18 minutes ago, Franko said:

The uploads have jumped ahead of me. Luckily, I'm intending this week's commentary to be concise (famous last words). I'll have it up early tomorrow.

If I had my way, the finale would have ...

1. Happened in Laurelton

2. Included Terry pursuing Kevin down Main Street

3. Included Patrick

4. Still culminated in Kevin falling to his death, but at the Purity Water plant

I can only speak for myself but I'm not really rushing to watch anyway - I'm more looking forward to your commentary. Be as elaborate as you need to be.

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I can only speak for myself but I'm not really rushing to watch anyway - I'm more looking forward to your commentary. Be as elaborate as you need to be.

Well, don't mind if I do! (And thank you!)

The Decline and Fall of the Monty Empire

Week 21 (May 19-23, 1986) -- Part I

Felicia: "Lucy, I know how much you love Kevin. And I just want to let you know I love Frisco just as much. So you can get some idea of how worried I am."

Lucy: "Well, get used to being worried, Felicia. That's the price you have to pay for being in love with one of The Hardy Boys."

Laurelton: I'm going to try something different this week, at least with this portion of the commentary. What I Like, What I Dislike, and What I'm Okay With.

I Dislike how blatant the stalling is. The first half of Monday's episode has plenty of filler until Kevin and Frisco have their underwater fight. Unless you think it's important to see Frisco be served his first chili dog. Friday's episode isn't much better. I began audibly groaning over the plausible yet downright trolling reasons why Anna and Jake couldn't catch up to the O'Connors. It wasn't enough that Terry, Kevin and Patrick had already checked out of their hotel, took a ferry to the mainland, and then took a plane to Seaview Sanitarium, which nobody but the trio knows they're going to. We also have Anna and Jake getting a flat tire, along with Santa Catalina's police chief coming from the other side of the island to reach them.

I Liked Felicia learning about Kevin's true nature from Bobbie. Felicia's still testing my patience -- I also groaned when after nearly an episode of thinking Frisco up and left without a note to her, Felicia found his message -- but I do appreciate GH not glossing over how two of Kevin's strongest defenders were wrong. Pump that contrition into my veins!

Felicia: "... I believed him."

Bobbie: "Everybody believed him. He's a baby-faced murderer and everybody believed him, but it's absolutely true. You don't know what I went through, to try and get Jake to defend him."

Felicia: "How can Anna be so sure about this?"

Bobbie: "Felicia, it's true. Believe me."

I'm Okay With the scuba sequences. I don't doubt that GH paid a pretty penny for them, and they're certainly pretty to look at. But they and the location shoot as a whole are in service of a storyline I've lost my patience with. I also think it they could have made it a little more clear that Kevin slammed Frisco into that rock, giving him a gash. Until it was confirmed that's what happened, I thought Frisco spent Tuesday trying to recover from decompression sickness.

I'm Okay With Patrick being fooled by Kevin, who did a reasonably believable job in making it seem like Terry was trying to kill him and later, herself. I already know that Patrick's going to be back in Port Charles during this storyline's conclusion, which is a shame. It would be nice to get a final say on the brothers' relationship. I keep wondering if Kevin would have dared to eventually prey on Patrick.

I Like Felicia not being hostile towards Samantha, and being hostile with Lucy. It was also funny how the blondes immediately clocked that Lucy was subtly flirting with an unresponsive Eric. Speaking of which, I'm just now clocking that Eric is played by Martin Hewitt from Endless Love.

I'm Okay With the Santa Catalina Island folks not being deliberately obstructive to Frisco, Anna and Jake. They're only so helpful, but it's still a refreshing change of pace from the hicks in Laurelton. I'm not going to hold the scuba store clerk sending Anna and Jake on a wild goose chase against him. That was a combination of Kevin's trickery and Anna not immediately playing her police card.

I HATE Terry not questioning how she could have killed Jennifer. I know that Terry's under a lot of mental strain, and she's being drugged, and Kevin's supposedly so effective as a trickster, but let's look at some facts. And GH, this is your fault for bringing up St. Patrick's Day last week, which made me remember things related to Jennifer's death.

• If Terry killed Jennifer, she would have had to have either done it before Jennifer went to the airport (which contradicts Red Flynn's account of having seen her there) or have gone to the airport herself to take care of Jennifer (and surely Red would have mentioned seeing Terry there; he could see her more clearly at the trial than when he was going off his memory of what Lucy looked like from behind).

• How would Terry have either gotten to the airport vicinity with a corpse, or from the airport with Jennifer, without having a car? Did Terry change out of her nightgown? If she didn't, she did a fine, fine job keeping her clothes clean while managing to stuff a dead body in a culvert.

• Driving while sleepwalking is possible, but at such a distance?

My point is, I'm beyond ready for Terry to no longer buy Kevin's bull. I realized that last week was the last hurrah for Laurelton's town without pity schtick, and when I watched Thursday's episode, I hoped it would be the last time I'll see Terry freaking out.

I Liked Frisco asking for Felicia once he regained consciousness. See, Princess, he does love you.

I'm Okay With Sean using his WSB connections to help locate the O'Connors. Whatever gets this story to the finish line.

Stray thoughts:

-- Kudos to Jack Wagner for continuing the scene after what was clearly an unscripted fall in Monday's episode.

-- Why is Felicia's student supplies store opening in late May? They might as well have had her operating GH's gift shop.

-- Repeating myself, but they couldn't have given Guy Mack a slightly longer pair of swim trunks?

-- Aside from Patrick and Terry, everyone at the Brownstone knows about Kevin. Tania finds out on Monday and Tony learns offscreen prior to Wednesday's episode.

-- It's interesting that they chose "A View to a Kill" for what was on the radio when Kevin found out about Frisco surviving. The song was a year old. "Notorious" wouldn't come out until the fall of '86.

-- It's not GH's fault, but seeing Terry write "I am a murderer, please help me!" in lipstick on the bathroom mirror just makes me think of Drag Race.

Coming soon, thoughts on Sean Swindles the Qs, Mike's Parentage, and a little of Buzz Gets Brained. There wasn't anything else this week.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Franko

Week 21, Part II

Mike: "Mom ... Is this the way it's gonna be all the time, you being sarcastic because my dad just bought a mansion and he's gonna have stables an indoor-outdoor swimming pool, and he's gonna buy scuba gear for me, for me to practice? Are you gonna say no to all that?"

-- This line cracked me up. It's Mike's version of Navin Johnson's letter home.

Mike's Parentage: It's nice of GH to spare part of a day, Wednesday, for Chris, Judith, David, Mark, and Shelley. Actually, thanks to Buzz Gets Brained, Chris and Shelley get to appear in Thursday's episode, too. Anyway, Derek, Lorena, and Mike return from Atlantic City, and Lorena manages to keep Mike from immediately getting resettled. There's so much that needs to be done at Derek and Lorena's new place.

Over at GH, Derek shuts Amanda down when she mentions his illegitimate son. "My son. Period ..." Amanda's not okay with Lorena marrying into the Barringtons, and I wish I was versed enough in Port Charles to get an idea of how the next nearly 20 years played out offscreen among Amanda, Derek, Lorena, Mike, and Alison's family. I have a similar curiosity about the Port Charles Quartermaines vs. the Southampton Quartermaines, but at least that one will be explored in 1987.

I looked ahead and saw that Monica and Lorena will have at least one more head-to-head before the latter is gone for good. Before that, Monica lets anyone who will listen (Amanda, Rick, and Bobbie) know that she disavows Lorena.

Back at the Webbers', Ginny babysits Robin. Unless I'm wrong, this marks the first and possibly last time that Kimberly McCullough and David Mendenhall will share screen time together. I bring it up for two reasons. A while back, I imagined what would have happened if GH hadn't over-SORASed A.J. and instead had him fight with Mike over Robin, as a redo of Alan/Monica/Rick. The second thing is that back when Jeff was around, Mike claimed Anna was best friends with Rick and Ginny. That line seemed odd then, and it seems odd now. I guess it would have happened thanks to Anna being close to Buzz.

Anyway, the clock's ticking for all of the players in this storyline. Lorena's got less than three weeks left, Mike won't be that far behind her, Derek's gone by Labor Day, and Rick & Ginny are out around Thanksgiving.

Buzz Gets Brained: Rick and Tony notice that Buzz seems to be dependent on his painkillers. Jimmy Lee, then Buzz, are defensive over this. Jimmy Lee also lets Lorena know that Derek was tricked into buying his new mansion, and that he (JL) is still single. There's no mention this week of Sandy. If I had to estimate, this all took up maybe a fifth of Thursday's episode.

Spare thoughts:

-- There's a little bit of Hospital Happenings this week. Like I mentioned earlier, Tuesday's episode includes Bryan taking heat from an offscreen Steve over the incident of Lucy being caught getting a call from Kevin. Rewatching the scene, I also see that Bryan referred to himself as a doctor, which I think was a typo or a continuity error. Either that, or Bryan has a doctorate in social work. I still think Bryan should be the hospital administrator, leading board meetings with the likes of Edward and Amanda. Speaking of Edward, he wraps up the HH portion on Wednesday by complaining about the Laurelton-related, barely a staff shortage.

-- I got a kick out of that slightly modified Pepsi can Mike's drinking from, and an even bigger one from Robin mentioning how Anna and Filomena would take her to Fire Island. Atlantic City pales in comparison!

I'll wrap things up in a little bit with Sean Swindles the Quartermaines.