GIDDY ALERT: If you’re not in a good mood, slowly gently scroll the mouse to the little X in the upper right hand corner and click. Cause I’m feeling pretty darn cheerful and when that happens I tend to gush. Since I have been known to go overboard, I’m notifying readers ahead of time of my enthusiasm. Proceed at your own risk. It was a great week and I know this because when I think back, I can’t remember what anyone was wearing, just what they said and did.
“General Hospital” my fun little hobby.
So much time, I seem to invest,
One minute happy and the next all sobby.
My instincts are good, I’m watchin’ the best.
See? Told ya. Let the gushing commence.
I know, I know it’s “General Hospital” a.k.a. “The Sonny Hour” and I agree that all the players should have air time. But when I see a week like this one, I don’t care. This week should be named Outstandingly Sonny. I didn’t become weary of his emotional angst, nor did I roll my eyes. Maurice Benard rules at the top of the emotional acting chart. From his reaction to Taggert arriving at the warehouse by shooting the gun into the air, to almost shooting Carly, to collapsing into Carly’s arms saying, “Help me. I need help.” I was entranced, absorbed, empathetic, and hugging my pillow. I also liked how the coloring and camera angles differed between the pictures in Sonny’s head and reality. He’s got to be leaving for the island soon, because he’s dished up some amazing acting and he deserves a break. Besides, he’ll have to return in time for May sweeps.
Wow! Now if Sonny could receive some real help, this story would be perfect.
Friday’s last scene as Sonny collapsed into Carly’s arms wins outstanding scene of the week, but Carly in the elevator with Faith comes in a close second. Faith gives the other mobsters a bad name. She doesn’t play well with others and she has no stop button. Faith the Frightful uses umbrellas, eyebrows, and snakeskin hosiery to instill fear and trembling in her victims, until she messed with Carly who grabbed Faith’s umbrella and shoved it against Faith’s neck and then kicked the elevator button to restart it. I love when a character is strong enough to stand up to Carly. Equally, I love when Carly fights back. The elevator stopped at a floor, Carly threw down the umbrella and strode out. At a nurse’s inquiry if anything was wrong, Carly replied, “Hormones.” Those are some amazing hormones.
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Courtney played tough girl, kicking the punching bag that wasn’t visible when Jason entered the penthouse five minutes previously. Oh yeah, Courtney, you’re tough all right. Keep thinkin’ that thought if it makes you happy. And while I’m poking fun at Courtney, I’d like to point out that she’s breaking an important MOB girlfriend rule by keeping a secret from Jason. Courtney knows what Ric did to Carly. Courtney knows that Ric’s dancing in the middle of Sonny and his problems and that Jason doesn’t trust Ric. Doesn’t the MOB Moll Rule Book state under the Betrayal heading that wives and girlfriends are not allowed to lie or withhold information?
Jason’s penthouse seems to be the most decorated GH set. When he first moved in, Carly began decorating but was interrupted with her visit to Ferncliff. Hannah dumped Carly’s décor and made a comfy pad for Jason and Michael. Alexis moved in next and brought her own furniture. Jason moved back and created a whole new style called pool table feng shui. Now it’s Courtney’s turn and we know she decorates with a vengeance. In one day, she had walls painted and new furniture arranged. Courtney’s supposed to Dear John Jason next week and run back to the Love Loft. I guess she’ll have to redo the loft to match the changing ambiance from Loft of Love to Loft of the Lonely Heart.
Note to the Courtney fans: No, I don’t hate Courtney. I even wrote something nice about her further down. She’s just so darn easy to make fun of. I’ll find someone else to pick on eventually.
Hey Jase,
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To catch rabbits, |
That IS what he’s doing behind that plastic bush on the docks that he hides behind every time he wants to confront and threaten someone – isn’t it? In the past few weeks he’s hidden behind the bush waiting for Faith’s henchman, Faith, and now Jax. It used to be Helena’s bush, but Jason seems to have taken up the art of bush camouflage.
Zander and Emily reconnected and I truly like these two together. Though I couldn’t help but imagine the cow Edward would birth if he knew that while he was polishing his mean conversational knife throwing technique on Skye and then Jason, his beloved granddaughter Emily was making whoopee upstairs.
Edward practices the art of conversation while Emily practices the art of love
upstairs.
Totally into his every scene, I admire Chad Brannon’s ability to draw me in with him. Sonny, Carly, Jason, Faith, Alexis, Zander, Skye, Coleman all possess the ability to make me a believer in whatever scene they’re participating in.
Isn’t it cool how Kristina’s kidnapping involves multiple players and has touched several storylines? I especially enjoy the Q’s bickering and blaming.
How nice that Taggert, off contract, seems to have more screen time than when he had his name on a dotted line. He doesn’t have a story, but he’s definitely a presence in Port Charles.
Everyone knows Carly’s pregnant. She can stop rubbing her tummy now.
Are we going to see the tummy rub all the way until November?
Summer’s searching for her brother. Nicholas knows his whereabouts. Can we say foreshadowing? Spencer’s vs. Cassadine’s intertwined with seeking Summer’s brother. Got it.
In brief glimpses of Lucky wearing his leather jacket I have a hard time distinguishing him from Jason. Do you think they share the leather in the GH wardrobe department?
In an effort to reduce wardrobe costs, GH hunks share the leather.
Is it my imagination or are Faith’s skirts getting shorter?
If you have to be careful walking downstairs, it’s too short.
Where the heck is Coleman? He’s been missing for several weeks now.
Can someone explain to me how contract status works? Faith and Ric are both in the opening credits so they have contracts. Right? I think that’s how it works. However, both Faith and Ric are wobbling on the edge of character destruction. Do contracts include a clause that an actor may not seek other employment but TPTB reserves the right to kill them off at whim?
Miscellaneous parts of GH that I enjoyed this week:
- Nicholas and Lucky argued about the right and wrong of Nicholas hiring Summer, but I didn’t hear any whining and Nicholas’ reasoning sounded reasonable. Who’da thought that could happen? For a while, it was Advance Class Whine Fest in their scenes together.
- Courtney has moved from resentment and defiance at Sonny’s unreasonableness to empathy for his condition. Which is a bit remarkable since even though Carly explained Sonny’s thinking processes to Courtney, she never actually said he goes through cycles of this type of behavior. I also like that Courtney’s willing to give up Jason because she thinks it’ll help Sonny. Even if that doesn’t happen, she thought the thought and was willing to act upon it.
My husband watched this scene, rolled his eyes, and said, “What a soap opera.”
I looked at him to see how I was supposed to take that comment.
He realized what he’d said and what I was watching and we both cracked up.
- Courtney mentioned to Michael where Rosie’s been staying. Bout time.
- A tunnel system out of the warehouse. Since Sonny’s experienced multiple fires and explosions in places in which he’s standing, this is probably a mandatory design concept in any building he owns.
- Dr. Lewis stood up to Scotty Baldwin the “Jerry Springer” of District Attorneys. Fingers pausing…uh oh, I may have just experienced an open mouth insert foot moment. Please refrain from e-mailing me on Jerry Springer’s entertaining qualities. I dislike him because he takes advantage of people’s (mostly young people’s) vulnerabilities and then allows them to humiliate themselves on national television. OK, back to Dr. Lewis – I laughed when he looked Scotty up and down in the hospital and briefly analyzed him noting several insecurities and childhood issues. I wish he’d analyze the odd color of Scotty’s shirts.
Scotty has a deep psychological need to wear weird color shirts.
- I always like Luke. He informed Summer, “No harm was done. But if you ever play me for a sucker again, I’ll kill ya.” That’s Luke, true to form.
- Skye continues to slip in and out of the Q mansion looking guilty over Kristina’s disappearance, not quite brave enough to admit her part in the babynapping, but intensely worried over the baby’s fate.
- At the meeting with The Five Families, one of the guys was wearing a black tie with big white polka dots. Funny.
Takes a lot of courage to wear a polka dot tie on national television.
Spoiler Land below:
I’m a spoiler girl and there are a few good ones out there. One of my paragraphs was going to deal with whom Ric is connected to. However, there’s a new spoiler that says Ric is connected to Lilly. Probably he's a brother that Lilly wasn’t aware of or never mentioned who was traumatized by Lilly and her Father’s death and blames Sonny. A pack of wolves raised Ric (OK, not really)…Ric was cared for by a family and went to Harvard with money set aside by Lilly’s father. Losing his family would account for his bitterness and urge to make Sonny suffer. That’s my guess and I’m sticking to it. . Don’t you wonder how many bitter wacko relatives Lilly has? Cause she’s been dead for several years and they keep popping up in Port Charles trying to bite Sonny in the butt. Katrina made me laugh in her Spoiler Commentary when she said, “Oh please. One more freakin’ person to talk to her (Lilly’s) ever changing and evolving headstone.”
Another spoiler offered the news that Emily has been diagnosed with breast cancer and refuses standard treatment, hence the drugs from Mexico. Usually, when a new character or recast comes on screen, I try to sit back and reserve judgment because it takes a while to grow into the character, especially for recasts. However, nuEmily has been thrown some tough material, which she’s bitten into with gusto. In her first weeks she has happily reunited with Zander and her family, shoved Zander away (for his own good of course), shown us heartache with the drugs and her melancholy bittersweet conversations, made love with Zander (that’s gotta be hard first week on the job not knowing her costar), cried a few times, and held a long one sided chat with baby Kristina. I am definitely impressed.
Talk about a difficult first week on the job!
Skye vs. Tracy. I’m edge of my seat thinking about those two butting heads.
I kinda like the idea that The Five Families take care of Faith. Whatever that means. Appeasing ticked off, irrational Sonny must be top priority in five family circles.
So, Zander didn’t shoot his brother. Well, that’ll make him feel much better, right after he recovers from the mad he’s gonna feel at his father for not sharing that information about five years ago. I am anxious for Monday to learn how Zander couldn’t know that two shots were fired instead of one from his rifle if his brother committed suicide.
Reported as news and not a rumor at GHH2, supposedly, Stephan Nichols is making his way back to our Port Charles burg as Stefan Cassadine.
It’s a little louder and a bit bolder now.
Can you hear Guza singing, “Hail, hail the gang’s all here”?
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The trouble with life is |
On Thursday, I needed background music. A few weeks ago, I bought a new VCR. As you can probably imagine, taping GH is important to me. The VCR taped with a vertical line scrolling continuously over the screen and I couldn’t figure out the cause. So I dug out the receipt, unhooked the multitude of cords (I counted and there are 9 cords running from the back of my VCR) and headed to my trusty Wal-Mart. I regularly spend a ton of money at my local Wal-Mart so they like me there. The manager said no problem, go select what I wanted and they’d make the exchange. No problem. Filled with a sense of accomplishment, it was only 9:30 a.m., I made the exchange and headed home to hook up and program my new toy. Yep, I’ll get right on that. After answering the phone about 80 times. After the FedEx guy came. After I faxed a paper my son needed immediately. After my neighbor stopped by. You get the picture.
At 11:45, finally, I opened the box and hooked it up without much fanfare. I’m becoming pretty darn handy with electronics if I do say so myself. OK, time to test the recording and make sure I know how the recording timer works, except…NO TAPE. That’s when I remembered that my GH tape for Monday through Wednesday was in the old VCR at Wal-Mart. SHOOT! (I really didn’t say shoot because sometimes I fail in my attempt to keep my language clean.) And this is how I know I’ve got it bad for GH – I jumped in my van and headed straight back to Wal-Mart to retrieve that tape.
Arriving at Wal-Mart I rushed to customer service only to have to wait in line. Who hurries to Wal-Mart customer service at noon on a Thursday? I had to wait through FIVE people! The nice lady behind the counter allowed me to dig through a cart in the back to pull out the VCR and then I couldn’t eject the tape without power to the VCR. The nice lady (picture gritted teeth here) who moved very slowly wandered around sorta looking for a power outlet and finally located one so we plugged in the VCR and I had the tape in my hot little hands. Great. No lunch, and I only had about 30 minutes to get home, set up the recorder, then leave for work. I managed to successfully stuff a hamburger down my throat (not my favorite meal), drive home, and figure out the timer recording before leaving for work.
Now being a mom of school age
children my evenings usually include multiple activities. Thursday, I had to
drop off my son and then run home, make dinner, and if I timed it right, I could
watch GH while my daughter played outside. Don’t you love it when a plan comes
together? Ahhh, bliss, a quiet house and 45 minutes to watch my show. Which I
did, until I reached the last 10 minutes of GH when suddenly, ssssshhhhhh went
the blank tape. The last 10 minutes were missing due to a power failure.
Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to keep trying. 
That’s it for me this week. I hope good things for all of you and that your power doesn’t go out while you’re watching “General Hospital”. And if by chance the power does get interrupted, I hope you subscribe to a cable company that offers SoapNet, like me. Thanks for reading.
Kathy
Photo credit for this week: http://groups.msn.com/GHWorld2
The pictures are great. Lots of hard work and dedication goin’ on here.
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Carly IS tough.