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Ray&Donna

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He and Ellie are still written as being together, but I don't remember that actress being on since she left (aside from a guest role on CASTLE). She took a new job which is why Brad wants to move away--to take her old job and get as far from Nelle as humanly possible.
 

Daniel Avery

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They did get the actress to do a two- or three-day guest spot at one point (she and Spinelli brought Georgie to visit Maxie) over a year ago, but I figured she would not come back since I'm not allowed to have nice things. o_O

I still recall Brad tricking Ellie out of that Head of the Laboratory job at GH, so the idea of her taking her rightful job at GH (and sending Brad to Portland) would have a certain justice. But if fans had their way, Brad would end up with cement shoes at the bottom of the harbor. Hey, I'm just glad there is some movement on this story.
 

Ray&Donna

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And of course Carly got to berate Brad for doing the same thing with Wiley that she and Jason did with Michael...:re:

My mom wants to know why Sonny and Carly get all the children on the show. Or maybe it's just their children are more prominent due to Sonny being the de facto godfather of Port Charles. And having two rather annoying children, one now deceased
 

Daniel Avery

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They did give Carly an all-too-brief moment of clarity regarding Brad and Nelle keeping Jonah from Michael "for over a year" just as she and Jason kept Michael from AJ "for over a year". I know...I was amazed, as well. But I'd be willing to bet a closet full of Lucy Coe ball gowns that it will never be mentioned again.

Maybe Sonny was just distracted by his latest mob war, but I thought his reaction to the news of Jonah was rather subdued. I figured when he returned to the house that Brad would end up getting beaten to a pulp, with Sonny and Jason taking turns while the Sonny Apologists Society just stood by and watched. Maybe they saved that for Friday. Seeing Nelle and Brad (separately) getting hauled off to jail was nice, but the preview (with Willow collapsing in tears) tells me I'm glad I missed the Friday show.
 

Ray&Donna

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I missed part of Friday's episode, but the gist of major happenings was Brad and Nelle in those two holding cells (gotta love the co-ed PC jail). She accused him of ruining her life; she has deluded herself into thinking he made the switcheroo rather than her. Then she started crying to the guard that Brad was badgering her, until rent-a-cop moved the guy to solitary, which is probably better than spending any amount of time with Nelle. I wonder if Tad the Cad is still her lawyer now that he's trying to buy up ELQ shares?
 

Ray&Donna

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The stuff with Willow was pretty good, all things considered. I just hope they don't turn her character in Rebecca De Mornay
 

Daniel Avery

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I keep reading online that the actress really nailed the scenes where Chase told Willow about her baby. While I am glad there are some good performances in this storyline, some of the actors who SHOULD be anchoring this story have not impressed me at all. Parry Shen (Brad) doesn't do 'high-stakes drama' very convincingly; he was best when they wrote him as an inept schemer who was out of his league. The actor who has impressed me the least is Ryan Carnes. Lucas ought to have been the most outraged, upset, and confused of them all in this story. He had over a month to prep for these scenes, since they put Lucas in the coma in order to stretch things out a bit longer, but I was left feeling he had not really invested anything in the scenes as he just recited his lines. Lucas just handwaved Brad out of his life like he was some short-term date, not his husband. And yes, Chad Duell (another one who had plenty of time to prepare for this plot outcome) seemed to be on auto-pilot. "Oh, that's really my kid...okay, whatever."
Michael's always been kind of lame in my opinion (considering his pedigree), but I think a strategic recast could allow them to write him as an anchor character for the entire show, since he has family links to practically the entire town.

Michael will stash Wiley/Jonah in the Q Family daycare center (AKA It's My House, Alan Gave It To Me) with Sam's kids and he will go right back to business as usual.
 

Ray&Donna

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Michael will stash Wiley/Jonah in the Q Family daycare center (AKA It's My House, Alan Gave It To Me) with Sam's kids and he will go right back to business as usual.

You mean the kids Sam can't see for two years? LOL. They've talked about JaSam being separated like she wasn't married to his brother at all. :re:
 

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They can deny it all they want, but this plot point just screams "the actors do not want to work together, so we have to come up with an excuse to keep them separated".

The best "excuse" of course is to bring Drew back, no matter who is playing him, and have Sam reconcile with him...but they won't do that because they live in fear of the JaSam fan base. They'd rather concoct this threadbare plotline to say "Oh, they sooooo want to be together, but gosh darn it--the parole officers in Port Chuckles somehow got the authority to split up families." Meanwhile, when Steve Burton tries to touch Kelly Monaco, she gets that same look on her face that Queen Elizabeth gets when she has to take tea with the natives.

My theory on the whole Sonny/Cyrus/Taggert plot (after watching Thursday's show) is that Taggert wants to take down Sonny more than he wants to take down Cyrus. His asking for Sonny's "help" to take down Cyrus is actually an effort to get Sonny to implicate himself. I don't think Cyrus really did try to kill Taggert, and the two are sort of in league with one another to take out Sonny (or at least destroy his "territory"). The kidnapping of Trina and Cameron was another misdirection; I doubt they were really in danger, or else the goon would have just killed Trina (after failing to kill her father) to send a "message" to Taggert. I noticed he very conveniently did not show up at Liz's house until well after the kids had departed for the dance. Taggert is probably also manipulating Jordan, since it looks to most people that Jordan tolerates Sonny's activities and would not join him in working to throw Sonny in jail. Taggert pretending to be focused on Cyrus is a classic case of "Look over here, don't watch what my other hand is doing" sleight of hand.

I also find it hilarious that they're having that actress playing Jordan pretend she's old enough to have been working undercover with Taggert 25 years ago. Did she tuck her gun in her diaper?
 

Ray&Donna

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They can deny it all they want, but this plot point just screams "the actors do not want to work together, so we have to come up with an excuse to keep them separated".

The best "excuse" of course is to bring Drew back, no matter who is playing him, and have Sam reconcile with him...but they won't do that because they live in fear of the JaSam fan base. They'd rather concoct this threadbare plotline to say "Oh, they sooooo want to be together, but gosh darn it--the parole officers in Port Chuckles somehow got the authority to split up families." Meanwhile, when Steve Burton tries to touch Kelly Monaco, she gets that same look on her face that Queen Elizabeth gets when she has to take tea with the natives.

I noticed a few weeks ago that they were chemistry testing Sam with Dr. Finn, trying to revisit their relationship from another place and time. But then they kind of dropped it.

My theory on the whole Sonny/Cyrus/Taggert plot (after watching Thursday's show) is that Taggert wants to take down Sonny more than he wants to take down Cyrus. His asking for Sonny's "help" to take down Cyrus is actually an effort to get Sonny to implicate himself. I don't think Cyrus really did try to kill Taggert, and the two are sort of in league with one another to take out Sonny (or at least destroy his "territory"). The kidnapping of Trina and Cameron was another misdirection; I doubt they were really in danger, or else the goon would have just killed Trina (after failing to kill her father) to send a "message" to Taggert. I noticed he very conveniently did not show up at Liz's house until well after the kids had departed for the dance. Taggert is probably also manipulating Jordan, since it looks to most people that Jordan tolerates Sonny's activities and would not join him in working to throw Sonny in jail. Taggert pretending to be focused on Cyrus is a classic case of "Look over here, don't watch what my other hand is doing" sleight of hand.

The Trina being his daughter feels like it was tossed in at the last minute just to raise the stakes. I've had trouble following the entire story thread, perhaps because it paints Sonny as some sort of innocent victim in his own line of business. :re:

I also find it hilarious that they're having that actress playing Jordan pretend she's old enough to have been working undercover with Taggert 25 years ago. Did she tuck her gun in her diaper?

Jordan's backstory has always had some holes in it, but if TJ is in medical school I am sure she is old enough to have been under the covers 25 years ago :D
 

Ray&Donna

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I thought Jordan was kind of superfluous when she first arrived, but the actress was better than the usual GH hire. It took me a while to get used to the recast but I finally did. Of course she wouldn't want to work with Sonny and Jason (not everyone worships the ground they walk on).

What's the deal with Molly? She's been with TJ all of these years and now she hates men? Extremely annoying character development.

Do we seriously have to sit through a custody trial over Wiley just because Michael impregnated a woman shockingly close to his own mother? "At least Nelle knew who the father of her baby was!" I shouted at the TV yesterday. :lol:
 

Daniel Avery

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I thought Jordan was kind of superfluous when she first arrived, but the actress was better than the usual GH hire. It took me a while to get used to the recast but I finally did. Of course she wouldn't want to work with Sonny and Jason (not everyone worships the ground they walk on).
Vinessa Antoine, the original Jordan, probably wasn't supposed to survive that introductory plot where she was a DEA agent infiltrating the Jeromes. I got the feeling back then that she survived only because Antoine was so good in the role and managed to keep her from falling into the typical GH trap of "strong woman gets turned into a wimp by lousy writing". She had the same vibe that Anna Devane gives off (and Ava Jerome, though in possession of a better moral compass). When she emerged from the Jeromes/FakeLuke plot with the Police Commissioner job it was a stretch but the job fit her character...at least back then. Antoine left to take a lead role in a primetime detective series for Canadian TV so of course she went on to better things.

It is nice to have a character act as the audience's conscience once in a while, reminding everyone onscreen that Sonny and Jason are mobsters. One of my favorite periods of GH was when Michael turned his back on Sonny and Carly to embrace his Quartermaine roots, saying out loud what fans had been screaming at their TVs for years. It was brief, but oh-so-sweet. Scotty Baldwin is another character who calls it as he sees it (when given the chance), and of course Monica will occasionally speak out against him and especially Carly. Even Dr. Obrecht dressed Sonny down in a scene back when she was Chief of Staff of the hospital, telling him she knew 'his type' who hid behind his guns and his slick suits while sending innocent people to people like her (a doctor) to be put back together, and showed she was not intimidated by 'his type'. Of course they have to marginalize the people who call him out like that, since they can't have viewers actually see he's not some anti-hero type who deserves respect.

What's the deal with Molly? She's been with TJ all of these years and now she hates men?
They laid it on thick with her, didn't they? She's always been kind of cartoony-PC, but she lurched right into Man-Haters University's Women's Studies Program. Her long, uncomfortable, man-hating rant seemed comical at first, as if certain body parts of TJ's would just shrivel up and fall off mid-way through. At the very least, it ought to have made him pack up his ring and run far, far away. And in a way, he has!

I'm guessing there won't be a custody battle because Miss Nelle won't survive to see May Sweeps. It was always in the back of my mind that she's now more valuable dead than alive (story-wise), but the tete a tete with Dr. O on Thursday seemed like one of those scenes we see right before someone gets killed off--you know, where all the character's misdeeds are repeated for the viewer to be reminded by all possible future suspects in the murder.
 

Ray&Donna

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My dream scenario would be Obrecht bails Brad out of jail and blackmails him into killing Nelle. Two birds, one stone.

It's kind of depressing to see Maxie completely lobotomized for the sake of Peter, who the entire audience knows is rotten to the core. Of course the whole thing makes her look hypocritical since before Nathan came along, she was pretty unlovable, too.
 

Ray&Donna

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They laid it on thick with her, didn't they? She's always been kind of cartoony-PC, but she lurched right into Man-Haters University's Women's Studies Program. Her long, uncomfortable, man-hating rant seemed comical at first, as if certain body parts of TJ's would just shrivel up and fall off mid-way through. At the very least, it ought to have made him pack up his ring and run far, far away. And in a way, he has!

He was probably glad to have been kidnapped after that dressing down. :D
 

Daniel Avery

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My dream scenario would be Obrecht bails Brad out of jail and blackmails him into killing Nelle. Two birds, one stone.
I'd love to have more of Dr. O in the mix, but Kathleen Gati has been given one of those recurring contracts where she will never be front-burner for any length of time. She will be seen for a few weeks of shows, then disappear for weeks, if not months.

My dream scenario would be for Nelle to pull a "Jill Bennett" on Michael. Nelle will turn up dead with all kinds of circumstantial evidence making it appear Michael set up her murder. In the end we find out that Nelle was trying to frame Michael for an attempt on her life...but accidentally killed herself in the process.
 

Ray&Donna

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I like that idea as well, but daytime usually shies far, far away from suicide, so I don't know if the writers would be that brave. I mean, they quasi-hinted at it when Nikolas framed DrewJason for shoving him out the window on Spoon Island...but then we saw the he was very much alive on the plane with Ava.
 

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Nelle does not strike me as the type to kill herself intentionally. My image had her unintentionally falling into her own trap, so to speak. Jill tied herself up (complete with a gag tied over her mouth) and hopped into the trunk of Gary's car, having set the stage for the police to pull him over to "save" her from his supposed plan to kill her. For some reason she gagged on her own gag (so to speak), then choked to death on her own vomit before the cops pulled Gary over due to an "anonymous tip" (from Jill). It wasn't until the end that we learned Jill had tried to frame him, and they left it up to the viewer to decide if she had planned to be found alive or if she planned to die in this caper. Jill wanted to have Gary sent to jail for her attempted murder (or maybe just her murder) because she did not want him to live happily ever after with Val....and Nelle might try something similar to keep him from having Wiley. The main difference, however (other than the much better writing team on KL:yikey: ) is that while there were only three main suspects in Jill's "murder", the suspect list for Nelle's death would read much like the Port Charles Phone Book. Oh, and like I said, Nelle isn't the suicidal type, so she would definitely expect to be "saved" if she decided to copy that plotline.
 

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Apparently GH (as well as the CBS soaps) have shut down production in light of the Covid-19 thing, leaving them with roughly 7-8 weeks of new episodes stockpiled. I assume that if this thing drags on, they would either slip into "classic episodes," or turn over that time slot to the news division to let them do more C-19 coverage. Days was already on hiatus and will just continue to coast on those eight months (!!!) of completed episodes.

I wanted to create a new thread for this news since it's really news for all four soaps, but the formatting issue at the top crowds out the "create topic" button on my laptop.
 

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In an effort to ration out the remaining new episodes, Fridays are now "Flashback Fridays" with a cast member doing a segment to "introduce" a repeat. So the cliffhangers geared toward Friday episodes will be occurring at random times during the M-Th week.

I have to say I enjoyed Jordan's verbal evisceration of Molly today much more than I should have.
 
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