That JFP podcast thread made me curious about the GH train wreck (the plotline, not the show) and oof the way they wrote Luke is...something @ an hour and 23 minutes:

 

 

Luke loved the hell out of his kids...what the hell?

 

I didn't watch the whole thing because...lol, can anyone tell me why all of these characters were on a train?

Gosh, Nathalia Livingston’s terrible acting still doesn’t get any better upon rewatching her work years later...

3 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Gosh, Nathalia Livingston’s terrible acting still doesn’t get any better upon rewatching her work years later...

 

Ahem, Daytime Emmy® Award Winner Natalia Livingston thank you very much.

Edited May 18, 20205 yr by Darn

3 minutes ago, Darn said:

 

Ahem, Daytime Emmy® Award Winner Natalia Livingston thank you very much.

 

Another reason Daytime Emmys mean SQUAT these days.

I thought the train sweeps event was stupid at the time.

 

Greg’s Lucky is really just a generic bland soap hunk.  But I liked him better than JY in the role.

 

I was still so into the show at that point, but a few months after this I had enough, and quit watching until the contagion sweeps event, or Laura waking up.  I can’t remember which one was first.  Too much Courtney, I hated Sam, I was sick of Sonny, Emily was a chore.

 

 

29 minutes ago, Darn said:

That JFP podcast thread made me curious about the GH train wreck (the plotline, not the show) and oof the way they wrote Luke is...something @ an hour and 23 minutes:

 

 

Luke loved the hell out of his kids...what the hell?

 

I didn't watch the whole thing because...lol, can anyone tell me why all of these characters were on a train?

 

It was something to do with Liz and Lucky's wedding I think. Maybe they were all going to a party afterwards? It just also happened to be the train that Sam and Jason were on and Manny showed up to stalk Sam. Then somehow Carly escaped from jail or the psychiatric hospital and also ended up on the same [!@#$%^&*] train. None of it ever made sense.

6 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

 

It was something to do with Liz and Lucky's wedding I think. Maybe they were all going to a party afterwards? It just also happened to be the train that Sam and Jason were on and Manny showed up to stalk Sam. Then somehow Carly escaped from jail or the psychiatric hospital and also ended up on the same [!@#$%^&*] train. None of it ever made sense.

 

Thank you! Who the heck is Manny?

26 minutes ago, Darn said:

 

Thank you! Who the heck is Manny?

 

I barely remember the specifics of his introduction but he was part of some mob family that came to Port Charles to kill Sonny and Jason. That never happened obviously and then at some point he became obsessed with Sam. At some point after all this, he had an identical twin brother show up who was a priest and was there during the hostage crisis. 

8 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

 

I barely remember the specifics of his introduction but he was part of some mob family that came to Port Charles to kill Sonny and Jason. That never happened obviously and then at some point he became obsessed with Sam. At some point after all this, he had an identical twin brother show up who was a priest and was there during the hostage crisis. 

 

Oy, thank you. Sounds like...well most of Sonny/Jason/Carly/Sam stories over the last 20 years.

Manny Ruiz and his twin the priest(?) were played by Robert LaSardo, a character actor who was hot at the time due to his recurring role as a druglord on nip/tuck. Guza was very fond of emulating primetime and film at the time in the laziest ways by literally hiring the same actors for similar roles, or shamelessly recreating others, like having his reinvented Jerry Jacks played by Roche take on the name "Mr. Craig" the same year the gritty Casino Royale came out. Manny was basically LaSardo's primetime character again. His story got ridiculous and I don't remember what became of him.

Edited May 18, 20205 yr by Vee

2 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Greg’s Lucky is really just a generic bland soap hunk.  But I liked him better than JY in the role.

 

This statement is so accurate it hurts. I really do like GV and think he's adorable, but I totally get what you're saying...he played the role very safe or maybe the writing just wasn't there when he played the character, but he seems really sweet and I hear he's doing well on DAYS. JY was never Lucky for me...maybe because he was on the way out when I started watching GH for a bit. 

2 hours ago, Vee said:

Manny Ruiz and his twin the priest(?) were played by Robert LaSardo, a character actor who was hot at the time due to his recurring role as a druglord on nip/tuck. Guza was very fond of emulating primetime and film at the time in the laziest ways by literally hiring the same actors for similar roles, or shamelessly recreating others, like having his reinvented Jerry Jacks played by Roche take on the name "Mr. Craig" the same year the gritty Casino Royale came out. Manny was basically LaSardo's primetime character again. His story got ridiculous and I don't remember what became of him.

 

I think Jason threw him off the roof of GH. 

 

Like most Guza era villains, the Manny saga went on forever. In addition to the train wreck antics, there was also when he shot up the PCPD, shooting Sam (and I think Lucky too at some point), holding all the women in town hostage, and some absurd plot point involving him escaping out of custody on a plane. It was just all ridiculous. It had nothing to do with actors and everything to do with the fact that Jason and Sonny always had to be the "good" guys. 

 

Just skimming through that train wreck clip remind me of how horrendous that era of the show was. Reese!, Skye and Tracy fighting over Luke, Manny, Courtney, Sonny and Jason 24/7. I don't even remember that Jesse dude that I guess is with Maxie. This was all right after Nikolas's look a like raped Emily and that horrible story with the Corinthos children, Michael "dying", and then him supposedly killing AJ with a pillow. I'll admit that I mostly still really liked GH up until around this era. This is around the time it really started pissing me off. 

 

I think we also had the replacement Felicia at this point because Brian Frons and JFP had decided Kristina Wagner was "matronly" and ran her off the show.

 

I did remind me though that both Julie Berman and Laura Wright did hit the ground running as Lulu and Carly. Berman definitely got...less impressive as time went on and Wright has gotten kind of lazy but, at the time, they both were doing very well right out of the gate.

Edited May 18, 20205 yr by AdelaideCate007

6 hours ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

Just skimming through that train wreck clip remind me of how horrendous that era of the show was. Reese!, Skye and Tracy fighting over Luke, Manny, Courtney, Sonny and Jason 24/7. I don't even remember that Jesse dude that I guess is with Maxie. 

Was he a cop? The only thing i remember for sure is that he was very cute, and ended up dead.  The first of her dead partners.

Edited May 18, 20205 yr by titan1978

13 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Was he a cop? The only thing i remember for sure is that he was very cute, and ended up dead.  The first of her dead partners.

 

Jesse was a cop.  He was Lucky's partner and I believe died in the line of duty.  It was the first of Maxie's dead partners but his death actually began the set up to Maxie/Lucky's weird affair.  

10 hours ago, Darn said:

 

Thank you! Who the heck is Manny?

 

9 hours ago, Vee said:

Manny Ruiz and his twin the priest(?) were played by Robert LaSardo, a character actor who was hot at the time due to his recurring role as a druglord on nip/tuck. Guza was very fond of emulating primetime and film at the time in the laziest ways by literally hiring the same actors for similar roles, or shamelessly recreating others, like having his reinvented Jerry Jacks played by Roche take on the name "Mr. Craig" the same year the gritty Casino Royale came out. Manny was basically LaSardo's primetime character again. His story got ridiculous and I don't remember what became of him.

 

Manny's identical (even the tattoos! lol) good twin, Father Mateo was one of the hostages during the Metro Court hostage crisis; but other than that, Mateo's story went nowhere.

 

6 hours ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

I think Jason threw him off the roof of GH. 

 

Like most Guza era villains, the Manny saga went on forever. In addition to the train wreck antics, there was also when he shot up the PCPD, shooting Sam (and I think Lucky too at some point), holding all the women in town hostage, and some absurd plot point involving him escaping out of custody on a plane. It was just all ridiculous. It had nothing to do with actors and everything to do with the fact that Jason and Sonny always had to be the "good" guys. 

 

Just skimming through that train wreck clip remind me of how horrendous that era of the show was. Reese!, Skye and Tracy fighting over Luke, Manny, Courtney, Sonny and Jason 24/7. I don't even remember that Jesse dude that I guess is with Maxie.

 

Manny also shot and killed Justus, and Carly's biological father John Durant (played by Corbin Bernsen). He didn't actually shoot Lucky but held Liz hostage at knifepoint and Lucky injured his back when he went to rescue Liz.

 

Manny's shooting of Sam prompted Jason to tell Alexis that Sam was her daughter. Alexis immediately took over and tried to cut Jason out of Sam's life.

 

25 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Was he a cop? The only thing i remember for sure is that he was very cute, and ended up dead.  The first of her dead partners.

 

9 minutes ago, carolineg said:

 

Jesse was a cop.  He was Lucky's partner and I believe died in the line of duty.  It was the first of Maxie's dead partners but his death actually began the set up to Maxie/Lucky's weird affair.  

 

Manny (all roads led back to Manny) decided to cause a mob war between Lorenzo and Sonny by getting some clowns (that is, his goons dressed as clowns) to target Lorenzo's son Diego (who later became the text message killer but that's another story) at a carnival. However, it was Jesse who ended up getting shot during the ensuing shoot-out and he died. Jesse had only been introduced the previous summer (2005) when they tried doing a summer on-the-run storyline with him and Maxie.

 

After Jesse died, Maxie initially went after Nikolas. But after Nikolas made it clear he wasn't interested, Maxie turned to Lucky and began supplying him with pills for his back injury.

 

Thus began the "summer of sleaze" when Lucky slept with Maxie, Sam slept with Ric and Jason slept with Liz.

 

11 hours ago, titan1978 said:

I was still so into the show at that point, but a few months after this I had enough, and quit watching until the contagion sweeps event, or Laura waking up.  I can’t remember which one was first.

 

Contagion was first, that played out over February 2006. Laura woke up in October.