After the sad state of GH affairs, for lack of a better word, this summer I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying the show now!  I rushed through my regular evening business every day this week so I could recline in my favorite easy-chair and watch my show in peace and quiet. 

I’m perplexed as to which one of our ladies is most deserving of my accolades this week.  I can feel Bobby’s death grip on PC fading away as the town started coming to life, there was cast integration, and not one scene at the docks!

Alexis is always entertaining in every situation from the “put a sock in it, Edward” to the hyperventilating in the penthouse.  I loved every minute of it.  She stands up for herself when faced with a room full of reporters and Quarteramaines referring to her family as sociopaths, as if they have room to criticize, but in the next scene she’s displaying her vulnerable side reminding herself “inhale…exhale…..calm, calm, calm”. Brilliant!  Her entire speech to Sonny summed up the Quartermaines and the Cassadines in under 3 minutes.  MyNed backs her up with the reporters and with Edward and is even impressed with her handling of Edward.  Monica goes so far as to give her a 7.5 on the Olympic scoring system.  I think Edward was even impressed.

Laura is the next contender.  Picking up where we left off last week, she breaks up Luke’s little celebration with Flea and makes everyone uncomfortable by getting drunk and rowdy in the club.  I personally applaud her gall.  So what if she made them uncomfortable.  Even if Luke wasn’t still married, Flea was.  She was cheating and he was the facilitator.  Flea should have hightailed it out of Luke’s as soon as Laura showed up, if for no other reason than to allow Luke a few precious minutes to check on Laura and oh, I don’t know, maybe ask about his daughter. Instead, she hung around looking like the jealous girlfriend.  Laura’s escapades just furthered my sympathy for her.  She’s hurt and lashing out at the people who hurt her.  Selective memory on her part?  Maybe, but her dalliance with Stefan was over before it really began in my opinion and has truly been over since the day Luke told Laura that Lucky was alive and Stefan was holding him.  On the search for Lucky, Laura was not unclear on her feelings.  It was plain to everyone, including Luke, that she wanted to begin reconciliation.  Damn that Flea!  Ok, sorry about that tangent, still defending her though.  Roy scored major points by not only allowing Laura to cry on his shoulder but also for calling Scotty to pick Laura up, thereby rescuing her from further humiliation.  Scotty, already having a 100% in my grade book, earned extra bonus points for plainly stating to Roy in front of Luke “It's just that you need to unhand my date.”  Go Scotty!  Way to save face for Laura.  Not that anyone believed it, but it still put an evil grin on my face and made Luke take notice.  He did not like it, please take notice of how he immediately took his scotch and went upstairs.  Hopefully, like my mother always told me, to think about what he has done.  So Scotty safely delivers Laura home and I’m left asking myself once again….”Luke who?”   Laura tried to explain why she felt the need to put on that vulgar show and finally ends up asking Scotty to finalize her divorce.  I’m placing my hands over my ears, humming the national anthem and pretending not to hear that.  Yes, I know I’m playing on both teams in this triangle, but in end it has got to be L&L.  Moving right along, Laura actually shows up for work.  Apparently it was National Take YOURSELF to Work Day in PC, because Bobbie was working, Helena arrived, Alan was there and the handsome Knight in Shining Armor Scotty showed up too.  Laura apologized to Bobbie for the incident at Luke’s for some reason that I don’t understand.  Then, Bobbie elected to offer some unsolicited advice, telling Laura that she shouldn’t live in the past.  I said a great big THANK! YOU! to Laura when she called Bobbie on that hypocritical statement.  Hello, pot meet kettle.  Just about that time Scotty showed up for an emergency Hospital Board Meeting called by Helena regarding Laura’s multiple absences from her job.  Harsh things are said, truly amusing me and ultimately Laura throws her files and Helena and tells her in the immortal words of Johnny Paycheck to “Take this Job and Shove it!” GO LAURA!  Of course, Bobbie has to bounce in with her two cents, Helena ignores her and Laura repeatedly tells her to but out!  She really should have taken a minute and told her to step back out of her aura.  Laura’s been dealing with Helena for longer than Bobbie and in fact did try to strangle Helena in that very hospital corridor just last year.  In other words, thanks Bobbie…but no thanks.

Stefan and Chloe’s island adventures were becoming tedious until Chloe discovered Stefan’s childhood journal.  She’s been out drawing maps of the island.  How many times have we seen that before?  Then she tries to convince him to hide in a cave on the island without any provisions.  Nice move Daniel Boone.  Did you bring your rifle or your fishing pole?  Fortunately, Stefan dissuades her from this insanity, only to bore me by more talk about her damn dreams.  That’s when the journal appears and my interest is piqued once again.  The possibility of a Cassadine history intrigues me and I’ll quit encouraging them to get off of this island if we discover some insights into Stefan’s mentality and are provided with some motivation as to why Helena hates Stefan so.  The picture of the Stefan, Alexis and Stavros as children was a nice touch.

Last, but certainly not least, Luke slipped onto Helena’s yacht (where the hell was Andreas or the guards???) and into her boudoir while she’s sleeping.  He’s intent on finding out what sort of foul mind games she’s played with Lucky and then I guess he intended to kill her after his conversation with Roy about disappearing …..again.  I can’t wait for Monday to see this little scenario play out.  I love scenes between Helena and Luke

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS AND SHALLOW OBSERVATIONS

1.      Did anyone else get the feeling that Mac is trying to live up to his name by hitting on Laura?

2.      I’m glad Maxie ran away!  It serves Flea right.  What goes around, comes around, now imagine how that little girl felt those dozen times she woke up to find a note from her primary caregiver, saying “see ya’”.  Karma is such a bitch.

3.      Speaking of bitch, Mama Taggs-Campbell is one and it’s no wonder we haven’t seen her before now.  Can you say “control-issues”?  Take a pill woman.  They are both over 18, grown, meaning not your responsibility any more, able to make their own decisions.  Chill!

4.      I think Tony is justified in his tirades about not wanting Lucas (from Ork, like Mork) to hang around with another ex-felon especially considering that Roy can’t seem to escape his connection with Sorel, Sonny or the FBI.

5.      As much as I adore AJ and want him to seek help (for his drinking and his infatuation with FBIHo) Hannah should have had him arrested for breaking into her room.  At the very least a highly trained FBI agent should have had a gun pointed at his head by the time he got to the foot of her bed.

6.      Can Carly and AJ please have a different conversation next time.  This one is old…way old and has that been there, done that, raised my blood pressure before feel to it.

7.      I have a new career choice for Lucky and Nikolas – Professional Football!  They tackled Zander in the park like pros.  Hey, maybe even tag team wrestlers….Prince Nik and Brainwash Boy. 

8.      We had to get one more use out of that boxcar didn’t we.  You’d think that that would be the first place the cops would look for runaways as many times as one of the PC kids has shown up there.

9.      Whatever TPTB have to do to work out Zander’s shady past they need to do it pronto!  Chad Brannon can not only act, he’s got serious chemistry with Amber Tamblyn!  Excellent casting choice Mark, for the first time in ages!

10.  Jacob Young’s Lucky continued to grow on me this week.  Lucky’s scenes with Laura were very touching and just the right amount of emotional tie she needed to stay in town.

11.  No, I don’t think Genie looked pregnant this week.  If she is that’s fantastic for her and I’m quite tired of seeing this question posed every other week about her or NLG.  Thank goodness you can’t see through them like 99% of the women on daytime tv.  Both are beautiful as they are so let it go people!

12.  Kevin doesn’t lock his office door?  Not that a lock has ever stopped Luke, but it would have slowed him down, maybe even long enough for Kevin to come back and catch him.

13.  I really, really, really hope Ned shaves before the big wedding.  I don’t want to be looking at that caterpillar now, I certainly don’t want to be reminded of it five years from now when we’re looking at wedding pictures on the mantle.

14.  It was nice to see Amy for more than 10 seconds this week and it was even for the Nurse’s Ball! 

15.  Shouldn’t Lucy have been at the emergency board meeting?  That would have increased the tension adding another element to this story.  Ah, what could have been!

16.  Two weeks in a row I got my Kevin fix, can Lucy really be that far behind?

17.  What was that little blue sweater-type garment that Gia was wearing?  It looked like one of those afghan rugs my great-grandmother makes.  Scary, just scary.  That was the fashion mistake of the week.

18.  Fashion Plate award goes to Stefan for looking absolutely amazing on Thursday.  I can’t even explain it.  The sweater nicely exhibited the abs, or the sexy spectacles, I just don’t know.  He was smokin’!

 Until next time…