GH May 2020 Discussion

[titan1978]

Even back then, it came across that he loved Lucky and Laura, but he was always going to be out on the edge somewhat.  He was always going to be attracted to danger and excitement.

 

I think Labine did better by Luke (even if he did not agree), than Laura.  She became a little too domesticated as time went on, although I did enjoy the show back then.

 

I think if Tony pushing back against Labine gave us what we saw, it was the right decision.  His Luke was more rounded and was still Luke, but older and a little wiser.  The fact that he couldn’t just pick up and run gave him a tension to play.  Guza over time just let him be an [!@#$%^&*] that hated Laura and the responsibility of his family.

 

Also- I am pretty sure I have read quotes from him about that clause in his contract.  Never that he could redo a scene to change the intent, but that he could rewrite the dialogue to fit Luke.  So his comments about that are interesting.

 

I do admit to missing Luke.  But the Luke I really miss wasn’t what he was by the time he left the show.  The last time I saw a glimpse of the real Luke was when Laura woke up from her catatonic state.

[AbcNbc247]

Yeah, I kinda miss him too. But by the time he left the show, I think what Luke was, was more Ron's fault than anything. When egos collide, it never really works out for anyone.

[Taoboi]

Yeah, I was shocked to see any threads being made...except for DAYS of course which probably will make it to the end of the year.

 

Let's hope they get more creative with the flashbacks then.

 

[Darn]

I'd love to see a clip of how GH is incorporating these flashbacks, I can't find anything on youtube.

[Dion]

Here's a clip with three examples for you @Darn - both hit and miss.

 

The first flashback in the clip - Brando and Molly hooking up - is probably the usual, normal kind of flashback you'd expect to see on a soap and imo fits into the scene well.

 

The second flashback with Sam randomly having a flashback to a conversation with Jordan while grabbing a coffee cup  (lol) is an obvious insert.

 

And in normal times it would definitely not be necessary for Molly to have a minute long flashback about her and TJ deciding that they would become domestic partners before telling her sisters that that is what she and TJ had decided.

 

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Edited May 3, 2020 by Dion

[Darn]

 

Thanks! Yikes this is worse than JER! At least they planned for those! You can tell the Molly one was meant to go into a break or cut to another scene so it sort of works like you said but the others are super random.

 

This is just a sign they care very little about the pacing or structure of these shows. They are just time fillers for network TV.

[Vee]

 

Which is bullshit, because until 1999 or so he fought very hard for the opposite, and was very passionate when discussing it in public. What changed BTS is debatable, but not confirmed public record. He proceeded to do a slow 180 over the next fifteen years.

 

The bottom line IMO is Tony never got over losing the darker Bill Eckert character, and other career opportunities for different types of roles. So he began to channel that concept of Eckert (which he used to expound on a lot - go back and look) and those other energies into the latter-day Luke, regardless of how inconsistent that was with his past work, the role or his dedication to character integrity. He kept claiming it was just being 'honest' about who Luke was, but he couldn't even be honest with himself about his own prior take on Luke or the character he'd spent his career defining and protecting. The darkness in Luke and in his upbringing had coexisted with his dedication to a better life for his wife and children. It existed in tandem, but never eclipsed one half of him until 2003-onward.

 

That being said: Tony and JJ clearly rewrote all their scenes a few years ago during his exit storyline, and it was the first time GH had felt like its true self in a long, long time. The dialogue was so far beyond the rest of Frank and Ron's show it was jarring.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Vee

[titan1978]

He did start morphing into a Luke/Bill hybrid.
 

There is no denying he had some issue with Labine’s interpretation though.  She even commented about it during her We Love Soaps interview.  So some aspect of what we saw was a compromise between her ideas and his wish to not make Luke a traditional dad/husband/person.  I still think that he was pretty great at that point, and loved his place on the show.

 

The problem for me was when he started turning awful, around the introduction of Nikolas, nobody was allowed to call him out.  Sure Bobbie would call him paranoid, but the Cassadines were up to something. What I really needed was someone who was a friend of Laura’s to tell him she was victimized by her time on the island, and all he can see is his own pain and ego.  She is not defying you to want a relationship with her son.  She is fighting a deep personal wrong on many levels.  But after Tiffany left, Mary Mae died and Justice let her go on trial for a murder he committed, there was a real lack of support for Laura.
 

When they brought on Ethan was when he lost me.  We watched the show.  There was no way Luke, at that point, would have cheated on Laura.  Not the versions we had been watching, even with the gap in their history.

[Vee]

I think the darker Luke of '96-'98 was very compelling. I felt some moments went too far but overall the core of the character remained. You could believe he was reacting to his family disintegrating. Further, at that time Tony still spoke publicly with passion about Luke's deep love and commitment to his family. He didn't fully abandon that line or his stance on Laura until around the late 2000s - he used to call himself the proud guardian of Luke and Laura's love with Genie gone. But he's been revising his own beliefs ever since.

 

Luke did have a wonderful moment early in the Cassadine revival story when they broke the news about Nikolas to Lucky, where he sternly told Lucky his mother went through hell years ago on the island, had lived with her secret for years, and they needed to support and not judge her. I've never forgotten that.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Vee

[titan1978]

From what I can remember, he didn’t really start trashing the couple until after the story with Laura waking up from her catatonic state the first time, for the wedding anniversary.  I also remember him saying things like Vee mentioned.

 

By the time she came back after waking up permanently for that other short story, it seemed like nobody was happy.  I wish they had just left her asleep until the show actually intended to keep her around.  Because that story was so strange, and really kind of set the tone that Luke would rather be with Tracy.

[Vee]

Yes, he didn't start the revisionist myth on L&L until after that (bad) story in '05. During promotion of that anniversary he remained very complimentary. I think he realized the pairing with Tracy was actually working (for awhile at least) and went off the spool.

[AdelaideCate007]

I don't remember him trashing them till after the "Laura wakes up" story either. That was also around the same time that was he was fully in on the relationship with Tracy and that they brought back Robert and Holly and when he first met Anna. That all seem to lead to Tony Geary deciding Luke needed to regress back into the old days where he was just out for money and could just pick up and take off with Robert. Those events- along with bad writing and him changing his mind on L&L- lead to the next decade of mediocre to bad stories. Things like Ethan, him running over Jake, him fooling around with Anna and various hookers, and the idea that he was playing same time next year with Holly for all of the 80s and 90s. None of it meshed with what we had seen on the screen and was clearly just driven by him chasing after some version of Luke that didn't exist except in his mind. His final story where it was obviously suppose to be Bill Eckert but either him or Ron got mad and it changed is another example. At this point in time, I honestly feel like they should have just killed him off during that story where he got shot him with the poison bullet. That I think would have been a fitting end for him. Instead, I think that lead into yet another "adventure" where Luke and Holly/Tracy/Anna/Laura (I can't remember which one it was at this point) ran around the world chasing some mystery person. It just got absurd, at least to me. 

 

I admit that I found Luke and Tracy amusing at the beginning at when they were just using each other and he was really after Skye. They never should have let them become a real legitimate couple but that's what Tony Geary wanted I guess. At some point too, Tony Geary clearly decided that he was only going to "show up" in scenes or stories with people he deemed worthy of him. Go back and watch scenes of how lazy he acts in scenes with people like Greg Vaughan and Emme Rylan vs. how he acted in scenes with people like Jane Elliot, Jackie Zeman, Jonathan Jackson, and the other GH vets. It's night and day. 

 

I agree that Laura really suffered from losing all of her support. Even now, I feel like Laura has no support outside of Lulu. Does Laura have any friends? Even if we don't see them onscreen together, you can at least assume people like Felicia & Lucy and Felicia & Anna are still friends. Who are Laura's friends? 

 

I also agree that Luke also suffered from nobody calling him out ever, outside of Bobbie. At a certain point in time, characters like Lucy, Sonny, and Alexis would have done it but that all faded over time. When he started to turn dark, they definitely could have used like Mary Mae or Tiffany to tell him to think about Laura's feelings. Obviously they weren't options, but they could have had it be someone like Monica or even Bobbie. That was definitely a missing beat, even if the story was still good and Luke going down that path was a compelling at the time. Like most GH stories, it didn't start to fall apart till way later.

 

This went back to before he started trashing Luke & Laura, but the constant need for him to have a new love interest was also I think damaging to him in the long run. Him being with like Holly, Tracy, and Skye were one thing, but them trying to pair him with Felicia and Anna was just so wrong. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by AdelaideCate007

[AbcNbc247]

Really enjoyed today’s episode. Even though things have been happening, today seemed different, like it somehow seems more interesting than usual. It reminded me of one of those episodes that we saw when Dan first started writing.

 

Not sure about Ava and Nikolas. The actors do have chemistry but it doesn’t really feel like it’s romantic chemistry. They might be better off as just rivals or maybe friends. But the seeds are still being planted for their storyline and if it breaks up Liz and Franco, I’m all for it.

 

I did like that they remembered Francophrenia. It reminded me how much I actually liked James Franco in the role and how much I wish Franco hadn’t been recast or “redeemed” 

 

Sam is a selfish douchebag and I hope Kristina rips her a new one tomorrow. 

 

And just for the record, it is NOT Jordan’s fault that Molly slept with Brando. The blames lies with Molly and only Molly. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by AbcNbc247

[Dion]

 

Curtis and Laura are friends, he's probably the closest friend she's had since Mary Mae.

 

And Carly and Laura are close now too, though it's usually more Laura supporting Carly than the other way round. Carly does become somewhat of a decent human being when she is with Laura and actually felt bad for keeping Nikolas' return a secret from Laura.

[victoria foxton]