2 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

I'm not going to go back and quote a bunch of people, but I don't remember Tony having disdain for Luke and Laura until around the mid-2000s when the Skye and Tracy stuff started up. Before that he always seemed okay with it. I know the hookers and affairs had a started a little before that, but it wasn't until around the Laura coma return that Luke basically became Bill.

And even in those interviews in '06 with the anniversary, Tony was still fulsome with praise for Genie and LNL. He said often he prided himself on being the keeper of the flame. I do wonder what happened, though I'm not aware of any falling-out with him and Genie in that period (and I do mean 'in that period' lol).

It's just malpractice (again) to me that Alexa and Dominic are not the central couple in that age range. It was a popular couple, she is one of the last breakout ABC Daytime stars and he is no chopped liver either.

7 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I think the show might be going for Bickersons Jason/Brenda banter, but I am not sure.  There isn't really a softness there that makes me think she likes Jason or anyone for that matter.  She looks off to the distance sadly sometimes, but I get nothing else.

I used to nail her every day for this in 2013 lol. I would name her vague looks into the distance differently in each scene. 'Misty nausea,' etc. It's all she's got!

4 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

I'm not going to go back and quote a bunch of people, but I don't remember Tony having disdain for Luke and Laura until around the mid-2000s when the Skye and Tracy stuff started up. Before that he always seemed okay with it. I know the hookers and affairs had a started a little before that, but it wasn't until around the Laura coma return that Luke basically became Bill. I do that the show has been interested in Lucky and Lulu in the past, even if they're not that interested now.

I remember it mostly the same.  There were maybe some implied statements by Luke, but it wasn't until he was dealing with broom wig Laura in the sanitarium that it started to be a real thing.

5 minutes ago, Vee said:

I don't remember that. I know he was friendly with Tammy because he'd grown up around the life with Bobbie and Ruby, and there were intimations that Luke had lost his virginity, etc. to hookers. It's possible but I only remember that stuff coming out of Tony's increasingly bitter interviews in the mid-late 2000s.

 

What I remember of that was the kind of implication that Luke didn’t see anything wrong with being with a prostitute, especially at that moment when his marriage was not just fraught but was blown apart. The rape reveal with Lucky and Laura’s lies about Stefan/Nikolas paternity and eventual relationship with him happening all at that time. I don’t remember it being about his time with Laura when they were together.

I do have some sympathy for Geary. By the time Genie was defacto fired in 2002, he had been on the show a couple of times in limbo while she was gone. He had lots of stuff to do, but it wasn’t really actual stories that hinged on him and had emotional depth until the 1998 stuff with trying to kill Helena with Alexis and Lucky finding out about the rape. The Cassadine story was in a holding pattern while Genie was on maternity leave for over a year. And at first in 2002 after she left he was stuck in stories about what amounted to a blond wig on a mop. Fighting with Scott over Laura’s guardianship, then Heather Webber. The 2006 mini story was really beautifully written for what it was, but both of them were not happy about it. Genie has said she actually felt manipulated about them getting married again, that they both thought it was kind of hokey to go that route and was not clearly explained to them before it was already happening or they would have pushed back.  By then they also both wanted to stop being stuck in Luke saves Laura stuff. The problem for me is that he took his real life frustrations and being burned out and torched a history we all saw, and retroactively tried to make Luke worse than he ever was (beyond the aforementioned sexual assault, the Luke he imagined was a scumbag, not the canny, while impulsive walking wound he had played for the entire time before that).

3 minutes ago, Vee said:

I used to nail her every day for this in 2013 lol. I would name her vague looks into the distance differently in each scene. 'Misty nausea,' etc. It's all she's got!

It’s like a cut to commercial scene on classic Bill Bell Y&R, but without the lush music, immaculate staging, impeccable style, old Hollywood glamour and actual good writing. I used to look at her work and ask who the hell is she looking at?

2 minutes ago, Vee said:

I used to nail her every day for this in 2013 lol. I would name her vague looks into the distance differently in each scene. 'Misty nausea,' etc. It's all she's got!

Yes!  She always looks vaguely sickly like when I look when I have to pay my mortgage or something.  Sad, but not devastated.  Just pissed she has to deal with life.

KT would probably kill it in a life insurance add.  But I am sure FauxMolly has that already lined up and we will see it for the next 10 years like her psoriasis commercial

16 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

The 2006 mini story was really beautifully written for what it was, but both of them were not happy about it. Genie has said she actually felt manipulated about them getting married again, that they both thought it was kind of hokey to go that route and was not clearly explained to them before it was already happening or they would have pushed back. 

I remember those comments, and I felt the same way. I thought Laura was written like a helpless fool a lot of the time in that story, and I hated them all conning her with some fake wedding. Her '08 return I was much happier with.

But the early scenes in 2006 when Laura came out of the catatonia and Luke realized and they reunited were beautiful. I could never forget that.

19 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Yes!  She always looks vaguely sickly like when I look when I have to pay my mortgage or something.  Sad, but not devastated.  Just pissed she has to deal with life.

Too bad mostly generic ass GH doesn’t write with anything close to this specificity.

33 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I do have some sympathy for Geary. By the time Genie was defacto fired in 2002, he had been on the show a couple of times in limbo while she was gone. He had lots of stuff to do, but it wasn’t really actual stories that hinged on him and had emotional depth until the 1998 stuff with trying to kill Helena with Alexis and Lucky finding out about the rape. The Cassadine story was in a holding pattern while Genie was on maternity leave for over a year. And at first in 2002 after she left he was stuck in stories about what amounted to a blond wig on a mop. Fighting with Scott over Laura’s guardianship, then Heather Webber. The 2006 mini story was really beautifully written for what it was, but both of them were not happy about it. Genie has said she actually felt manipulated about them getting married again, that they both thought it was kind of hokey to go that route and was not clearly explained to them before it was already happening or they would have pushed back. 

He was stuck there in limbo without her on and off a lot. The show was just able to cover for that better in the beginning than they were as time went on, and I do imagine that got irritating.

I feel like 2006/2007 is just when they both got tired of Luke and Laura and sort of became the end of the road for that. She was just able to cover for it better, obviously mostly because she was off the show. He just decided to lean full into the Tracy romance (which was fine, but I hate that it's now the de facto love story for her) and turned Luke into a drunk sleaze.

I do wish the show had had any sort of interest in getting Laura a good solid love interest in the years since then. I don't know that I would have stuck her back with Scott, but they could have done something. Now she's stuck with Kevin and that was a cute stopgap a decade ago but has really run its course at this point. I know they've enjoyed working together but she really deserves better than a c-level relationship with someone the show has little interest in.

18 minutes ago, AdelaideCate007 said:

feel like 2006/2007 is just when they both got tired of Luke and Laura and sort of became the end of the road for that. She was just able to cover for it better, obviously mostly because she was off the show. He just decided to lean full into the Tracy romance (which was fine, but I hate that it's now the de facto love story for her) and turned Luke into a drunk sleaze.

Even soured on the pairing, when he left and was being pretty honest about things Geary still said they had an acting connection that was special and nothing like what he had with anyone else. When you look back at where they were when the trial happened and the Felicia affair (vomit) became public, there was a moment there where I thought it would have been interesting for Laura to become an alcoholic. And at the time I think it would have been wrong for her to be “saved” by Luke anymore. I think their instincts were correct, she didn’t want to play a fragile victim anymore, an eternal ingenue at 45, and he didn’t want to play Laura’s hero. I just think there was a way to do it without crapping on what came before. Bob Guza seemed to only want to write Laura’s fragilities, and not her strength. She had both. And you could argue Luke being broken up by what happened to Laura paved the way for the character to get sleazy. But not the way Geary represented Luke always being that way.

What makes me sad about this Ronnie stuff is that LC was there for years, deserving of a story and this could have played out onscreen. Revisiting Monica’s history is actual fertile story ground. And I do believe that Monica, when married to Jeff, would have pushed away any part of her past. I just wish we got to see this with her actually there playing out in a different way. But let’s just throw a twin at Jason and Alan, who was also long dead, for Monica to welcome into the family.

I think Willow made actual points in her conversation with Michael about feeling like the visitation with the family therapist would be used to ultimately keep the kids from her. It’s paranoid but it also fits with the hostility this process has included so far.

@titan1978 You make some great points about Tony and Luke/Laura.  Some of Geary's feelings were correct about the pairing.  I think the way he spoke about Luke and the Luke/Laura pairing had a bitterness or ungratefulness to it.  

To me, there is just a sadness that it all ended the way it did.  Tracy gets the main perspective on Luke, Laura has an off screen marriage and spends time holding Sonny's hand, and it feels like the pairing has been wiped out.  

I know the optics of the pairing greatly changed over time, but it is sad how it all ended.  I am glad Laura is happy and thriving and I suppose there is little you can do with Tony gone.   Like you stated, you could move on from the pairing without trashing everything that came before.

And before anyone comes at me about how disgusting it is that Laura was with her rapist.  I totally get that point of view.  I still believe there could have been a more solid conclusion to the pairing and I don't think current day Laura is used properly.

13 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I don't think current day Laura is used properly.

She is not, and it is irritating. Making Laura the Mayor of Port Charles should have opened a lot more doors than it did, but given how shaky the legal side of Port Charles has been in the past 25-ish years, it does not surprise me. And it feels as if Jordan's role of Deputy Mayor has been of more prominence and importance than Layor as Mayor.

17 hours ago, titan1978 said:

And not to keep harping on it, but imagine Laura’s family being rebuilt with the kind of attention the Obrect family is getting. Lulu is certainly used a lot, but she and Dante should already be moving back together, Laura should have something real going on, and Lucky was a disaster of the show’s doing.

You can harp away. This especially got me in my feels while I was at work last night.

 

I know we all remember how excited I was last year when they not only recasted Lulu, but Lucky was finally coming home. At the time, Laura had more to do. And now her kids were coming home!!! They were all going to be on the canvas at the SAME time for the first time in...DECADES. And then Nik was at least close by (whether as Adam Huss or a recast)...I was over the moon. Moreso because there were plenty of current connections to the canvas. That writes itself.

 

Them bias. lol with a side-eye.

 

With Lulu...there was the potential of a triangle whether it was with the ghost of Sam, a LIVE Sam (can't stress that enough), Cody, or BLQ. And I loved the history being played with Lulu vs BLQ. I still felt that they really should have gone into the nuances of the fact that Lulu was in a coma for 4 years and so much has changed and she could not deal. That was not only a storyline that could have worked on its own, but it always felt like the rivalry had that undercurrent of subtext since Lulu kept saying that BLQ had not changed as we the viewers have seen her change over the last four years. It had legs. Throw in Dante, too...major legs. And as everyone has already said...now that Sam has been gone a while, Cody is off in C plot story land with Molly, and BLQ seem more busy with Willow and all these Qs...I've surprised the writers have not worked on building back up Lulu/Dante as the supercouple they were in their day under JMB. But that goes back to my starting the discussion about romance on this show last week.

 

For Lucky, he had Liz. Not to mention her kids. And I cannot stress enough how it irked me that Liz was single and her three major love interests were not only in town but ALSO SINGLE AT THE SAME TIME AS SHE WAS. Again...that writes itself. But to keep it to Lucky...the writers could easily work on (with their slow pace) building Lucky/Liz back up. And I liked that they had the perfect way to do it...they were involved in the mystery of who was killing patients at the hospital. Old school GH mystery/action-adventure. Yay, I was down. Even better that story turned into an umbrella tale. I also hoped that it would allow Lucky to find some life purpose aka a job. I hoped it led to a P.I. job. Not that there was anything wrong with him being a bartender which if written right could lead to story as well.

 

And both of them have their mother. Their mother who is now Mayor. That's another avenue that could be used for them and story. And they could have easily built the family unit back up with regular scenes vs the scattered scenes we got. Or with a story. For example...I've mentioned this a few times before, but...since Kevin appears to be off canvas, I would say play Laura with Erza more since they do have a love/hate adversarial spark going on. What if Lulu or Lucky had picked up on that? Or the writers went there with that pairing and Erza does something that Lulu/Lucky found out about...and having to struggle with telling Laura? And that is just something simple. 

 

There was something they could be doing with all of them. So I don't like the abruptness of Lucky being written out, block filming and all. I don't like that while we see Lulu, her rivalry is gone, there's no reunion with Dante in sight, and it's clear they are going to use her to prop up Britt...one of the best recent recast AND a great return story...and THAT'S all they can do. And Laura (Ik GF was on vaca, but) only had 3 episodes. LAURA???

 

MEANWHILE (the tone and shadiness implied) Britt was resurrected, quickly moved back to PC (for which I am grateful), and has been IMHO regressed back to an annoying character that needs propping. She has a relationship with Jason, rebuilding connections, and potential drama with Lulu due to Rocco that feels tone deaf. Giving square peg in a circle. Just as quickly, Nathan is alive. But...is he Nathan? Britt's acting like he isn't. I just hope that rumor about who he is is false. And worse...resurrected without his love interest nowhere in sight. Dr. O...back...and already getting story here and there and everywhere. While I'm happy to see Ms. O...even I can call a spade a spade. So much of where I've binging (I'm up to this past week yay), Britt is wacka wacka-ing, Dr. O has had good moments, and Nathan is looking ominous while Nina has new presence as she reads Willow every chance she gets. 

 

They can do all that in a matter of WEEKS, but these writers...one of whom has been with GH for a looooooong time...could not write for one of GH's premiere families???

 

To quote Ms. Kenya Moore...REALLY, B@TCH?

 

18 hours ago, carolineg said:

I don't think you could even imagine a world in 1997 where LULU and LUCKY were treated with such disdain, but the red carpet is rolled out for Britt and Nathan.

Idk, if you developed Britt like Carly who was riddled with insecurities I could see it.  But Britt's a dr, who has a full family, and people that endlessly defend her.  She's a jerk to be a jerk.  She complains about everything from her free housing to her "horrible" job while she's literally explains nothing about her fake death or what her agenda is. 

Not at all. Laura's kids. LAURA??? Clear disdain. And for an actress that is only playing one mode and an actor that most consider a (handsome) block of wood? I guess my Housewife viewing is showing today aka #theshade And you know I like Britt, BUUUUT.  

 

17 hours ago, carolineg said:

I think the show might be going for Bickersons Jason/Brenda banter, but I am not sure.  There isn't really a softness there that makes me think she likes Jason or anyone for that matter. 

And doing it with non-fabulous hair.  But seriously, I just got to the scene where she walks into JASON'S place, asking what he's doing there? Really? We know how I feel about these writers' attempts at humor. It's not landing. At all. 

 

17 hours ago, DRW50 said:

And yes, Sarah's Carly was ugly and riveting to watch.

Same. It's funny how I could be intrigued with her one moment and want to rip her apart for attacking Robin the next. 

19 hours ago, carolineg said:

This isn't the Luke/Lucky scene but I figured it was more bang because it includes Mac, Felicia and Brenda's reactions.   Ignore Lily.  Luke's at the end. When Robin said something just shifted and I knew he was gone it was so real.

This is also why I defend Maurice to this day lol.

So I don't get yelled at because this is the current thread.

Emma is currently awesome and I love her.

ETA this channel has most of the Stone illness scenes and the next day when Lucy/Kevin and Lucky/Luke talk.  It's obviously Sonny/Brenda skewed, but it seems to be the most comprehensive clips I can find.

Thank you for this.

 

And yes, Emma is awesome.