General Hospital Watching General Hospital

[Daniel Avery]

The unlikely "matching kidney thing" bothers me more than any of the rest of the story, but I think I'm putting too much emphasis on it simply because I've been doing that with a lot of the recent stories. A loose end takes on too much importance when the whole plotline leaves me unsatisfied. I can overlook the "Nelle resembles Carly's Aunt Patricia" thing since shows often decide not to acknowledge such recycling of actors, but the kidney thing needs to be explained. Granted, they may be planning to do it and just haven't gotten around to it yet.

They had another plot hole of sorts when they tried to explain the whole back-story/flashback of when Luke accidentally killed his mother and purposely killed his father. Tony Geary played Luke's father and they had a teen actor playing young Luke and young Bill, the 'lookalike cousin'. Geary played adult Luke and Bill. But Bill Eckert was from Luke's MOTHER's side of the family, so how did Bill Eckert gain a resemblance to his uncle-by-marriage? They shared no blood relationship.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Yesterday's episode was shocking in a variety of ways. Olivia went from straight-up crazy to loony tunes within the course of about forty minutes!

 

[Daniel Avery]

Which is the sure-fire sign that the character is about to be written out. Which, as Martha Stewart would say, is a good thing.

 

[Ray&Donna]

If she could leave and take Nelle with her, that would be great.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Jason and Sam are either the worst parents ever...or both very self-aware of the "can never be allowed to explode" clauses in their contracts. "Here, take my premature newborn so I can run into a bomb-laden hospital!"

 

[Daniel Avery]

I doubt any insurance company in their right mind would ever sell a policy to Dr. Robin Scorpio-Drake. Between kidnappings, bomb explosions, flying bullets and presumed deaths, her HIV status is the LEAST of her health worries.

 

[Ray&Donna]

LOL. That's the real reason Patrick had to become Billy Abbott--much cheaper to be rich than have to name your disaster-prone wife an insurance beneficiary.

 

[Maryann]

I hope Julian stays dead because the bringing back characters from the dead more than one time is old and stupid that is one of the reasons to me Soap Operas are ridiculed.

 

[Ray&Donna]

But if Julian is alive, it annoys Sonny. And I'm all for anything that irritates the world's smallest mobster.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Not sure where I read it (here, maybe!), but a fan theory has been rattling around the web saying that Julian is going to return to Port Charles in the near-future...and bring not-really-dead Morgan back with him. The theory has the awful ring of plausibility in terms of this being just the sort of thing that Julian could do to make amends with Sonny and Carly, since the show seems hell-bent on redeeming Julian to put him back with Alexis. They'd likely recast Morgan (hopefully with someone with a bit more screen presence) and say he was off somewhere (Australia?) getting his head together.
Morgan's return would set the stage for Sonny and Carly to reunite, too.

I'd hate for this to happen for several reasons. For one, I don't like either character. I think the show has already given S&C enough screen time for this, so Morgan returning would mean having to sit through more of them. Morgan was bumped off mainly because they had not found a "place" for him in the fabric of the show, and if he returned they would have that same problem to deal with. Ava is more of a BAMF than that wuss Julian could ever dream of being, and keeping him around to be out-shone by his sister from one side, and constantly losing to Sonny on the other...well, no sale. I could watch Ava read a phone book. I'm kind of neutral on Alexis, but she can only benefit from Julian's absence.

 

[Ray&Donna]

You mean you haven't been enjoying Sonny tell Carly that their marriage is over, only to have her ask him to clarify his statement five minutes later?

Ava is probably the most under-utilized character on canvas at this point. The writers love to ignore the fact that she is Avery's mother--because, you know, Carly is so much better at taking care of children. I fear that we are going to see Carly shoved on poor Griffin, who the writers also seem to be at a loss to further characterize. Unless they're going to put Griffin with Ava--I could go for that, even though it would make less than no sense. But if they decide to have Michael (the most intelligent character on the show despite his upbringing) forgive and/or hit the sheets with Nelle, you really will know they're out of ideas and just throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Ava would never have been as entertaining and multi-faceted if Maura West were not playing her. My God, I even forgive her for the Denise DiMuccio fiasco!

It's really a shame they could not have done more with the plot point that allowed Ava to interact with Tracy, because those two, armed with a good plotline, would be must-watch TV. It would be interesting to see who would learn more from the other, or if it would just be the two of them snarking on their respective moral failings. Tracy has always had a weakness for men with mob ties; what would it be like for her to have a best friend/partner in crime who also tends to ignore the law? I remember how promising Ava's interactions with Nikolas were shortly before he left--it could have been a very interesting relationship, since she was not the "type" they usually shoved in his direction. Since Tracy/Jane Elliot is also preparing to leave, they likely won't explore how well those two could complement one another in a 'frenemy' story.

Poor Griffin. He started off so strong, and now...he's wallpaper. I'm wondering if he was scheduled to play a third in a Nathan/Maxie triangle, and the plot had to be 86'd by KS's leave of absence.

The Sonny/Carly "we should break up/we should reunite" scenes are like the instructions on a shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[Ray&Donna]

The Sonny/Carly "we should break up/we should reunite" scenes are like the instructions on a shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat.

Amen. And now, of course, Jax is giving Sonny a little man complex again. Is it just me, or is Jax only brought back on canvas in an effort to prop Sonny and make him look better by comparison? "You slept with Nelle and lied about it!" "Well you paid for her kidney!" If that argument plays out on screen, I will have to mute it.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Ava would never have been as entertaining and multi-faceted if Maura West were not playing her. My God, I even forgive her for the Denise DiMuccio fiasco!

Yes. It is clear that, for the most part, she has had much more leighway in terms of characterization than during her brief, unfortunate stint on Y&R. At least it got her to the west coast, though. Ava and Nikolas are the great lost opportunity with Tyler Christopher's exit/firing/whatever.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Is it just me, or is Jax only brought back on canvas in an effort to prop Sonny and make him look better by comparison?

From my point of view, Jax is usually brought in for the opposite reason: to please/pacify the anti-Sonny crowd. It gives them someone likeable that they (we) can root for. In this most recent twist, I don't think they are purposely trying to make people dislike him--they just needed someone to blame for the ret-con about Nelle being the (unwilling) kidney donor rather than not-dead Jake.

Jax could have hacked that kidney out of Nelle with a melon baller and I would still choose him over Sonny.

Typically they bring Jax in because the other Sonny Haters out there will watch thinking how much better things would be if he could knock Sonny off his pedestal by luring Carly away and being the better father figure for the kids. The key phrase, of course is "we will watch"--as in, Jax vs. Sonny can always draw certain viewers back, even if the outcome of their latest rivalry is pretty much predictable. The best we can hope for as anti-Sonny viewer is watching Sonny squirm, since making him permanently lose something (anything!) seems too much to ask. Jax can also be a much more viable (that is, written much more strongly) rival for Sonny when he is in and out of town like this, because Sonny's "on-contract" rivals (characters "in town" and regularly in Sonny's face) like Julian and Ava have to be written weaker. No rival of Sonny's can have an upper hand for more than a week or so; I think Maurice Benard would pitch a fit. It's also nicer to have Jax as a "visitor" because the in-town rivals of Sonny's inevitably have to be threatened with Big Shiny Silver Gun, and I don't think viewers would cheer Sonny on if he resorted to such bullying with Jax.

 

[Ray&Donna]

Yeah, I could see that. Imagine if Jax stuck around long enough to become interested in Ava...

 

[Daniel Avery]

Just imagine the beautiful, intelligent, clever children they could produce...oooh....

 

[Ray&Donna]

Sonny proved yesterday what a small man he truly is. Carjax>Carson

 

[Daniel Avery]

I realized there is a new storytelling strategy in place to keep Carly and Sonny together: reciprocal immorality.

Every time Carly gets a good enough reason to dump his butt, the writers find a way to put her in a similar/same situation, have her behave almost exactly as he did--giving her motivation to forgive him and take him back. They did it with her threatening to kill Olivia Jerome with a gun (after lecturing Sonny ad nauseam about gun violence), and now they're doing it with her having sexytimes with Jax. Oh, Sonny! You had an affair! I can never forgive you! Oops, I had an affair too--oh, well, bygones!!

I'd call it lazy storytelling, but it would be an insult to lazy storytellers.

 

[Ray&Donna]

LOL, true. You can't call J&S lazy, because that would imply they were putting in effort in the first place.