I’ve Got News for Laura...

It’s not just Felicia.  If she were KATRINA that’d be all the encouragement she’d need to attack Scott!  Good God, what’s wrong with this woman?  I’d have been all over Scott like a freak without warning!  I kept waiting for him to be helping her off the barstool, followed by the inevitable stumble and catch, followed by the inevitable lingering eye contact, followed by the inevitable slow descent into kissage, followed by the inevitable scooping up into arms and moving the inevitables to a suite for the inevitable white hot monkey sex. 

I want to interject that I am, for the most part, all for a Luke and Laura reunion and we have been loosely promised this by the departing head writer, Bob Guza.  As one of our readers suggested, GH OWES us that because they took our hope away from us.  We could always count on Luke and Laura being a team NO MATTER WHAT came their way and the powers that be cheapened our icons into a normal married couple that was vulnerable to divorce.  That’s like making Superman suddenly mortal.  There are a few things I’d like for people to consider, however.

When we think about Luke and Laura, we think about a love that ENDURES.  Scott has loved Laura for more than twenty years.  With Luke and Laura, we get a love that defies (and sometimes defines) all obstacles.  Scotty and Laura have been through the wringer and back and although they did not have the grist in their mill of a hit man after them, a hidden son and the death of their child, they had their share of difficulties, not the least of which was a very meddling Bobbie who was determined that Scott should be hers and hers alone.  In Luke and Laura, we find a love that is founded in an act of violence, desperation and invasion.  In Scott and Laura, we find a love that is founded in the purity and innocence of first love.  I say they go for it.  One thing I could not allow would be for Scott to get hurt again once Luke begins to have his mandatory jealousy attacks and starts pissing around his “wife” and marking his territory.  This would have to be a matter of coming full circle and having Karma bite Luke in the ass while he watches Scott waltz away with HIS wife this time.  The Stefan thing was icky.  This is one alternative to a Luke and Laura reunion I could enjoy.

Both Luke and Laura had BIG screw ups that contributed to their breakup and the dissolution of the trust in their marriage.  The secret kid thing was a big one.  Luke demanding that she never see Nikolas was another one.  Laura NOT telling Luke about her relationship with Stefan while on the island (because the writers hadn’t thought of it yet) may or may not have been a good idea, but through Luke’s eyes, learning about it while she was on the witness stand was quite a blow (Karma again rears its ugly head).  Being apart for months on end while actors take their summer vacations is bound to take a toll on a marriage, as well as having to revisit the rape and explore the associated feelings.  While we are assured that they will reunite, one must consider that with Guza leaving, a whole new regime is coming in (although the likely replacement is from Guza's own team) and they may not see it as feasible to swim that huge lake of bad ickies to reunite the supercouple as Herr Guza did.  My money is on L&L, though.  Too bad, because I'm digging the idea of Scott staying on the show.

There is a lot of flack going around the net asking WHY Laura is so devastated about Luke sleeping with Felicia.  After all, she slept with Stefan!  What about that??  Is there any way to pick apart this Gordian knot?  Both Luke and Laura unknowingly cheated on one another when they thought the other was dead: Laura with Stavros AND Stefan; Luke with Holly Sutton.  They both had children with other people: Laura had Nikolas with Stavros and Holly miscarried Luke’s baby.  Laura had the first affair of the heart after they were separated when she leaned heavily on Stefan and opened herself to that relationship.  Luke had the first affair of the physicals when he slept with Tammy after Lucky died.  It was then Laura’s move and she took the separation to a new level when she slept with Stefan and was the first to bring another romance into the public eye.  Luke saw her public romance and raised her an illicit and ultimately very public affair with the police commissioner’s wife…and so is the dance of the divorced.  I don’t know how many of the finger-wagging, scowling people who are out there bitching about Laura crying over Flea and Luke have ever been divorced and had to move on.  I’m not just talking about a marriage that didn’t work out after a few years.  I’m talking about a marry-thon that has gone on for twenty years or so with more history behind it than the Iron Curtain.  I’m talking about loving someone in your blood and in your soul and being with them since you were a goofy teenager, raising kids together, watching the months turn into years and then decades, seeing the lines deepen in the face you’ve loved so long, watching the grey ease into the hairline, then seeing your bond with them turn to dust in your hands.  No matter how it happens, it’s terrifying and heart-wrenching.  You watch as your future, your past and the person you have invested so much energy into just walks away, leaving you to try and pick through the clutter of your life like a tornado survivor looking for something salvageable in toothpicks that used to be a trailer.  Regardless of how independent you have been and how hard you’ve worked to preserve your identity, you realize that you don’t have a clue who you are without your other half.    You can love again.  You can love BETTER, you can love DIFFERENTLY, you can love more INTENSELY, but you can never love anyone the same and you can never, ever really get past it.  It always burns there in the bottom of your heart like an ulcer.  You can make peace with it, be in a better place, have a better relationship and sincerely thank God every day that the divorce happened.  You can breathe a deep breath, look fondly on the good memories, forgive the ill feelings and live in zen-like peace, but the little ulcer will always be there and it will never heal.  Once in a while, something comes along that shoves a big knife and a handful salt into that wound and it flares up into a big owie before settling back down into complacent peace again.  It’s just the way it works.  Learning that Luke has slept with a skinny, scampy little sniveling, smart mouthed, nose-wrinkling thing like Felicia, is going to cut her to the bone.  Don’t throw her relationship with Stefan into the mix because we’re talking about things that are mutually exclusive.  When one is divorced (I believe in the excellent movie line:  Eggs are separated; people are married or divorced), one could have just sexually ingratiated the entire 831^st Infantry and burst into sobs upon seeing the ex holding someone’s hand.  Twenty years of gut response just doesn’t leave cheaply.  You think it’s gone, but it hides in the corner and plays the blackmail game with your emotions for a long, long time.  I will say (and this is one of my more sexist comments) that men are better at getting past it than women, but not much.  So get off Laura’s butt about the Stefan thing and let the woman boo-hoo over things that don’t make sense to the outsider who has not experienced it.  This is one time that the soaps have connected with reality dead on.  She would have felt much better if she’d slept with Scott, though.

Two VERY powerful scenes in the same day really hit hard for me and both involved men and tears.  The first was Mac and his soul-wrenching sob outside the courtroom.  John J. York played it so well as he watched Felicia crying in the courtroom, then turned away and gave in to his own grief.  While I understand the point of view from Laura’s side, I’m having trouble figuring out why Mac needed to end the marriage.  I feel that under the circumstances, Felicia was standing on some pretty strong moral ground when she slept with Luke (much as it pains me to admit).  Mac had told her under no uncertain terms that they were finished and he was taking her kids.  She begged him to reconsider both counts and he adamantly refused.  It wasn’t until Kevin counseled him (while Felicia and Luke were otherwise, um, engaged) that Mac softened to her a bit.  To her mind, he’d made it very clear that there was no way in hell they’d be together.  He served her with divorce papers and so what happened from that moment until they met in the diner in Colorado and talked about a possible reconnect is technically none of Mac’s business.  It certainly is in the past and does not have bearing on their current plans to rebuild their family.  If Felicia chose not to tell him, that would be her prerogative.  I’m not saying that the revelation, particularly in public, wouldn’t hurt Mac.  Just like Laura, I’m sure he’d be devastated.  I just don’t think that it warrants ending the relationship.  She didn’t lie to him.  She gave her all into making the marriage work once they reunited.  She dumped Luke.  She even tried like crazy to let him know what was going to happen at the trial and couldn’t.  The only thing that between point A and point B is that he learned she had slept with Luke.  Get mad.  Throw things.  Break a vase or two.  But then get on with your life, move past the pain and get back to making your marriage work.  I applaud the power that JJY put into that scene, but the energy of forgiveness would have been even more electric, not to mention that Felicia as a martyr makes me puke.

The other tearful scene that to’ me up was, of course, the knuckle-biter between Luke and Lucky.  Wow.  I never thought I’d say it, but Jacob Young may just have earned his Jonathan Jackson merit badge with that one.  Anthony Geary is always stellar, but the chemistry between these two was nuclear and I could feel the years of history settle comfortably around them.  It was as though Jonathan Jackson took off the Lucky coat and in that one scene, Jacob Young grew into it.  VERY nice work.  “Sometimes it’s hard to have you for a father.”  Whoa.

The man-emotion bled over into Sonny as he opened his heart a crack and let Carly know a little of how he feels about her.  When Sarah Brown and Maurice Benard were playing that scene, it was like watching professional poker players size up one another and gauge their bets accordingly.  How much is safe to tell?  How far out on this limb can I go?  She opens the door a crack; he does as well.  She peaks out the crack in her door and he looks out his.  It’s yet another dance that damaged people play to protect their hearts from being hurt again.  Bravo!  I also LOVED the way the writers left the opening wide for Steve Burton to return.  I give it less than a month and Jason will ride back into town.  I, for one, will be fine with that. 

Amber Tamblyn continues to tear into her role like a pitbull into a rump roast.  After years of complacency, the second that girl woke up with a corpse, her switch was set to “on” and she’s been going for it.  Trouble is that her powerhouse acting is now making poor Michael Saucedo faaade into the background.  Time for Juan to go tour with Daddy and heeeere’s Zander!  As I’ve long said, some actors’ performances are elevated when in the company of greatness and others are subdued into opacity.  Juan, Juan?  Where’d you go, boy?

Speaking of Emily, they are PUNISHING HER??  A CURFEW?  For waking up with a DEAD GUY, living in terror, being blackmailed, held at gunpoint and, ahem, left to wander the woods at the Canadian border?  Are they SERIOUS?? 

Lastly, it was MOST gratifying to see Chloe have a mini-fit over finding Brenda’s picture and accepting that, well, for Jax, she just isn’t going to measure up.  Being at peace and wishing Jax the best as he chases the ghost of his lost love is one thing, but confronting the knowledge that the ghost is alive and a likely victor in the play for Jasper's heart is quite another.  The emotion she showed in Paris was moving and the shock and grief displayed this week was even better.  I’m starting to like this Chloe (Wow, defending Felicia and praising Chloe AND Emily in one week!  You’re right Scooter, hell must have frozen over)  and I particularly like her with Stefan.  Since there is still no word on the Head Writer position, I leave you first with a song (“There’s a little lame duck, swimmin’ in the water, a little lame duck, writin’ cannon foddor…”) and a story tie-up, written especially for you by me.  I call this section:

HOW IT’S GONNA GO DOWN, STEFAN

You’re back to the land of the living in nothing flat, Stefan.  This madness has gone on for long enough.   Now that Luke has been cleared of charges in your murder, the focus goes to finding the real killer.  I’m thinking the best entrance you could make would be at Helena’s trial, right as she’s poised to be convicted of your murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair.  What happens is that Lucky and Nikolas begin to suspect that you are alive and go off in search of you.  They find a trail that leads to your spurned Parisian paramour who is more than happy to tell the boys about the recordings of Helena’s voice you listened to over and over.  Nikolas is jubilant that you are alive and decides that if you have stayed gone, there is a very good reason.  They let you stay where you are for the length of the trial, but Lucky manages to hack into Helena’ s computer and recover the recordings that Andreas had hidden (to protect himself should she become homicidal on him as well).  They rip the recordings onto cd and take them to Mac Scorpio.   He is unable to use them because they have not been acquired legally, but they are able to use them to bluff Andreas into a confession of all he knows.  With his testimony, Helena is arrested and her yacht seized and searched.  They then LEGALLY turn up her computer with files and she is held without bail.  As with Luke’s trial, it occurs off screen until the last day, when a visibly haggard Helena listens to the last of the shaky case for her defense.  Nikolas enters the courtroom and whispers something to Helena’s lawyer, who immediately calls his next witness.  When he says, “The defense calls Stefan Cassadine,” Helena faints dead away.  The trial proceeds as you testify to all that happened that night on the yacht.  Well, not all, we’ll leave off the icky stuff where your mom kissed you on the mouth, but you get the idea.  Chloe is then called and gives testimony about her visions and seeing Helena “kill” Stefan.  Tony testifies about the medical aspects of Chloe’s condition   The prosecution, in light of the testimony, immediately drops the murder charges and Helena is found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to a good long time in the pokey.  Cesar Faison, who was not killed in the explosion after all, returns the favor she bestowed upon her months ago and cracks her out of jail before she can make it to prison.  She is on her yacht, which Faison has stolen from the PCPD Impound Lot, standing at the bow and looking disdainfully at Port Charles as it gets smaller and smaller as they head to sea.  Her eyes narrow as she begins planning her revenge on all who have wronged her and as she swears out her vengeance, the yacht explodes in a fiery sea inferno and she and Faison are blow to bits…or are they?

See you next week,