GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

I didn't find Harlan terribly interesting while alive, but after his death there was compelling material that could have been explored while he was living.

I don't remember that thread of Julia's story at all, but it sounds interesting.

Obviously Vanessa did a lot without good material.  She was a paper thin character that was cast on charm and looks.  I think Vanessa just inherently is likeable.  A backstory would have helped, but I am not sure if Levinson had a vision for Brenda long term.

Yes, the Cates flashbacks were sepia with much younger Stone/Gina and ASJ playing Jagger.  It was always unclear to me where the father was as well.  I wasn't even positive that man the mom ran off with wasn't their father.  He just didn't like kids and Jagger was "old enough" to take care of it.

I might watch the Jenny clips if I feel especially in a good mood later lol.

I think Marcil is pretty astute about how to play things especially if she doesn't exactly agree with the material.  Bold for a brand new actress on GH, but it worked on screen for the most part so I assume she didn't get much push back on it.

[Vee]

Weren't they originally angling for Harlan Barrett to be a major new male lead and power broker long term? The early casting notices seemed to suggest that.

I saw the Jagger family flashbacks. ASJ and a bunch of little kids howling away at people. Pure comedy.

Edited December 7, 2024 by Vee

[carolineg]

IIRC, that is correct about Harlan, but everyone in that Cartel story fizzled out besides Faison.  He was played by a vaguely famous prime time actor right?  Not to be dense, just not super familiar with Michael Cole's work*.  It seems like a Monty thing that didn't work?  He was trying to kill Robert at one point, so I don't know how far the character could have gone.  It's strange to give the character more material and a daughter after he died though.

The Jagger flashbacks are pretty hilarious.  The coloring of the flashbacks, the mom being ridiculously evil, and the kids crying.  IIRC it ends with Jagger just sitting slouched in a hallway sobbing, which was obviously the type of "acting" ASJ excelled at lol.

*ETA I just realized he was part of the Mod Squad, so he was pretty famous lol.  They had to have more plans for Harlan.

Edited December 8, 2024 by carolineg

[Vee]

Yes,  from The Mod Squad as you said (and Peggy Lipton from that was having a comeback at the time on Twin Peaks, shout-out @DRW50 while Clarence Williams had also stayed active in TV and film). I'm a little surprised no one ever brought him back from the dead or another relative to create drama for Brenda or even today. It's doable.

And yeah, the Jagger flashbacks just crack me up.

[DRW50]

Thanks for the tag @Vee (I have to admit I've only ever watched a tiny bit of Mod Squad)

Michael Cole was a severe alcoholic in these years, IIRC, so I'm not surprised he didn't last long. From what Randolph Mantooth said, this was also a terrible period backstage.

[Vee]

Wasn't he there two years later after Monty was ousted? Still, it's not too long.

[DRW50]

You're right - for some reason I thought they were both somewhere in 1992.

[carolineg]

To me, it actually would have made more sense to bring him back more than the dead mom.  Just saying.  There was more material there. 

The obvious miss was not making Cooper Barrett Julia's son.  Just a random guy that had the last name Barrett no one questioned.

The Jagger flashbacks are truly hilarious.  They don't even give a lot of clarity to the situation.  The mom just left.  Did Jagger try to provide for the kids or did they immediately get separated?  Where's Jagger's father?  Do they all have the same father?  I am still so unclear on the situation because Jagger looked so much older than flashback Gina/Stone. Was it just to show ASJ's angst?

[titan1978]

And he had the added baggage from debuting during the Casey the Alien story. And Faison still worked better than the rest of them. I know on the modern show people got sick of Faison, but I always liked him when he was more menacing than bumbling.

[carolineg]

I always thought the Casey the Alien story was kind of popular.  I personally thought it was a bit silly and a very different tone for GH, but it's mostly inoffensive and sweet.  Was it universally panned?  I have heard mixed reviews on it.

I found it a little difficult to distinguish the members of the Cartel apart.  Harlan, Leopold, and Lord Ashton were all kind of the same character or at least very similar.  The show really didn't need all three on the canvas at once.

[dc11786]

I am not sure if the Julia murder thread was ever picked up, but here it is:

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In the flashback, Julia is seen murdering Chris with a letter opener and then Harlan tells the cops that he found Chris trying to stab Julia so he wrestled with him and Chris ends up falling on the knife. I imagine the flashback is two fold: (a) to show how far Harlan would go for Julia to emphasize the loss she's feeling and (b) gives Julia the reason that should would be willing to forgive Bill for killing her father. This is only a few episodes after Linda Grover was added to the writing team so this might have never been picked up because there was not enough time to repair Julia and Bill in Grover's brief tenure. 

I have had no use for Brenda for most of what I've seen of her in 1993. Now that she's working as Lila's secretary, she's much more tolerable and occassionally enjoyable. I think the big issues for the first months of her run was that her story space was so limited and it just meant so much of her actions were about hurting Karen or trying to win over Jagger. There have been some nice Brenda scenes with AJ, Jason, and Ned as of late in my viewing. 

Harlan came on as the salvager of the S.S. Tracy because the Maritime Commission was charging the Quartermaines daily for not raising the wreck. Harlan negotiated a better deal than they wanted. In the first few weeks, it was all a lot of business dealings without much personal stuff. Harlan was definitely more rugged and laidback than I would expect, but this was definitely a man of means. 

Something I gleaned from watching the Men of Loving Interview was that Randolph Mantooth enjoyed the laid back and frat boy atmosphere of his Joseph Stuart/Joseph Hardy days at "Loving." I cannot imagine that Wendy Riche ran that kind of ship so I could see how he wouldn't enjoy the backstage environment. Also, his character was a stock type in the early Riche era. He basically was a replacement for Frank Runyeon's Simon Romero. His story was definitely limited. 

[dc11786]

I've binged a bunch of May 1993. I'm now up to Felicia chasing Ryan around in her ghoul makeup throughout General Hospital. Sweeps were such fun back in the day. 

So many of the smaller moments/climaxes are enjoyable. Julia staring at Dominique's picture as it is taken down at the spa and getting emotional about it was an unexpected surprise. The revelation that pill popping Tiff cannot have any more pills because she is pregnant was a nice twist that has upended the Jessica / Sean affair. I didn't realize that Jessica was such an emotional trainwreck. There's a lovely Jessica / Felicia showndown where a bitter Jessica wants to end the haunting of Ryan caper as vengeance for Sean impregnanting his own wife and Felicia ties Jessica to a chair! Though, this isn't as good as Lucy deciding to put the same baby supplies up in the attic only to stumble upon Felicia and faint. Such a great moment. 

I've just ended Nikki's return arc at her Malibu beach house. We hear Nikki's husband on the answering machine calling her, but we don't get a name. She's only known the guy a month. There is no mention of her being pregnant so I don't know if that was a real thing or is revealed down the line. I cannot imagine why. Nikki's return is a decent and necessary beat to get AJ back on track and off the wagon. The only thing I didn't like was a line of dialogue suggesting that Nikki had been poor as if for a long time when the Langtons had a decent amount of money to put her in a boarding school as David was a fundraiser for a non-profit I believe. 

Dom's funeral was a nice, quiet event. I forgot that they claimed Regina Bell's song was based on Dominique's poem. The reading of Dom's will left several nice bequeathments to General Hospital as well as season tickets to Sly Eckert, which I thought was a cute little moment. 

The Audrey/Ryan arc is shaping up nicely. They have had Audrey involved in the gaslighting for weeks and now that they've entered the route of having Felicia impersonate Ryan's mother, it all becomes very complicated. During one of Ryan's meltdowns, Audrey tells Ryan how disappointed she is in his behavior and Ryan cowers. And as Sean explains more and more of the dynamic between Ryan and his mother, it's becoming clear that we are mimicking the dynamic a bit with Audrey Hardy. 

There's some movement in the Victoria / Bill stuff with Victoria seeing Tony about surgery to restore her sight, but I don't enjoy this stuff except for some of the music cues. 

Karen and Jagger have also lost some steam. I thought that Jagger attacking Frank, Karen's mom's boyfriend, was going to have more of an impact on the story than it did. Oh well. I think the Jagger-Paul dynamic is nice. Riche / Levinson do a nice job fleshing out the community with a lot of these relationships. 

Paul is now Scott's law partner, which is an interesting move. Now that Tracy has set up Paul, I see why Labine dumps Paul and Jenny. All there story is tied up in Tracy. I enjoy Jenny more as time goes on, but given her roots I can definitely see why some were ok with seeing her go. Paul Satterfield is serviceable as the good guy even though I mostly know him from his darker roles. 

The end of sweeps story has started with a confrontation between Tracy and Jenny in the parking garage at the Port Charles Hotel. It ends with an erratic Tracy accidentally running over Jenny. The set up isn't terrible, but I am curious whether it was suppose to be intentional or not. Eliot plays it like Tracy was just driving crazy and happened to hit Jenny, but I cannot help but wonder if Levinson intended it to be more intentional. 

The energy in all of this stands out. Rarely a dull moment as there still are tons of quiet moments in the scripts. I think the show was in a good place structurally by the time Labine takes over if not in terms of specific story. 

[Soapsuds]

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[Franko]

How eerie. We were just talking about him, and now Michael Cole's dead.

https://deadline.com/2024/12/michael-cole-dead-mod-squad-general-hospital-1236199973/

[DRW50]

Thanks for letting us know. The last of the Mod Squad...