The other day, I posted on Facebook that I wished it were socially acceptable to wear pajamas to work. Our Soap Central guru Dan replied that he didn't even want me to write my column in my pajamas!
But here I am, sitting at my kitchen table, writing in pajamas. Why? Because it's been a sad week, and I'm totally unmotivated to get dressed right now. I lost a friend to cancer, and my heart is a little broken. He sat at the cubicle next to me at work for years, and he was the cheeriest soul. When I walked into work every day, he would hear me walking down the hall and stand up and turn around with his arm stretched out for a hug. He was that kind of guy-- warm and cheerful and welcoming. His life impacted so many others; we are literally expecting 500 to 1000 people to attend his memorial. He lived life with his heart wide open.
Why am I telling you this when it has nothing to do with GH? Because my reaction to a certain plot point on GH is most definitely colored by my personal experience with friends and family who have battled cancer.
Ava's plea for Silas to kill her after she has had cancer for like four minutes infuriates and enrages me. I have seen brave souls such as my friend Tom and my sweet Mama battle cancer for years and years and years. They fought this awful disease valiantly with grace and courage, enduring treatment after treatment at the hope of extending their life even another day.
It rings so untrue to me, that this lioness we know as Ava would not even try to fight cancer, would not have her daughter tested as a match (although I'm sure Silas is running those blood tests as we speak), and would just go limp and ask for assisted suicide.
This is not at all in line with who Ava is as a character, and I'm disappointed that the writers have chosen to write the story this way. The Ava I know would fight with every ounce of energy in her body, she would bribe people to get to the top of the donor list, and she would call in every family member on earth to be tested. She would undergo chemo, go bald, and order 50 fabulous wigs. I mean, Silas is pretty, but would you take his word for it if he told you there was no hope for you without even getting another doctor to check his work? The Ava I know would ask for second, third, and fouth opinions from every specialist on earth.
Yes, I know Ava is presumed dead, and she might get arrested if she comes forward, but if she left upstate New York and went to a doctor in Montana, chances are he'd have no idea she was a presumed-dead mobster.
Again, perhaps my disgust with this storyline is colored by my personal life experiences, but it is driving me mad. I really love Maura West, and I want her up and out of that bed and back in Port Charles, wreaking havoc and getting her baby back from the pack of loons that are fighting over Avery's custody. Please, Ava, make it stop. I would seriously rather see crazy Nina raise Avery than any of the assorted Jerome or Corinthos family members.
I'm still not a big fan of the new Kiki. I want to write a letter to Kristen Alderson and say, "Hey, I know you quit GH, but I haven't seen you in anything else since you left, so isn't time you went crawling back?"
I know soap stars get the itch to see what other roles they can land, but seriously, Hollywood is a cutthroat, competitive town. For every Meg Ryan who makes it out of soaps to become a huge movie star, you have 100 other actors who quit the soap, get no roles, go to another soap, and then eventually find their way back to the first soap and into the role they initially vacated. Out of kindness, I won't mention any names -- and because there are just too many of them.
I keep wondering why Sabrina hasn't opened the pill bottle to see what's inside, since she herself knows that a person can switch a person's drugs for another pill like she did to Ava when she tried to cause her to go into early labor. Also, I will tell you that I have terrible allergies and have three pages of things I am allergic to (really), and even I don't get prescription allergy pills, since most are now available over the counter. If your allergies are so severe that OTC meds don't work, they make you go in for shots. But I digress.
Michael, who suddenly has terrible allergies, although we've never seen him sneeze a single time in over ten years, popped his allergy pill with two glasses of scotch. Apparently, whatever pill Morgan and Kiki planted in his bottle must look kind of like a Zyrtec. They got their desired result and made it look like Michael was drunk. The folly of all this is, Avery probably is safer in the Quartermaine house than at Sonny's house, especially when a brand new mob war is about to erupt.
My long-held theory that Jason could easily kick Shawn's butt was proven this week when Jake took down Shawn and two of Sonny's other goons for Julian. When Jake finally realizes he is Jason, I wonder if he will stick with Julian instead of going back to Sonny. Julian treats him with more respect, and I've never seen him throw a wine bottle across the room, so if it were me, I'd stick with Team Jerome.
Of course, Jake has more urgent problems right now, like a fake wife and memory flashes. Also, he knows how to ride a motorcycle and fix cars and doesn't know why. I keep wondering how long this will drag on. I thought Jason would have been revealed by now, but I guess we are waiting for May Sweeps.
Nikolas has dug himself deeper into the hole by bedding Hayden, so it's not just that he knows Helena's secret about Jake's identity, but now he is actively participating in the deception. After he gets enough ELQ stock, will he admit to Sam that Jake is Jason?
It will be interesting if he falls for Hayden after kicking Britt to the curb for being a liar. Will she just be a bed buddy, or will he bring her into his life? And if so, will Spencer approve? I think we all know that Nikolas can never date a person without Spencer's blessing -- if Spencer didn't like them, he'd probably find granny Helena's poison ring and drug their tea.
I'm glad Spencer is still wearing a mask. I'm glad he didn't come home from the hospital without any consequences or a scar. Since they brought the Shriner's Hospital in and took on the topic of childhood burns, I am glad they are carrying it out to the recovery phase.
Scarred or not, Spencer is still aggressively pursuing Emma, but he carelessly left Alan Q's wedding ring (a.k.a. Jason's ring) under the sofa. Sam doesn't strike me as a great housekeeper, so I suspect it will be awhile before she vacuums under the sofa and finds it.
I think the ring will be the key to unraveling this long, drawn-out mystery. Here's my theory on how this might play out: Sam finds the ring and asks Patrick about it. He doesn't know, but Emma overhears and confesses. They ask Spencer where he got the ring. He sheepishly admits he stole it from his dad's safe. Sam asks Nikolas why he had Jason's ring in his safe. The guilt overcomes him, and he tearfully admits to his cousin that he's been lying to her for months.
Or maybe Jake will remember on his own before then, see that Sam is happy with Patrick, not tell her, and go back to Liz? She will be with Ric, but Jason hates Ric, so he would delight in breaking them up.
I can't help myself -- I love Ric Lansing. He does stupid things, immoral things, illegal things, but he does them for the love of one woman. He loves Elizabeth, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for her. How can you not find his heart appealing, even if his actions leave a lot to be desired? I know his lie will be found out. I know Liz will dump him as soon as she finds out he hired Hayden to pretend to be Jake's wife. And yet, I am silently rooting for him to win, because he just loves her so much.
Tracy, Bobbie, and Lulu love Luke and want to see him get healthy. But Valerie hates Luke to the point of trying to slice his throat with the key to her rental car, and Luke hates himself. He can't separate his actions from his sickness. He is in great despair about the things he has done and is depressed to the point of offering Valerie a way to cover up killing him.
This storyline is so powerful. It's easily one of the most brilliant pieces of soap writing I've ever witnessed. It was maddening to wait for the big reveal, but once we got there and started unpacking this dual personality storyline, it explained 30 years of Luke's actions in an instant. Everything suddenly made sense -- Laura's rape, the random vanishing where Luke disappeared for months, his love/hate relationship with Helena -- everything we've been unable to reconcile with Luke's character was made clear in one precise stroke of the pen. This was award-worthy, brilliant, creative, pure genius writing, in my humble opinion.
If you were one of the GH fans who became impatient and gave up on this storyline midstream and tuned out, I pity you. (Yeah, I'm talking to you, Joe Davis!)
But where do we go from here? Let's dig deeper into this. Let's park here for a while. Man, I would dearly love to see Laura and Lucky in the mix. ABC owns Nashville; can't they let GH borrow Jonathan Jackson for a few episodes? I want to see Luke and Cowboy have a heart-to-heart. I want to see Luke and Laura have the conversation we've been waiting to hear for decades.
I also want Michael to go back to that house on Elm Street and actually turn it into a clinic and let Aunt Bobbie run it instead of Snorebrina.
Dr. Obrecht hasn't been around GH lately, and as such, things are going awry. For instance, baby Avery, whose custody has been hotly contested, was left alone in her hospital room. An unknown figure is sidling up to the crib, apparently wearing a body cam on their waistband. Is it Nina, or is it Michael? Both of them have gone missing, and both of them had their eyes on Avery.
My husband, who pretends he doesn't watch GH, told me this week that Franco and Nina are the "only good part" of the show right now. When they come on, he drops his book and actually purposely watches. And really, how could he resist? Both Roger Howarth and Michelle Stafford are mesmerizing performers and have crazy mad chemistry together.
Side note on the Ghost of Soaps Past ...I watched OLTL for years until Howarth quit, and then I quit watching. When he came back, I started watching again. I seriously only watched OLTL to see him. Now that Michelle is on GH and not YR, I can't watch the Phyllis scenes on YR. Although Gina Tognoni is a fine actress, she doesn't have the joy and radiance that Stafford brought to the role of Phyllis. Gina's take is much more serious and solemn, and really, who could stomach Phyllis without the charming, adorable, joyful side of her personality? Not me.
Back to GH. The problem with this love match is that even though they were both faking being super crazy, they are both still nominally crazy, and I am not convinced Nina is not snatching the baby again as I write. If she does, will Franco support her in her craziness? If I were a judge, I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason why she wasn't as fit as the other freaks who want to raise that baby.
In other baby news, Olivia's baby is already the subject of blackmail before he or she is even born. The bad news for Olivia is that Wally Kurth is leaving Port Charles and heading back to Days, so that leaves her without a fake baby daddy. What will happen when it's revealed Julian is the father? Will Julian and Alexis survive that kind of hit to their relationship? Will Sonny have to stop fighting Julian out of respect to Olivia? He has to, doesn't he? This baby will be Dante's little brother or sister, so I think a mob truce is called for. Olivia has the power to end a mob war right in her tummy!
One war that still rages on is the fierce love triangle of Nathan, Maxie, and Spinelli. The instant that Maxie agreed to give Spinelli another chance, Nathan showed up at her door in all his glorious hunkiness, asking for another chance.
If Maxie is still truly undecided, let's look at it this way -- Spinelli is the father of her baby, and he's not going anywhere. Nathan, on the other hand, could have a new girlfriend in about three seconds. In fact, I happen to know that the lovely Valerie Spencer needs a strong shoulder to cry on right this minute, and he can't resist a damsel in distress! So, if Maxie has any interest in keeping things going with Nathan, she has to say yes right now, or she will certainly lose him.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Fluke reappear and give Dr. O a new bad boy to obsess over? Will Spencer get the lead role in the PC Elementary version of Phantom of the Opera? Will Avery grow up to be a mob enforcer, since she crashed her head into a floor as an infant? Will Jake have a memory flash of studying for algebra tests with Keesha and Brenda? Will Liz let Ric back into her bed and instantly get pregnant? Will Ava ask her nephew Dr. Lucas for a second opinion before she Dr. Kevorkians herself? Will Carly ask to see photos of the grandma she supposedly looks just like but never heard about before? Will other bar patrons at the Metro Court feel slighted because they can't get drunk on two overpriced, watered-down hotel bar drinks?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
Tamilu
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