Posts Tagged ‘General Hospital’
BnB: The measure of a woman. The mismeasure of a girl.
Done, Finito, KAPUT! I’m done trying to find a reason to like the BnB’s Steffy Forrester, DONE! I usually love bad girls/bad boys in daytime; although I almost always root against them. I enjoy watching them unleash fresh hell on others, and later themselves as their plans backfire. It’s the best of both worlds. Truly great bad girl/guy characters feed your light and dark sides. Most daytime writers have a tried and true formula and “get” what makes bad girl/boy characters so much fun. They’re equal parts exhilaration and exasperation and just when you think you can’t love-to- hate them any more than you already do, the writers pull a twist. The character you thought you knew, the character whose all-knowing smirks drove you to the brink of distraction suddenly has a vulnerable side. You find yourself almostliking them! When daytime writers want you to fall for a character, they know what it takes to make you fall hard:
- AMC’s writers pulled the ‘empathy card’ on Janet-from-another-planet Green when they revealed that she wasn’t simply pathologically jealous of her beautiful sister, Natalie Marlowe, but that she’d been the target of unrelenting taunting and teasing, merciless emotional abuse, all without remorse by a mother who felt justified in the emotional torture of her daughter. Natalie was her blessing, Janet was her curse. Wilma Marlowe couldn’t wait to remind Janet, every day of her life, that she was the daughter she would have done without and when given the choice, that choice would always be the beloved Natalie. Janet’s hope was to, just once, be chosen first. The desire to be someone’s first choice – even Trevor Dillon’s, drove much of Janet’s continued march toward madness.
- ATWT’s writers pulled the ‘empathy card’ with Emily Stewart, who spent years dealing with her mother Susan’s substance abuse and emotional distancing. Emily’s victimization at her mother’s hands turned into a worldview in which she was always the victim of the those around her – even as she drew first blood. By soapgod, she was going to make the world PAY! ATWT pulled the double whammy with heartless schemer, Angel Lange, who was the victim of longterm sexual abuse at the hands of her wealthy powerful father. Angel’s scheming was directed at helping her secure her freedom from a powerful father who seemed unstoppable. To that end she forced Holden Snyder into marriage, schemed to keep him, and with her brother, stole millions from their father’s company.
- GH’s Stefan Cassadine’s ’empathy card’ came in the form of dysfunctional parenting as well. He and brother Stavros were presented as the “Heir and a Spare”. While his parents groomed his brother for greatness (and you can read that as great darkness), he was expected to bask in the shaded glory of the pathological Stavros, accept the cast off crumbs of his parents’ affections. It was a wonder that they allowed him to keep the Cassadine name. Stavros was dangerous, but even Stavros was a kitten compared to their parents.
Stefan never stood a chance growing up. If it’s possible to assign behavior to soap characters, you could imagine that had Stefan’s parents paid more attention to him in his youth, there would be no need to discuss adult Stefan. He’d have never nade it to adulthood.
- Long before Stefan, there was Bobbie Spencer, who curiously enough became Stefan’s wife. In her youth, Bobbie hadn’t met a man she didn’t want to control, nor a woman she didn’t want to destroy to have him. We later learned that Nurse Bobbie’s early trauma occurred when she was led into prostitution as a young teen by her Aunt Ruby, not long after her parents died. She was just another of the working girls in Aunt Ruby’s house. Bobbie’s “protector” was her older brother, Luke, who protected her by making sure she was ‘safe’ on her ‘dates’ with older men. Bobbie was reminded of her sex worker past, frequently, even as she transitioned from good-girl-gone-bad to bad-girl-turned-real-woman. The most lasting reminder of Bobbie’s difficult time was the arrival of the daughter she conceived while working for Aunt Ruby. Unfortuntately for Bobbie, daughter Carly came with an eye on vengence.
- OLTL’s Todd Manning, in his youth, was anger on a stick and a threat to the safety of women everywhere. The writers should have taken advantage of the fact that in a field of characters with unusual names (Storm, Ridge, Thorne, Destiny) naming this guy “Trouble” instead of Todd would have been more honest. If there was a thing that Todd didn’t hate, it was only because it hadn’t been invented yet. It’s hard to feel sorry for a unrepentent rapist and the writers knew it. Without the need to try to ‘redeem’ him, the writers allowed the audience catch a glimpse of what was left of the humanity of the character. The idea seemed to be to provide the audience some hope that whatever was left of his humanity was enought to stop him from victimizing others and to begin dealing with his own pain. Todd’s pain resulted from frequent beatings by an uncaring father who despised him. Todd’s father, Peter Manning, was his maternal uncle and adoptive father. He was forced to raise the child as his own. We later found out that Todd was also sexually abused in his youth.
- BnB’s Stephanie Douglas Forrester (who moved from my love-to-hate column to fully despise) was the product of a vicious wealthy father who presented the image of a perfect family to his business colleagues and friends (including fellow industry titan, YnR’s Katherine Chancellor). What his friends and and colleagues didn’t know is that Mr. Douglas beat his daughter “Stevie” with reckless abandon behind closed doors. Stephanie’s cruel childhood treatment was reportedly the cause of the cruelty she expressed in adulthood. It is something that others around her struggle with until this day — clearly Stepahnie doesn’t struggle with her inhumanity toward others. She revels in it.
You get the common thread, yes? Years of emotional, physical, verbal, and sexual abuse. Whether it happens because of a cowardly parent or a craven lover, there is typically a foundation for the abusive, shallow behavior we witness in our fave bad girls and boys. Use that as a backdrop to try to understand the BnB’s Steffy Forrester. She’s the heir to a massive fortune, her mother came BACK from the dead and re-established the family Steffy always wanted. Her mother also gave her 25% of the family company – trusting her to “take care” of her older brother. Steffywas raised by a father she adores. She’s never had to go to college and yet was handed cushy executive level positions in the company after spending only a few months in the mailroom. AND she had a stepmother who raised her and loved her while her mother was believed to have been in the grave (the same stepmother she still adored just a few years, ago, and with whom she’s had no significant conflict). She’s traveled the world and has reportedly been loved and in love.
To hear this wanker of a character whine day in and day out about how sad she is, how much she needs a man (any man dating or married to a Logan woman), how hard her life is, how she’s been abandoned, maltreated, unloved… it’s all just too much. Rather than creating feelings that run from exhilaration to exasperation, my feelings for Steffy run from damned bored to seriously annoyed. Her rapid shifting from begging her daddy (Ridge) to staywith the family and continue to raise her, to begging her ‘big daddy’ (Bill Spencer) to stay with her for the night and make love to her is pathetic, but mostly jarring. Is she a needy child or a sexually provocative woman? She can’t be both, or use both “needs” as the foundation for her aggression toward the Logan family. Her need to destroy the Logan family because her father loves Brooke, is petty. It’s surreal at best when you consider how much she loved Brooke as a stepmother, until her nological mother’s return. It’s absurd when you consider the fact that Brooke is the mother of her youngest brother.
Steffy doesn’t work as a bad girl because there is no “empathy card” to be played for this character. The character is made up of all hard angles. It’s even hard to believe that she’s invested in the people she claims to be invested in. She’s now twice turned on her mother for love of two different men (Rick Forrester and Bill Spencer). She’s never bothered to share the stock in the family company with her brother. She doesn’t care if her YOUNGEST brother (still in late childhood) grows up without a father – as long as their father is in the home she no longer lives in as an adult. She’s been working to destroy her brother’s family since he was a toddler. She fell to her knees over twin sister Phoebe’s death, but almost immediately fell into bed with the man her family blamed for her sister’s death. She defended him even after he used her and used her sister’s death to taunt her father… the same father she can’t live without.
The fact that anyone (onscreen) finds her intriguing leaves one feeling dumbfounded. Steffy Marone-Forrester is a character filled with contradictions, and none of them good.
She is not likable.
She is not rootworthy.
She is not interesting.
My time is quickly becoming wasted by this character. My sincere hope is that the writers are planning to give the character depth or to send her packing. I will accept either, but what I can’t accept is Steffy in her current incarnation. At some point the writers will become bored with this character as she is. I’m looking forward to THAT day.
STOP! This is WAY too painful!
DAYS OF OUR LIVES
All rights to this image are retained by the original owner
I look at the accompanying photo and I don’t even wonder: “Is Jennifer Horton going for the [naughty librarian] look?”
THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
I’m not watching, so I’ll take fans word for it that Brooke and Thomas eat “mystery berries” and start hallucinating. From there it seems that Thomas puts the move on Brooke and they may end up sleeping together. Who the hell do the writers think they’re writing for, TAYLOR? Taylor slept with Rick, fooled around with his father, had sex with his brother, slept with his grandfather and may have been the ‘lover’ of his uncle (it’s the description the writers used when for Storm when he returned). Either way? This show is screwed.
The BnB is my pick for the next soap to hit the cancellation rack. It offers nothing new, just different circumstances used to tell the SAME story… each telling more grotesque than the last time it was told.
Two More Soaps are Down/The Guessing Game
All rights to this photo are retained by the original owner
Most of you have heard or read, by now, that U.S. soaps are one step closer to being a part of our American past. I have been saying for some time that I wish that the powers that be (TPTB) at the networks would either fix daytime or kill it off, but that anything in between is unfair to fans, and a clear disrespect for the genre. I am not celebrating the loss of All My Children and One Life To Live. In fact, it saddens me for two reasons. The first is that I believe that both shows were a damned sight better than General Hospital and were far more ‘history rich’ in their current forms than GH. The second is that I believe that both shows could have lasted years longer if ABC had the courage to infuse the genre with new writers and executive producers/energetic writers and executive producers who would have respected the genre’s history, but not become bogged down in the repetitive storyline telling, and the lack of attention to detail that drove fans away.
AMC and OLTL were the ‘class acts’ of daytime, and to lose these two shows won’t improve the chances of the remaining shows to survive by picking up their audiences. The loss of these two shows will only serve to illuminate how much weaker the plots and plot devices of the remaining shows are.
The Young and the Restless: The actress replacing Drucilla (whose name I’m not even motivated to look up) once gave an interview stating that most Drucilla fans were fans of the show first, not of the character. Uh… ok. She also stated that she wasn’t hired to create a character to replace Dru… and how’s that workin’ for ya? Where is the character she plays now? In Dru’s old storyline… pregnant, by one of the Winters brothers and she’s not exactly sure which. Adam, who burned a fetus in a damned fireplace, never giving its mother the chance to grieve its loss is a romantic hero, involved with a woman whose child he stole. Go. AWAY!
The Bold and the Beautiful: Where to begin? There are so many problems with this show that between it and DOOL, that either could be the next to go (yeah, even over GH)! I wish Bell’s ‘bad girls’ weren’t so one-dimensional, like Steffy and her faux ’good girl’ mother, Taylor- who is as much a daytime bitch as ever there was one. Both Steffy and Taylor highlight the weakness of Bell’s writing for bad girl characters. I miss the real bad girls, women with a method to their madness and whose actions were explained through their backstory (pain, unhappiness, abuse, abandonment). You always knew that their desperate actions were about fighting back in the only way they knew how and it left you hating them and loving them at the same time. Steffy is just a selfish, pampered, snotty little girl who thinks life owes it to her to give her whatever she wants – even after having such a privileged life and a father who sacrificed his happiness for hers.
Her constant attempt to draw a distinction between herself and the ‘human trash from the valley’ makes her as useless as her grandmother. Most soap bad girls didn’t offer the social class argument for their superiority and since social class is the only type of class Steffy has – any argument she makes in her favor is moot. She is everything she despises in others… the ultimate hypocrite.
All rights to this photo are retained by the original owner
Steffy’s character lacks depth and a backstory gives definition to her character.
Days Of Our Lives: Rape is NOT SEXY! EJ? NOT SEXY! I don’t care how attractive EJ’s portrayer James Scott is. JS is not EJ, and EJ is a rapist with no redeeming qualities. His sole mission in life it to own and manipulate the woman he raped, to control her life and to continue to impregnate her through violence and/or deceit. I gave up on this show a very long time ago. DOOL, and EJ as a character, are better suited to a soap titled, “The Land that Time Forgot”. The titled references a book, screenplay, and several movies. Why not a soap? Women are smarter, better educated, focused on informing themselves and their daughters and sons about sexual assault – yet, sexual assault is still the foundation for romance and ‘good times’ on Days of our Lives. Not. good.
General Hospital: Need I say more? Nice guys really DO finish last. OLTL and AMC focused on family ties, the ups and downs of relationships, and in the end the mob boys and weak guest appearances win out. Sorry, James Franco fans, I thought GH’s artist Franco sucked and that the actor treated the character as a caricature. His vision of what a soap character was supposed to be left me cringing and I was shocked that TPTB backstage allowed it to happen.
Daytime writers and executives of the four remaining shows have to become more protective of the genre. They have to remember daytime’s illustrious history and send the remaining four shows out as a bright flame, and not sending it up as a weak puff of smoke. They owe the fans no less.
Oddly enough, I was a daytime fan who, when this blog began as a column for Darcy Fourier’s ”The Soapscope” website, watched more daytime than primetime television. My primetime viewership was nearly non-existent. When I became disenchanted with daytime, I switched to primetime viewership almost exclusively. Even still, I will miss soaps for lots of reasons, but primarily for their history in total. I can’t say that I will soaps in their current incarnation, I hated and still hate most of what’s airing in daytime. I will miss daytime for what it was, and for the missed opportunity to make it something great, again. I’m not interesting in more daytime talk, more scripted reality, or more game shows and can’t imagine their appeal over even the worst of daytime dramas, much less the best of it. To the Cast and Crew at All My Children and One Life to Live, thank you for the decades of memories. You are irreplaceable and you will be missed.
GH: My fave soap moment all year!
Why WHY did the writers waste time on the Brook Lynn-for-hire storyline? Ms. Leon’s performance in the vid below is surely evidence that the revamped Brook Lynn has more kick, more fire, and would be better cast as a wanton vixen than as a desperate diva doing the bidding of a woman she barely knows.
Double score on the Tracy and Brook Lynn showdown:
I’d love to see Brook Lynn, in a nod to GH history, start up her own music label, as her parents once did, and bring something new to the current GH. The problem is that it would most likely mean more singing and, sometimes, when soap stars sing, I cry.. “Memba” this:
GH: Yeah, because he’s all good… and stuff
First, let me salute GH’s real fathers and all around great men:
Mac Scorpio, who never asked for more than he gave. In fact, Mac never asked for anything. It was his great joy to raise three “daughters” to whom he had no legal responsibility. He didn’t need it. He was bound by love. Georgie, Maxie, and Robin would have known a very different (colder and crueler) world without him. Remember, Mac is an ‘old school’ reformed bad boy. He only had two things on his mind when he arrived in PC, making money and making mischief – and that usually involved someone’s wife/girlfriend/etc. Not every character has to be a Mac Scorpio, but it sure would be nice if there were more of them.
Jasper Jacks, see Mac. Jax’s ‘crime’? He actually believes that children should grow up in a loving environment with parents they can look up to (or make that SHOULD look up to). What’s wrong with this guy, right? He thinks that children raised in a violent world could, at worst, lose their lives, or at least lose the ability to make good choices toward becoming healthy and loving adults. Our poor Jax wants to give Michael and Morgan the life that neither of their parents is smart enough to want for them. Jax isn’t an angry or preachy guy. He’s just a guy who uses commonsense, but whose statements are treated as if they’re irrational. I don’t want to see Jax changed. I’d rather the writers realized that he should be the agent for change for characters they’ve relegated to the status of one-note harridans…. Carly.
Lucky Spencer, again, see Mac. Lucky is another one of those ‘annoying do-gooders’ GH writers create and then punish. His worst mistake was getting hooked on painkillers, but beyond that Lucky has been a remarkably good guy. He’s loved and forgiven his ‘soul mate’, Elizabeth Webber, for lying and cheating and passing off another man’s child as his while she secretly gave ‘their’ son his biological father’s initials. I know, Lucky cheated with Maxie Jones. Drug addicted Lucky cheated with Maxie – it was the only way she’d give him the pills she’d stolen for him. It doesn’t absolve him of being a complete ass, but when I compare that to sober Liz cheated on Lucky, repeatedly, I’m not so angry at the guy. Through it all, Lucky loved both of Elizabeth’s children as his own and despite the fact that he believes her to be pregnant with his brother’s child, he has not abandoned his children and technically, he hasn’t abandoned her, either.
Dante Falconeri, not much to say, but I’m adding him to the list any way. He has integrity, believes in his life as a law enforcement official, and for now he’s open and honest, and doesn’t cheat. Now that Brenda (Brender, to some of you) is back, my biggest fear is that a father-son-Brenda triangle will begin marking the end of my viewership of this show. I’ll enjoy Dante while I can. As the mother of an adult son, I have to admit that what I love most about him is that he’s a mama’s boy (in the most positive sense of the word).
And then there’s:
Sonny Corinthos That’s it? Sonny takes away Kristina’s credit cards and that’s all it takes to make her behave and forgive her father for abusing women and making her feel worthless? Gorgeous life lesson there! Does this now make Sonny the father of the year? He nearly blows his psychologically fragile daughter to hell and back, lies about it, and all he has to do is make her live a month without credit cards and yell at her to make her feel as if SHE is the problem in their relationship. Tale tucked between her legs, eyes cast downward, (and I think she piddled the floor) Kristina realizes that she is in fact just a naughty girl who has been disrespectful of her loving father.
You take a kid’s credit cards away if they overspend, or if they are a little mouthy. Kristina has now nearly cost two separate young men their lives (Ethan and Johnny) by playing games. She has a habit of falling for older men – whether they want her or not. She’s dated a young man who was horribly abusive to her and she protected him. Shouldn’t she be in therapy – where almost every GH woman has been? Oh, don’t worry, GH males don’t typically need help, they’re good to go. The one person who really does belong on a therapist’s couch won’t have to go… she’s been cured with a little retail therapy. Once she gets her credit cards back, she’ll spend her way into happiness. Besides, in therapy she’ll only learn to blame her father for his anger and aggression toward women and we can’t have that.
Patrick Drake Mancini: Writers, you blew it! Seriously! I’m not just making it up as I go along – I leave that to you! I wanted to feel sorry for the guy, but HOW???? He’s just had sex with his wife… who is HIV positive… after having sex with another woman and not telling her, not giving HER the choice of saying ‘no’ and walking away. He is, after all, the wronged party, right? He shouldn’t have to pay for his infidelity because he was drunk.
Besides, he’s really really sorry, and he loves his life with Robin.. again. I know, because he said so. Of course, that’s in stark contrast to his whining and moaning a couple of weeks ago about having his ‘ex girlfriend’ stolen, that the ex didn’t support him by standing with him against Steve Webber, that his life has changed and he doesn’t know how he became the ‘good guy’ – clearly overstating the case. The fun begins 3:07 in…
Some of you got the Michael Mancini comparison and loved it, others of you thought it was too extreme. Michael Mancini, from what I can piece together of MP history, didn’t become a major d-bag all at once (and my apologies to d-bags which are actually useful, Patrick is not). Michael slowly evolved – primarily putting his own needs first and finding more and more ways to rationalize and justify his betrayals and misdeeds. Was he ever truly sorry for cheating on his wife with her sister? Someone who did watch the show long term can tell me. I wondered about that when watching Patrick and Robin together as Patrick expressed a coded statement of remorse to a clueless Robin. As with Lucky and Liz, Patrick stood by Robin when she was ill, I agree… but she was ill… his asshat behavior is all about who Patrick is at his core (the man who loves his life with Robin, no hates it – he’s too confined, no <sigh> loves it now that he realizes he could lose it). We all know where this is going. It will be ‘that crazy bitch’s’ fault that he cheated, ultimately.
Patrick Drake Mancini will threaten, and shove, and push, and snarl, and whine… and we are to forgive him, because he didn’t mean to fault his wife for running off to save lives in Africa for a few months, after he dared to give up his beautiful life to ‘settle’ for her. It’s not his fault that ‘that crazy bitch’ believed him when he flirted with her about the marvelous sex they once had. It’s not his fault that he hates Steven Webber for ‘stealing his ex-crazy bitch- girlfriend even as he has a loving wife and adorable child at home. On GH, it’s always some ‘crazy bitch’s fault’.
Someone at GH clearly has an English-to-Misogyny-dictionary/playbook and I wish they’d burn that bastard.
GH’s Patrick Drake
Husband.
Father.
Liar.
Adulterer.
Whatever.
I watched just a couple episodes of the original Melrose Place the first year it aired. It just wasn’t the show for me so I moved on to something else (what? I can’t even remember at this time). One of the few things I could tell you about the early episodes is that there was a young handsome hardworking doctor, Michael Mancini, and his lovely and sweet wife, Jane. I knew as soon as I saw them that one or both of them had to change if they were going to survive that show. They were ‘too sweet’ and ‘too in love’. I wasn’t shocked when I later caught an episode and sweet Michael Mancini was a first class rogue and all around bad guy.
What we’re now watching, GHers, is the ‘Mancini treatment’ for dear Patrick. My guess is that it will play out with much less success. This is a serious step backwards. The writers took great pains to transform Patrick from an egocentric playboy who bedded desperate nurses hoping to tame him, into a mature man in love with a woman who was clearly his equal in every way.
So what is the life lesson (for onscreen Robin Scorpio Drake) in this storyline?
Is she to learn that you can never reform a narcissist?
Will she learn that she was right (UGH), that the mob boys may engage in behaviors not condoned by society, but at least they’re loyal? Any bets on how long it will be before we hear Robin throw that line in Patrick’s face?
Should she question how foolish she was to take Patrick at his word when he said that he wouldn’t trade the life he has with Robin and Emma for anything in the world?
Whatever the case, the writers erred in giving Patrick the ‘Mancini Treatment’. He was drunk when he cheated? That’s the excuse? How many times before that had he hinted at, flirted with, suggested to his ex- that a roll in the hay with him would make all right with the world? Was that not Patrick Drake Mancini crying about driving a minivan with a child safety seat (and to Luke Spencer of all people)? The writers have given me no reason to care about this storyline, or PDM, or his new found concern for his wife and family now that he’s ‘sober’ and not just stupid/whining and self pitying.
It would be a disgrace to have Robin fight to save her relationship with him It’s PDM who should do the fighting to save that marriage. Robin should not be willing to quickly forgive, either.
It would be a nightmare if the writers were foolish enough to have Robin fault herself. She should clearly fault Patrick and Lisa for their actions. The writers regressed Patrick for this storyline, they need to take the time to build him back up as a ‘man’.
The fact that Lisa is a liar and manipulator does not make me want to ‘root’ against her any more than I already am rooting against her. Her behavior does not lead me to stand in favor of Robin kicking her sorry ass (though I wouldn’t mind seeing Robin kick Patrick’s sorry ass). I wish the writers had been more clever in finding storylines for SCRUBS. I wish they cared to spend as much time developing them and making them a centerpiece of the show in the way they’ve done for the mob boys for years. What made GH great for so 
many years was it’s attention to details related to creating and building unparalleled love stories. Now all of GH’s love stories are on the rocks:
- Jax is being emasculated while being ‘taught a lesson’ by his airhead wife who isn’t fit to carry his clipped toenails. Seriously, the man eats his opponents for breakfast. CARLY keeps his head spinning? If he was Sonny, he’d have already moved on and impregnated someone by now.
- Olivia is watching Johnny behave like pinhead and follow the lead of a disturbed 17 year old.
- The writers are pushing the slithering Liz and Nik closer together, despite their ill treatment of Lucky – who is alone yet again.
- Maxie is unfaithful to Spinelli again, emotionally, this time.
- Spanky buns has no use for Luke – who has decided that running off to parts unknown will cause Tracy to miss him even more.
- Lulu is locked in battle with ‘bought-and-paid-for’ Brooke Lynn.
- Alexis has no love life to speak of (and where is MAC)?
- Steven is stuck believing that sociopathic Lisa has real feelings for him.
- Yet another woman in law enforcement is offering herself as bait to catch Sonny. What are they doing to my CLAIRE!?!? Lucky is single, he’s alone!
Yup, makes sense that the writers take the show’s only happy couple and ruins them. It makes sense if reason and logic are things of the past. Apparently it is, as daytime serials soon will be as well.
Good night nurse!
General Hospital: Dialogue vs. Plot
It’s not mystery that I’m no fan of GH’s Scooby Doo gang: Sonny, Jason, Carly, and their hangers on. Let’s not forget the air-head apparent, Michael Corinthos. While the plots are lousy, the dialogue has been as rich as Creosus!
Lucky to Nikolas (adding such a new complex layer to the stench of the relationship between the brothers, and between Lucky and Liz. Their betrayal of Lucky was about so much more than the sex):
Lucky: Take a look around, Nikolas. This is an underground dungeon. Your grandmother grabbed my dad and Tracy and tossed them down here like bags of garbage. Who the hell does that? Do you have any idea how sick and insane this is?
Nikolas: Yes, of course I do. But Helena’s not playing this game by herself. Luke’s playing right along. Come on, you know, they get off on this madness.
Lucky: Well, I didn’t. I was just going about my life. It was a good life, by the way. Then Helena took me out of it one day and made everyone think I was dead. She locked me up and messed with my head and my soul. She tried to break me down into something that she could control and then she sent me back to the people who loved me the most like a ticking time bomb.
Nikolas: I know that.
Lucky: There are pieces of me I never got back. And all this time, since your affair with Elizabeth blew up in our faces, did you ever ask yourself why I held on to her so tightly? Why I tried so hard to recreate a time when the love that we shared was real and pure, unmauled by someone who’s as cruel and sadistic as Helena? It’s because Elizabeth represented everything that was taken from me. And our past was the only thing that kept me grounded in our present. And then you came along… and you ruined it without a thought, other than your own self-gratification. So tell me, how can I look at you, knowing all of that… and not see an enemy?
Alexis to Sonny (note that Sonny is completely unaware, as usual. He’s heard this song before, he just keeps blocking it out… he’s suddenly clueless that he’s emotionally abusive):
Alexis: Okay, here we go. See, that’s kind of what I was talking about yesterday, that we need to keep the focus on Kristina, and it might be counterproductive if you get angry and defensive and make it about you.
Sonny: I’m going to this therapy session to support Kristina.
Alexis: Good. Thank you. And I am very sensitive to the fact that this abuse issue is a hot-button issue.
Sonny: And you know that, you know, my mother and I were, you know, abused, and that’s why I know a little bit of what Kristina’s goin’ through.
Alexis: Right. And you know we have to figure out why Kristina stayed in an abusive relationship, and, you know, through that process, you might hear some things about yourself that–
Sonny: No. No, no. No. Listen. Johnny lied on the stand. Kristina believed him. So that’s what we’re gonna work through.
Alexis: Well, actually no one really cares what Johnny said or didn’t say. I think what you might work through is that she’s seen your temper, and it’s been very disturbing.
Sonny: Do I have to tell you again that I don’t hit women?
Alexis: Well, but you do call them bitches and whores, and that kind of verbal abuse might–
Sonny: You’re either physically violent, or you’re not.
Alexis: Really? See, this is why it’s a good idea that you work this out with her in therapy.
Sonny: No, you know what needs to be done here? No, I don’t– all I know is that I’ve never abused a woman. We don’t have to talk about that anymore.
Alexis: Okay, let’s not.
Carly to Sonny: This one shocks me! Carly’s history has been bowing before Sonny’s imagined greatness and accepting responsibility for everything that’s gone wrong in their lives together. She seems to have remembered those things the rest of us remembered:
Carly: We are so much alike. I guess that’s what attracted us to each other. We’re impulsive, you know? We don’t realize the damage we’ve caused till it’s already done.
Sonny: You’re dodging the question. Do you honestly think that I abused you?
Carly: Kristina asked me that question.
Sonny: What do you mean Kristina? When?
Carly: After your outburst in court.
Sonny: What’d you say?
Carly: I told her the technical truth.
Sonny: I’m afraid to hear what that means.
Carly: I was as honest with Kristina as I felt was appropriate, Sonny. I’m not Kristina’s parent. There are questions that only you and Alexis should answer. But I did think she deserved the truth as much as I could give it. So I told her that, you know, our relationship was dysfunctional and volatile, that we genuinely loved each other, but we were toxic together. And that no, you never hit me.
Sonny: Thank God for that.
Carly: I mean, you shot me in the head once, but accidents happen. Can you…can you still hear us? I mean, I can. I can hear the yelling and things breaking. I can hear you calling me a faithless whore. Screaming at the top of your lungs that I’m worthless. I’ve never seen anyone get as angry as you. And your rage, Sonny, your rage is overwhelming. You zero in on what’s weak in someone, and you hammer away. You dismantle it piece by piece. And I look back, and I’m horrified at myself. I’m horrified that I put up with it, that I rationalized it, and I participated in it. But that was my illness. I stayed with you, and I let it happen over and over again. The vicious cycle. And you know what, Sonny? It’s called abuse.
Nah… Sonny’s not abusive… no sirree (at least not in his head)! Doesn’t every man repeatedly refer to his wife as a whore?
Sonny: I kinda expected you to understand the situation a little better, but…
Olivia: I do understand, Sonny. And I’m telling you right now, as someone who’s known you for a very long time, you need to change the way that you deal with women, okay? And there’s no shame in that. Talk to somebody. That’s what therapy’s for!
Sonny: But you’re acting like I’m some kind of animal like Kiefer. Yeah, I got a lot of rage inside of me. But I haven’t been that way with all the women I’ve been with. Just the ones that push me and push me. But I’ve never crossed the line. I love my daughter. I love her with everything I got. And I want to help her through this, but there’s no way that I’m going to say I’m an abuser when I’m not.
Olivia: I’m not saying you’re like Kiefer, Sonny. I know that you would never hit a woman. But there’s a lot of other ways to be abusive. Right?
Sonny: Okay.
Olivia: Okay. See, I know what you want through. I know what Deke did to you and your ma, and I can only imagine the things that you suffered through. And you were a little kid. I get that. But you survived, right?
Sonny: Mm-hmm.
Olivia: And you turned yourself into the kind of man that you wanted to be. You’re powerful, you’re successful, you got kids that mean the world to you. I mean, no one else would look at you and know what’s going on right under the surface.
Sonny: What’s the point?
Olivia: My point is, my point is, don’t believe your own hype. Sonny, okay, you can put one over on the whole rest of the world, but don’t put one over on yourself. Okay, don’t get caught up in believing that, because you made something out of your life, that that abuse didn’t have an effect on every part of you, okay? It directly affects everything, especially the way that you treat other people.
Sonny: You’re talking like I think I’m perfect, and I’m nowhere near perfect.
Olivia: Look, okay, you got Carly claiming that you abused her.
Sonny: Right.
Olivia: Okay, maybe not physically, but in other ways. You’re gonna sit here and you’re gonna tell me that she’s lying, or she’s wrong, or what? What that bastard Deke did to you and your ma had a direct effect on your relationships with women. Okay? You need to admit that, and you need to get help.
Sonny: What Kiefer did to Kristina, I have not done to any woman. It’s not a fair comparison.
Olivia: I agree. I agree. And I know how much it must hurt you to know that your daughter thinks she saw the real you that night that you went off on Claudia. Okay. Or that she would ever compare you to anybody like Kiefer. But, Sonny, Kristina is confused right now. And that’s why you gotta get in there with her right now. You gotta show her that you’re willing to change, and that you can change. You gotta find a way to separate who you really are from all those ugly patterns that you grew up with.
Johnny to Kristina (just as you’re sitting there thinking ‘What kind of low life uses a girl who’s been traumatized by an abusive boyfriend?”… Johnny says THIS):
Kristina: Dad was so horrible brutal to Claudia, he shouldn’t you use me to do the same thing to him? It’s part of justice.
Johnny: Kristina, first of all, the idea of using you in any capacity for anything has no
Kristina: But I’m a willing participant. More than that, it was my idea. Come on, Johnny. The way to make it happen.
Johnny: And er of sonny Corinthos. This playing out, beyond sonny’s pain, of course?
Kristina: Does it matter?
Johnny: It does if I’m dead in the end, yeah.
Kristina: You won’t let my dad kill you, and if he tries, he’ll go to prison like he deserves.
Johnny: Ok. Kristina, I actually know where you’re coming from. I do. I know what it’s like to have a monster as a father. You lay in b late at night thinking of ways to bring the bastard to his knees while you stare at the ceiling. When what you should be doing in actuality is channeling that energy into something positive. I know I’m no shining example as to how that works, believe me, but maybe you can look at me and then use me as an example as to what you should avoid. At the end of the day, Kristina, the answer’s no. As much as I want to bring grief to your father, I’m not about to use you in order to get that.
Johnny: It’s because you’ve been through a very traumatic experience and you need time to heal. See, that–right there is even more of a reason for you not to put yourself in a situation that could backfire or hurt you.
Kristina: But I feel safe with you.
Johnny: Why?
Kristina: I don’t know. I just do. It’s not sexual, please don’t misunderstand.
Johnny: Oh, believe me, there’s no misunderstanding here. Uh, hey…I suppose maybe at the end of the day, we’re kindred spirits. We both have the same immediate goal. But your hatred for sonny is not as black and white as mine. It’s wrapped up in all sorts of shades of gray and emotions of sonny being your father. Your issues with sonny go much deeper than just wanting to see him twist. This is like a bomb waiting to go off, in my face and yours, and I’m not willing to risk that.
Kristina: I figured it out. You’re noble. My father wouldn’t be. If someone went to him with an offer that could destroy you, he’d take it and not think twice. So never say you’re just like sonny. It’s not true. Well, if you change your mind, the offer’s still open.
As much as I hate the plot, the dialogue helped sell it and make sense of it… the children of mob monsters clinging to reclaiming their power by taking away (at least one of) their father’s power. It’s stupid and careless on their part, but it makes sense.
Soapnet/The Holidays/The Death of Daytime
You’ve read a million death of daytime articles already, I’m sure. They’re painful both because of the sheer number of them and the truth they’ve imparted about why daytime has continued to fall apart. Most of them weren’t written by the venerable soap press. The soap press continued to cheer on the inane and asinine storyline telling as ‘innovative’ and ‘original’. No holding a mirror to the naked emperor for the soap press, no sirree. Now that it’s been revealed that Soapnet goes off the air in 2012, fans, it seems, have given up hope that the rest of daytime can be saved, and with good reason, but more on that later.
The one network that was supposed to be fully dedicated to soaps gave up on the genre long ago as it cut back the daytime schedule and boasted about its acquisition of primetime shows. Now? Soaps will be replaced with more preschool friendly programming. Symbolic, don’t you think? The juvenile writing plaguing daytime over the last several years has worked wonders in driving away much of the adult audience but did little to attract the ever elusive 12 to 17 year olds TIIC of daytime couldn’t wait to bring on board – the same 12 to 17 year olds who didn’t give a damn about daytime. Now Disney can give the kids what they really want.
Unfortunately for daytime viewers, the network’s effort to stem to tide of revenue loss may have actually contributed to hastening the death of daytime. When the writing was bad on your favorite soap, you still had other choices. You could move on to something else – but that was before the network hacks decided that it was easier to systematically kill off daytime serials than support them and take them back to basics. When my once favorite Bold and Beautiful drove me absolutely nuts (as it does now with the whining non-”Forrester” women CONSTANTLY attacking the Logan women), I could always find another soap to watch that didn’t drive me batty. Now? The writing is so horrendous across the board and there are so few soaps, there is no where to go but cable and watching ‘primetime in the daytime’. (Which is oddly enough what Soapnet was trying to do, unsuccessfully). By killing off ‘lineups’, TPTB of daytime gave fans fewer and fewer reasons to tune in. Ah, but there were/are other problems:
1 – The soaperatti (on and off screen) is incestuous and keeps claiming that it’s such a ‘specialty’ field that no one outside of daytime can understand it — that’s because they’re so “speshul”, doncha know? And have I mentioned t they’re special? Somehow primetime and cable are surviving with infusing new blood and new ideas. Daytime only, it seems, needs specialists (because they’re special) and yet those specialists (who are special) still can’t figure out how to hang on to an audience. As a result, the same few burned out writers and executive producers are shifted from show to show. You can’t get away from them, as they keep trying to shove the same tired ideas at what they think is a ‘new’ audience every time they ‘quantum leap’ from show to show.
Daytimers typically watch multiple shows, so if you didn’t like a mother and daughter sleeping with the same man and beating each other up on one show, you sure as hell weren’t going to root for the hack writer and producers to bring that storyline to another show you’re watching. When there were more soaps (and more writers) there were also more ideas. and more places to escape to within the genre. That’s gone and the soaperatti have nothing left but false self-praise and careers on a downward slide. Does anyone know if any of the currently unemployed daytime writers have found work on any successful projects? I’d love to know, dear readers. I can’t think of any, and I can’t imagine there are producers out there lining up to grab any of the ‘elite’ in daytime. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I just don’t know where they are. Who’d want to submit an e-portfolio of the worst of daytime as evidence of what you’re capable of offering?
2 – While probably not a popular opinion, I also think a huge problem in daytime is that TIIC are have extended the ideology of the “super special” to hiring actors. The ‘newer’ daytime actors have been treated as ‘speshul’ too. Instead of relying on tried and true and highly skilled vets, daytime PTB decided that a small group of select newbies were the future of genre. I won’t name names, but I think we can all list at least a half dozen actors who are shifted from show to show along with tired/burned out writers and executive producers.
The problem is that the pretty but pointless actors aren’t skilled enough to add new dimensions to their characters from show to show. The actors’ mannerisms and inflections are the same. On top of the same tired storylines, fans were cursed with the same actors, sporting new character names, but providing nothing that differentiated them. The ‘look’ of each show may differ, but the ‘content’ and ‘feel’ of all soaps is similar. thanks to the small cohort of shifting writers, producers, and actors. ABC and CBS could blend what’s left of their lineups and I don’t know that fans would notice the difference. ABC could offer “All My Children born at General Hospital embracing our One Life To Live” and CBS could offer the “Bold and Beautifully Young and Restless”. NBC, would of course, give us the “Days of Our Lives”. It’s all they have left to give having killed off so many daytime shows, already.
The warning signs of impending doom have been sounded for years by fans who’ve wanted nothing more than to save the genre. Unfortunately, it fell on hubristic and intentionally tone deaf ears. How tone deaf have TIIC been? Memorial Day would have been a keen opportunity for TIIC to remind soap fans that daytime is still around and that there’s potential to return to the formula that made the genre work. What did TPTB of GH offer?
Link that with THIS gem that oringally aired a week after the above clip:
On a day when we honor our war dead, and others who have valiantly served and protected this country, we were ‘treated’ to a repeat of an episode in which the soap world is proven to be turned upside down. Jason and Spinelli bleat on and on about how heartless cold and unfeeling OFFICER Dante Falconeri is to turn in his brother for killing a woman. Dante, of course, has no honor. Dante is an evil person. He’s too dense to understand why the mob covered up a woman’s death. It’s Dante’s fault for not understanding why what would have been a simple self-defense charge, which would have been cleared had Michael first told the truth, ended up with Michael looking guilty of murder, a cover up, and obstruction.
WHAT? You would be suspicious of a claim of self-defense if the people involved ‘disposed of’ the body, burned down the cabin where it happened – on a rainy night, no less – to get rid of evidence, and then lied on the stand and to the police for months at a time? I hear ya’! It’s just that TIIC don’t hear you. On a day when many of us are remembering our loved one who gave their lives – GH’s braintrust wants you to watch the mob squad talk about murdering police officers and activating the crooked cops on their payroll to protect the mob heir apparent. Spinelli has to tell Jason that Dante’s death, officer or not, would have grave impact (no pun intended) on those who love him, and those who serve with him. Color me stunned, and sickened, and tired, just tired of this dreck.
What could TIIC aired instead, to woo fans back?
Or even this:
But no… black is white, up is down…and we’re tuning out. Anyone know what’s planned for Disney Junior? My nieces and nephews visit me in the summer. I guess we’ll have something to watch together in 2012.
![stair [Explored]](http://static.flickr.com/3816/8759107922_83a8ef3fd1_t.jpg "stair [Explored]")
![Surveillance aérienne [Explored]](http://static.flickr.com/3741/8758811602_919aa5ed57_t.jpg "Surveillance aérienne [Explored]")
