13 minutes ago, Antoyne said:

I think the smugness went hand in hand with the delusion.

I get that. I thought she was so off and had a lack of self awareness that she maybe came off smug when she was legit crazy lol. I was waiting for some sort of mental breakdown and it all sort of fizzled out?

28 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I like Kate Mansi a lot. Kristina and the writing was never a right fit for her. I don't think she was smug necessarily, but almost delusional and Mansi can come off cold. Even her styling was very harsh.

The smugness, coldness and writing did her in. Maybe a stronger actress could’ve gotten the audience to feel bad for Kristina but the writers just kept throwing more antics at the wall. Like they expected me to root for Kristina after she almost killed Liz. Lucky is a deadbeat bum who doesn’t bathe but there’s no universe in which he’d protect Kristina over Liz. After that, she helped hold Ric hostage. I can’t see Kristina’s back soon enough.

The writers couldn't decide who Kristina was.

I don't blame Kate Mansi for any of it.

19 minutes ago, CrazySexyQ said:

The smugness, coldness and writing did her in. Maybe a stronger actress could’ve gotten the audience to feel bad for Kristina but the writers just kept throwing more antics at the wall. L

She was still calling that baby Adella as recently as a couple weeks ago which is insane to me. She has never fully owned up to what she did. Molly just got over it. Which I find insane, but that's the FV way often on this show. Just bulldoze through things, then if it really falls apart you either scuttle the character (like Natalia) or back off and hope people forget.

In this case they backburnered Kristina so much for the last year and kept going right up to the line of having Alexis institutionalize her, then pulled back. I think they knew a long time ago the audience wasn't buying it and that JJ was not going to save her after he opted out, so they just kept their heads down, buried the character and waited til people were ready to watch happy scenes with Molly and Kristina onscreen. FV rarely admits failure with a character in story unless he absolutely has to (which he did with Natalia and Austin) but that was close enough.

1 hour ago, carolineg said:

I get that. I thought she was so off and had a lack of self awareness that she maybe came off smug when she was legit crazy lol. I was waiting for some sort of mental breakdown and it all sort of fizzled out?

I hated they never committed to her actually being crazy so ultimately she was just an ahole.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by Antoyne

8 hours ago, Vee said:

She was still calling that baby Adella as recently as a couple weeks ago which is insane to me. She has never fully owned up to what she did. Molly just got over it. Which I find insane, but that's the FV way often on this show. Just bulldoze through things, then if it really falls apart you either scuttle the character (like Natalia) or back off and hope people forget.

In this case they backburnered Kristina so much for the last year and kept going right up to the line of having Alexis institutionalize her, then pulled back. I think they knew a long time ago the audience wasn't buying it and that JJ was not going to save her after he opted out, so they just kept their heads down, buried the character and waited til people were ready to watch happy scenes with Molly and Kristina onscreen. FV rarely admits failure with a character in story unless he absolutely has to (which he did with Natalia and Austin) but that was close enough.

I don't know why the show didn't give Kristina a breakdown and have her institutionalized for a while. There was probably no coming back from that baby fiasco, but at least a mental illness would give the character a short break and give GH time to reset the character.

The abrupt end to the Blaze romance and Blaze getting dumped off the show with the rumor that Mansi wasn't into the pairing didn't help bring audience favor either. I think they had some fans.

A lot of mistakes were made with Kristina and it was clear Mansi would bolt eventually especially since she went from carrying the show for half a year to nothing. The whole Irene story along with Blaze will never be mentioned again once Lexi or whoever comes back as Kristina down the line and we will all wonder what the point of it all was. TJ's already been shipped off and forgotten.

7 hours ago, Antoyne said:

I hated they never committed to her actually being crazy so ultimately she was just an ahole.

The show was right there with Alexis and then......Kristina was fine? Strange. Like I said a breakdown, treatment, and an apology tour would have made a world of difference for the character. It's not like Mansi couldn't play it. Abby was crazy like half the time Mansi played her lol.

Mansi can play crazy well. (see the DAYS scene where Abby sets Ben on fire).
I don't know wtf GH was doing but this was all awful.

Lily Brooks O'Briant (Lily Romalotti on Y&R) also has endometriosis in real life, in addition to Mansi having it in real life. O'Briant explained it on her IG better than Mansi did. It's not just inflammation of uterine lining tissue, it's uterine lining tissue growing as lesions in parts of the body it's not supposed to be in -- such as intestines, the spine, and other odd places, making an extremely painful life for the patient. The surgery to remove the lesions can be done by very few specialists. Endometriosis affects one-tenth of all women.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/10857-endometriosis

I remember, that when she was first hired at GH, Mansi said one of the reasons she took the role of Kristina was because they told her there'd be an endometriosis storyline, and she wanted to advocate for educating about that. But the surrogacy storyline was written in a very offensive manner. I guess the only thing the show did for "education" was give Mansi the opportunity to direct one episode in which Molly explains endometriosis to Cody. But by that time, I'm guessing few viewers cared and I imagine that some fastforwarded.
As someone posted upthread or on another thread,

(spoiler)

they gave Mansi the directing gig on her way out.

It's a serious issue, but the show gave nearly as much gravity to eyemites.

The whole thing was botched, and it cannot be blamed only on Haley Pullos' DUI prison term and the recastings of Molly.

This makes *** two *** recent surrogacy storylines the show has written offensively -- Molly/Irene/Kristina and Lulu/Rocco/Britt. wtf is wrong with these writers?

Edited 28 minutes ago28 min by janea4old

I don't think soaps in general do surrogate stories well.

The Britt/Lulu/Rocco "surrogacy" story should never have happened, never been revisited, and Rocco shouldn't care at all about the embryo stealer.

I am not giving the show a pass on Kristina's story, but I do think HP's DUI and the recasting of Molly's derailed a lot of the story. The whole idea should have been scrapped once HP got arrested and the show was forced into emergency recasts. The show instead let Mansi do most of the heavy lifting in the story and the results created a very lopsided point of view for Kristina that did her no favors.

Good point! I should not have even called the Britt situation a "surrogacy" storyline! It was offensive for me to refer to it that way. It was plain and simple theft/violation.