina or Molly for months. We don't see Rexis interact for months, and when they do, it's stalled anger that inhibits them from being parents to Molly. (Which is hte most OOC thing in all of this. Because those two adore that child and would never put her in the middle or this sh*t.

So there we have it.

Rexis was over before Sic. As I said, my ass!

[Wales2004]

Even though I fully understand when people say that the writing is agenda driven, I fail to see the difference between now and back then except that it may be more obvious and blatant. Writing by it's nature tends to be biased or agenda driven because people write with a specific purpose in mind and there is always the tendency to write characters one loves with more attention etc. Back in the Luke and Laura days there were probably Scott and Laura fans who felt slighted and hate the way Scott was given the shaft because Luke was deemed the more viable and exciting character. Some people are probably still bothered by it today.

Couples are generally broken up in place of whatever the writers deem to be the better flavor at that time. The real problem is the manner in which the dissolutions are written. The less creative and good the writers, the more of a hatchet job that is done. Instead of writing something where two people in love naturally drift apart you end up with the worst kind of betrayals for shock value and with the intent of turning the viewers off the couple or one of the individuals. Diehards will hold on no matter what because they rationalize the whole thing as the characters would never do this and they flat out refuse to accept what is on their screens.

Soaps have pretty much sold people on rapists being romantic heroes, misunderstood and good guys who made a mistake for years. People have bought into it and that in itself is a blatant form of manipulation because they're basically saying that someone who violates another human being (usually men violating women) are these tragically misunderstood romantic figures and gloss over their actions. Every day soap citizens are made into killers who may spend a little time in a mental institution or prison before roaming around in their town as if nothing ever happened.

Would yesterday's version of GH sell today? I don't know because it was really over the top with the adventures and the Cassadines, etc. What made it fun to people then might make it seem pretty silly to some of those same people today. Nostalgia makes us idealize certain things sometimes. What was great then worked because it was in that moment when that was what the society liked. Today it's hard to know what people want because people don't even know what we really want. In a simpler time more people could be sold on the fantasy of a group of people always on the run from danger but still able to find romance in it all. Today people aren't sure if they want fantasy or reality. They want to see people in situations they are not ordinary but then they complain about how unrealistically characters deal with them.

It's pretty hard for someone to write without letting his/her viewpoint come through and without favoring certain characters and it's probably hard for some of them to suppress their egos and resist the urge to try and heavily influence their audience in one direction over another. Brian Frons has basically stated that the viewers will be trained to buy what we sell so they aren't at all being covert about what they are doing. Viewers have the option to walk away and some of them do walk away.

I've watched some of the ABC soaps on and off for years and I have my moments when I don't bother with any for large periods of times. It's been years since I've taken any notice of AMC and I sometimes read about what's going on but nothing moves me to tune in. OLTL and GH are the two that I have most consistently returned to after tuning them out with GH having the edge. They don't appeal to me in the way they initially did but the fact of the matter is I'm not the same person that used to think they were all that. I went through a short stint where I became too attached to GH and lost sight of the fact that it was mere entertainment. During that time I was angered by the writing and I thought I had the solution to fixing the show (which I'm sure a bunch of other people think/thought as well). I got a grip and came back down to earth and recognized that the people in charge don't have my vision and they're doing what they think works and sure, they underestimate the intelligence of the audience but did that make me smart if I played into their hands? So I decided that if I'm watching it and it's entertaining enough and it's fun to discuss then I will, but if it's going to cause me any aggravation then off it goes.

It's entertaining enough and there are days when it's boring and off it goes. None of the characters generate any extreme emotions in me (although I will advocate Emily dying but if she were better portrayed I'd back off that one). I have an opinion on which couples make the most sense together but I'm not locked into any specific couples to the extent that I can't accept other possibilities. If a couple isn't magic on screen or tolerable enough then I tune them out. The only exception for me was years ago when I loved Jax and Brenda together and Brenda gave me my most funny Sonny moment when she ran by him and jumped into the arms of Jax, after Sonny and Jax emerged from the fire. I absolutely loved that and I think it's my all time favorite GH moment because I'm that easy to please.

[R Sinclair]

I wish you were just as generous.

[Cheap21]

oh god the Liason/Sam battle rears its ugly head agian. Thank goodness I was at work

[d_wsb]

me too.. gosh liz is just plain annoying the fact that she sits there in her smugness.

at least lucky i thought he cared about both sides.. and i totally support alexis and him.

diane's good but maybe she should stick to her job as mob lady.

but once again.. this show has no balance or good writing. there is no character I feel like supporting and everyone's paired up stupid.

here comes luza and his stupid sweeps stunts again

[R Sinclair]

I know, I know. Once "cross dressing lawyers" managed to infiltrate this debate, I realized this battle had dropped to an eighth grade level and it was time to just let this shit go.

[Wales2004]

Today's show had me doing basic math. I didn't get a thing from Johnny/Lulu, Jason/Spinelli, and Jason/Kate. Maybe the point was to fill screen time. So Kate was at AZ's house 12 years ago. Fascinating. I guess he will be visiting the chamber of great acoustics tomorrow.

It was again good that Nikolas got to be truthful again and this one he won't have to take back.

Emergency custody stuff is silly but if taking a baby away from his mother is the road to getting the truth out then okay. It's laughable that there is this great big rush to get Jake out of a house he's barely moved into and that separating a baby from his mother is the perfect solution to ensuring a father gets his rights since his rights and not the baby's needs or the mother's rights are more important. At that stage in his life where a baby mainly eats and sleeps, I'm sure he's not missing out on a whole lot besides bonding with his mother but that's not important if it's going to cause a problem for dad.

Skye championing Ric's rights as a father wasn't too bad though I'm guessing the point was to show how Alexis was adamant about retaining custody of her daughter while she was pushing hard to take Elizabeth's much younger baby away from her.

Robin's attitude toward Carly was bothersome because she was insensitive to Carly's feelings. Jax didn't help at all because he should have let Robin know that it was a decision that he needed to make with Carly even though it is his sperm (i guess they can't say that because they kept calling it DNA).

Patrick really should mind his own business but that would kill the whole thing so he needs to move on to the next man on the list.