*Choke!* *Gasp* *sniff* I am awash (nay, aslime) in a sea of used tissues and with the cradle being delivered next week, it looks like I'm not going to see daylight for a while yet. When I should have been giggling madly at that crazy, madcap antics of Sonny and Carly, I'm having to instead sob and hack and ache and explain to the rest of the world that I'm being manipulated by corporate soap opera jerks into mourning a fictional baby (oh, sorry Tony, you oh-so-insensitive, professionally lexiconical toad, "FETUS"). The speech to the baby, looking at the fetal heart monitor with the zero reading, the speech to Carly, the talk with Lila, the talk with Michael, "Hold me," taking his beating from Carly in her disbelief and grief, "I saw it"…Sonny, Honey, you're killing me.

From what my mailbox is reflecting, a lot of you are just as angry about this as I am. We could have seen Sonny running out for pickles, cherry tomatoes and pistachio frozen yogurt at 2am and coming home to find out Carly's changed her mind, she wants Raspberry Ripple yogurt instead. We could have seen him rubbing her swollen feet and carrying around a kid's inflated swim ring (or getting Johnny to) for her to sit on when her hemorrhoids are bad. What we wouldn't have given to see the scene of the first time Sonny felt the baby give Carly a good kick. Or what about the beauty of seeing that incredible limo ride to the hospital with Carly 8 cm dilated with an urge to push, then once they were there, seeing Sonny huffing and puffing with her and cheering her as she pushed the baby down and out? How can we miss the opportunity of seeing Sonny look back at his own eyes in his son's face, mist turning quickly to tears as he chokes out his thanks to Carly for giving him such a perfect baby. Rooked! Cheated! Denied!!! Instead, we get weeks of depression, missed communications and pain. Can NO ONE get a break on this show except that evil little Eddie Munster/Juan kid? I LOVE my GH and I understand that good tragedy is what the soaps are made of, but it's not ALL they're made of and lately it seems that's about all we get. A little joy, a little cheer, a little laughter…is that too much to ask?

As upset as I am about the disposition of the story, I have to say that the acting on Sarah Brown (Carly) and Maurice Benard's (Sonny) part is incredible. Their interaction has a synergy that most couples can't capture and it's my fervent prayer that Sonny and Carly are in it for the long haul. Now that Semper Fi has not been picked up for the Fall lineup by NBC and is instead on hold as a midseason replacement, Steve Burton (ex-Jason) might be rethinking his hasty departure. It would be interesting to see Jason return, decide he's ready for a family with Carly and Michael, and have Carly actually choose Sonny over him.

Back to the here and now. While I understand Benard's desire to include a manic-depression story line in Sonny's gig, haven't we seen enough of that already? We had the whole depression thing after Brenda's death, the trashing of the penthouse, the stinky, scruffy Sonny who wouldn't shave, the bashing of Ming vases and expensive picture frames…what else do we need to adequately portray that Sonny is a depressed and tortured soul? Does his life have to keep systematically falling apart so that he lives in depression all the time? If there is any interest whatsoever on the parts of the writers and The Powers That Be for what the fans want, I think the vote is cast. We want a happy Sonny who is only intermittently devastated…not a continuously destroyed Sonny. Take a clue!

Continuously destroyed leads us straight into AJ. ANYONE who has ever lived with an alcoholic and/or tried to argue with a drunk will tell you that Billy Warlock (AJ) and the writers have nailed the experience dead on. Warlock is really stretching himself nicely, now that he's gotten some grist into the mill. His portrayal of AJ as the man you love to hate is outstanding. Hearing AJ whine and wheedle and justify and blame the consequences of his actions on anyone available brought back a slew of uneasy memories for me. Seldom does something on a soap hit me so closely to home that I get the willies over it, but BW is really catching the personality of the unrepentant alcoholic. It's starting to seem like the running Quartermaine joke that AJ shows up and gets kicked out of the house (again). At least he's not still hiding at the boat house. Alan's denial would be funny if it wasn't so sad. "We don't know that AJ's been drinking…" That's like saying, "We don't know that rabbits mate." Taggert was even funnier, imagining that something profound had happened that would make AJ think twice before getting behind the wheel while under the influence. Now, it would make sense if Taggert had take AJ out behind one of the warehouses and given him a good old fashioned Deke-the-Cop counseling session about drinking and driving. THEN maybe he'd think twice. To him, it was just a free ride home. The saddest thing was Lila raking him out, telling her to look at him while she took him across the coals. It was the longest speech they've given Anna Lee in years and she took him to the carpet, but good.

My Mee-yow, obligatory le Femme remark for the week is to point at laugh at Chloe's goofy looking hair on Friday when she was giving my man Jax a hard time for not postponing the ELQ Shareholders' meeting in deference to Sonny's tragedy. I'm not sure how Jax/Ingo was able to get through that scene (particularly with the levity it suggested) with a straight face while looking at her wearing that nasty Shirley Temple do. Emily has the same thing going on occasionally, which renders her to instantly look like a crack ho, but Elizabeth wears it and looks like a million dollars. Go figure.

I've got to go with the head and not the heart on the Jax-Chloe stand off. When it comes to business, girlfriend needs to back out. While she might have warning lights going off because he's become so aggressive, the truth is as Jax put it. He was a cutthroat corporate raider long before she came into the picture. Remember the first time we saw him? Lois had gone looking for him to save L&B (after Edward took it over quite ruthlessly, in fact) and found him in front of his own private pinball game, looking rakishly handsome in his boyish way and ready for action. When Ned learned that Lois had bargained with the notorious Jasper Jax to save the company, he blanched white and nearly passed out. As Jas told Chloe, the takeover is not personal. The only way it could conceivable be considered to be is that Edward took a poke at Jax first, which caused Jax to turn around and take notice of the fact that ELQ's flock was unattended. The fact that he then went in for the kill while they were vulnerable is strictly about business. He takes over vulnerable companies and sells them for parts. Edward noted that Jax was using his personal knowledge of the company's weaknesses (AJ and Tracy) to his advantage, but that is also something he would have done regardless of who owned the company and definitely something Edward is not above. So back off, fashion princess and let the big boys get to work.

It seems the docks are like Hollywood and Vine…hang out there long enough and anyone and everyone will eventually walk by. Lately, it has seemed that Laura and Luke have focused their attention there, waiting to see if Lucky will wander by. They have both offended me to varying degrees this week. I'm still a little bruised by my experience last week when Lucky was explaining why he didn't want anything to do with his parents. I felt as though maybe Helena was in my head as well because everything he said absolutely made sense. Laura can berate Felicia for abandoning her daughters when she abandoned Nikolas for almost his whole life? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I know. She was under threat, she went off to verify that the love of her life was alive. Helena wouldn't let her return, said she would kill her and those she loved, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. Here's where the rubber meets the road, folks. She CHOSE to abandon Nikolas and leave him with those cretins when he was only a few weeks old. For me, my babies come first. Now, I love my husband, my soul mate, my split-apart, my MAN in a way that defies words or expression, but I sure would have strapped little Nikky to my back and head for the hills in search of my beloved before I left him on Devil's Island with Cruella Deville and her cast of idiots. Laura has the nerve to say to Luke, "I guess I don't have your knack for getting wasted and shacking up with whoever comes along!" Well, not the getting wasted part, but she sure fell into Stefan's waiting arms in nothing flat after she and Luke split up. I did like her tirade to Luke, don't get me wrong. I loved when she said, "Gee, I'm sorry if my pain is weighing you down" and threw in his face how he left all the time.

I thought Luke was incredibly cruel to ridicule her hopes that their family could find its way back together again. After the closeness they had shared while searching for Lucky, I didn't think her suppositions were so far out of whack. A bit premature, perhaps, but not unreasonable. For him to sneer at her that he and Lucky were both gone and weren't coming back was near heartless. I still feel her reaction was not in good keeping with the character, being to get plastered at Jake's and pick up on lawyers named Tim or Tom or whatever. I am truly hoping that this paves the way for a romance between Laura and Mac. I think it would be refreshing to see her with a man with whom she has no baggage, no negative pass. My next choice would undoubtedly be Roy…mmmm…Roy. Not only would it be absolutely sterling to see A. Martinez plug in and turn on Genie Francis, but I'd give about anything to find a reason to peel face-hugger Bobbie off of his head with a resounding "pop." Like Laura told Mac, I'd just like to see her be with a man who isn't constantly throwing her mistakes in her face. I say chuck Luke and Stefan…cut your losses, pick up your chips and take them to a new poker game, Sweetheart…this one is rigged.

Luke is back to being a pain in my, well, neck I guess. After forcing Fickle Felicia to choose between him and Mac, he was on the pony again, pressing the business issue with Tammy beyond her initial no (No still means NO, Spencer…if you didn't learn it the first time, learn it now…but what a gracious turn down she gave him - class!). Seems ol' Luke is just looking for a place to put his, um, problem. That, coupled with the sneering at Laura and that goofy hat isn't winning him any points with me. I even felt a little sorry (don't read much into this, my faithful readers who know me well, it's not a turnaround) for Felicia when he was browbeating her about not needing her help any more since they are back in Port Charles. Of course, he was doing it to get her miffed at him so that she could more easily reject him, but it was still a low blow. He was sure needing her help when he was swiping the junk off his desk and hopping her shapely butt up onto it a week or so ago.

Bobbie isn't faring much better. I didn't think she could get any trashier until I saw her in her "Candy" persona. I'm not sure what wardrobing did other than change her hair because she was wearing the same hussy clothes she wears on any other day. It wasn't a huge stretch on the imagination. She's looking more like Skeletor from the old He-Man cartoons every day and it's particular apparent in the close-ups of her kissing Roy (every 6 and a half frames) when she closes her eyes. You can practically see the actual skeleton around her eye sockets and the way her eyelids just lay across her eyeballs. Ewww. Then those long spindly, succubus fingers start going after his hair or spidering across his back and I want to yell out and wake up bathed in my own sweat, screaming into the darkness and knowing it was just a bad dream. Maybe Roy does too.

I thought it was in particularly bad taste for her to invoke the ghost of Jerry while she and Roy were making their plans to escape the island. It really illustrated what a history she has with felons. D.L. Brock, her first husband (played by the tasty David Groh who was Valerie Harper's husband on Rhoda) was an all around bad guy/spouse and child abuser. Jake Meyer, her second husband (played by the handsome and loveable Sam Beherns, mmmm) was such a nice little Jewish boy so she left him really quick like (her only good guy). Tony, who would seem a good guy, not only slept with his mother's nurse while she lay dying in the next room, but also had an affair with his father's girlfriend or wife or something, I don't remember exactly), then went on to be a kidnapper. After that was her affair with the evil Damian Smith who was the purveyor of many a felony, then Stefan who has committed God knows what crimes, then Jerry the money launderer, then Roy the hit man pending thief. She also had her moments with Scott Baldwin who vacillates between good guy and sleeze, so all in all, her line of felon lovers pretty much stretches out the door and around the building.

I'm so grateful that the editing process changed the "why" of Juan standing in for Eddie Maine. Originally, it was to be that Ned froze up and Juan saved him. Having him locked in a closet worked much better. I wasn't really into Edward figuratively twirling his handlebar mustache and growling, "Now you'll have to come back to ELQ, bwwwahhahahahha," but whatever works. And it did. Eddie was great, of course, but I do wish they could come up with a few different songs for he and Juan to sing instead of wearing out the same ones time after time after time.

I'm anxious to see Carly finally get to see her mom and spend time accepting and grieving (so we can get past this), but I think the parachuting from the plane has great potential for hokiness. Seeing Sonny intimidate AJ is going to be delicious, as is the prospect of another man-to-man between Kevin and Mac, two of my personal favorites. With Kevin's history, I'm surprised Bobbie the Felon Collector hasn't gotten her hooks into him. It will also be great to see Carly get in touch with her anger and book those charges against AJ. It's shaping up to be an interesting week. (Save me from Luke and Felicia's plight of being trapped together!)

See you next week!


LINES OF THE WEEK

Denial springs eternal for two prominent citizens:

ALAN: "We don't know that A.J.'s been drinking. Father is so prone to exaggeration."

Taggert: "I'm sure A.J. will think twice about getting behind the wheel next time he's under the influence." (Since when has he ever?)

The truth shall set you free:

AJ: "A little vodka and I can forget how much I hate Carly for turning me into someone who's no better than her."