CAUTION:  My girl, Carol, speaks her mind in a strong, brassy and vibrant fashion.  If you are offended by straight talking, adult oriented language (sometimes, there's a "very" in there), please be aware that you may well find it here.  Carol shoots from the hip and tells it like it is, pulling no punches and taking no prisoners.  That's why I love her & why I hired her.  If it's not your bag, let's part still friends and salute our differences in tastes (I'm sort of a strong strawberry flavor...)  ~*~Katrina~*~

Was It Good For You? 

The 2 ½ weeks that were supposed to steal NBC daytime fans during the Summer Olympics turned into a big, fat joke on ABC daytime. 
 

One of the lures (of ABC Daytime president Brian Scott Frons) – designed to cajole NBC daytime fans from their DOOL and Passions fix during a Summer Olympics coverage-hiatus the past 2 ½ weeks – focused on its #1 youth demographically rated favorite, GH, and its much-heralded, one-week, self-contained murder mystery, promising at least two victims who remained dead and one killer, unmasked. Executive producer Jill Farren Phelps further promised that the atmosphere at the Quartermaine mansion would be suitably spooky, providing cathartic, mesmerizing, lasting repercussions for primarily Emily and Nikolas and to a lesser extent, the surviving teens and the Qs. 

What the murder mystery accomplished, instead, was a barrel of laughs, a boatload of outrage and several gasps of incredulity at the audacity of a once-great dramatic serial to blaspheme a real-life dead woman, as well as the genre of murder mysteries themselves with such a travesty. 

On various soap message boards, several fans have listed the flaws, plot holes, character lapses, acting misses, inconsistencies and inherent failures of a mystery that everybody knows the outcome of. A handful of columnists have expertly weighed in, including two of my all-time favorites who never miss the mark and never fail to at once entertain and educate me on the finer points of soap critique: JenJen’s Soap Bubbles (Eye on Soaps) and Max’s GH Chronicles (SoapTown USA). 

Both JenJen and Max brought up the idiocy of promoting a murder mystery by continually giving away the suspense, from the set-up to the finale, the victims to the killer’s identity, thereby effectively diluting or destroying altogether any halfway decent sane fan’s inclination to tune in, instead of tune out to the Summer Olympics on NBC instead.  

Another of Frons’ big ideas – putting former reality-TV star Bachelor Bob Guiney (now Mr. Rebecca Budig/Greenlee, AMC) up front as mock-host to the interstitial promotional mess known as ABC’s Wide World of Soaps, interviewing various popular soap actors in soap character about their fictional lives and loves – sucked and blew bigtime in relation to GH’s big murder mystery, by literally unmasking the killer before the killer was unmasked on the actual show. JenJen was understandably miffed, indicting the entire alphabet network for the heinous crime of being stupid and undoing their very own efforts: “You’re supposed to keep the audience waiting on the edge of their seats to see what happens next.  That’s why they keep watching.  Can you imagine if Dallas had told viewers who shot J.R. before he even got shot?  The whole Who Shot J.R. phenomenon certainly wouldn’t have happened.  We’d have known the answer, so what would have been the point?  What if Survivor started each season by revealing the winner right off the bat?  They’d probably lose over half of their viewers, at least.  What if movies did that?  What if The Sixth Sense had been advertised as, ‘Starring Bruce Willis as a ghost who doesn’t know he’s dead?’” 

Usually, soaps don’t kill off their main, beloved characters. If they do, the main, beloved characters aren’t dead for long... Hello, long-lost twin!, it was just a dream!, mistaken identity! until the next re-negotiated contract. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise to know ahead of time that day player Trent and bad girl out of the GQ teen supercouple Sage would be the deader than at DOOL victims. 

The surprise came in watching how cavalierly their untimely, brutal deaths were treated by the survivors. Granted, nobody in the teen set – who redeemed themselves later while sobbing over her letter and poem – much liked Sage anyway, and the adults hardly knew or cared about her. And Trent was just a black teen token, probably hired to keep the NAACP off GH’s back, a throwaway, a stranger off the street who—as Max observed in her column—ended up with much of the week’s pithier indictment. But still, two human beings were murdered by a masked madwoman! The least any of them could do is rustle up a tear and a logical mention, maybe cover up the bodies until the rest of the cops arrived the next day. 

Instead, everybody seemed more concerned with how Georgie was handling the fact that she locked Sage alone in the freezer in the first place, leaving the young girl alone in the dark for the madwoman to find her and stab her to death... or whether the bloody badge had a bloody Mac attached. In one scene, Mac walked into the sitting room, Georgie and the other teens, maybe Lucas and Dillon, rushed over, clearly relieved, wanting to know the status of the roaming killer. All Mac could muster was, he’s fine, the others were scattered. I waited for him, for anyone, to mention Trent, dead Trent, but they never did. In Max’s column, she wrote, fuming: “Not one question about the kid’s family, not one comment about the tragedy of a youth’s life being taken so prematurely or even any guilt expressed that he’d been murdered on their property. In fact, the only concern anyone seems to have over Sage’s death is what her uncle might do to them. Selfish to the bitter end.” 

When Trent stepped into the room and fell flat on his face with a three-pronged garden implement lodged deep in his back (yeah, I know how that reads), at the feet of a horrified (or was that gas?) Brook Lynn and Lucas, they reacted as if the weather men on TV just predicted another week of storms... not that a young black man in the prime of his life and the only decent actor (save for Scott Clifton, as a clearly shaken Dillon) on the premises had just been killed because they had to go inside a spare bedroom and close the door to be alone and talk about how unique Brook Lynn is compared to those other girls. 

Like Max, I, too, couldn’t figure out why Trent couldn’t join Brook Lynn and Lucas in the bedroom to... what exactly? Why did everybody decide to suddenly spread out in packs and pairs all over creation with handy implements of defense? Plain common sense, even in a suspenseful, dangerous situation, would dictate that Trent remain close to the group, strength in numbers and all that. The three of them together could’ve fended off one lone madwoman easily, and seen her coming. 

But then everybody in that mansion should’ve stuck together and remained in one room. I couldn’t believe it when Nikolas, not once but twice, encouraged Emily to go off somewhere else on her own. After they knew a killer was on the loose, he let her go up to her bedroom, right after he and she let Dillon and Lucas go off to another room. Emily should’ve gone with Dillon and Lucas, had them escort her to her bedroom if she had to go there. But Emily had to be separated so that she could have an altercation with the masked killer, who, it turned out, no big surprise, was after Emily all along. 

It also didn’t surprise me that TPTB decided to turn Mary into a raving, stalking psychopathic killer, even if there weren’t any signs remotely pointing in that deranged direction. Mary, as ably portrayed by promising soap newcomer Catherine Wadkins, threatened the romantic heroine-ism of Emily, as horribly underplayed by soap newcomer Natalia Livingston, who is supposed to be one-half of a supercouple Frons personally has displayed a vested interest in (like he had with Journey’s Jason and Courtney). And since today’s soap leaders don’t know how to write for characters outside the pre-destined, executive hand-picked pairings, Wadkins’ sympathetic, resplendent, complex Mary had to be the fall girl, the patsy, the humiliated masked killer, completely out of her mind. 

They had to knock Mary down this way, in order to better prop up Emily as Nikolas’ superior choice (a Nopper, one who props NEm, if you will). If left to stand alone, without this murder mystery fallacy of a plot turn, Mary clearly would’ve risen up as the one for Nikolas. Can’t have that, so smack a mask on, hand her a garden tool or a kitchen knife and let her terrorize some hapless victims. Good ole bait and switch, at it again. Even then, Wadkins is head and shoulders better than most of the current cast, as an unapologetic killer pretending to have DID. 

Early on, I knew GH was in trouble when the lightning flashed outside the boathouse and I caught a peek at some strange-looking dude in an odd hat just sitting there. At first I thought, is this how Luke makes his grand re-entrance? Then, maybe a crew member forgot to get out of the camera’s window view. Some posters are still sitting around waiting for that figure to be explained in weeks to come. 

Another sign of the Apocalypse – or the current regime’s idea of creative license to spook... seeing Lila’s unoccupied wheelchair wandering the upstairs, then go toppling down, a prank of Sage and Trent’s. I’m sure Anna Lee is spinning in her grave right now, grateful at least that God took her from ungrateful bosses capable of such passive-aggressive malice. 

The two main characters most affected by this murder mystery, according to executive producer Jill Farren Phelps, are Nikolas and Emily, and yet they exhibited the least amount of effect throughout the whole ordeal, except for each other, as GH Chronicles columnist Max also duly noted. When the couple trudged through the front door, as the rest of the survivors huddled frightened in the foyer but a few feet away, Big Alice nearly took a swing at Emily with her broom, but stopped just short. Emily never even flinched, never even acknowledged Big Alice’s existence, just forged on ahead, down a few steps and demanded to know what was going on, with Nikolas meekly following her like the hemorrhoid he’s become. After that scene, about mid-way into the week, the rest of the cast followed Natalia Livingston’s suit, barely flinching at anything going on, undercutting the very “spooky, scary” atmosphere initially heralded by TPTB and rendering this murder mystery nothing but a week-long gimmick to ridicule, spoof and subsequently ignore right alongside End Game (not the one Tony Geary wrote). 

My impressions of the other characters involved in this murder mystery mess weren’t any better, either through no fault of their own or their own personal inability to convey actual concern and a heightened sense of peril. Alan looked completely doped up. Monica, rather, Leslie Charleson, merely recited her lines as instructed. Tracy, however bristling and bullying she remained, seemed strangely hands-off and aloof to her son Dillon’s near brush with death. Brook Lynn overacted the young, angry girl to a growling halt; the girl must grind her teeth at night. I’ve yet to figure out why she would bother with a Ouija board, much less insist the teens stay at it after Sage was murdered. Georgie is a weak, hysterical, neurotic, self-centered moron (did it ever register with her that the murders weren’t about her guilt?) who makes me miss Maxie all the more. Lucas made me laugh with his one-liners, but I could sense the time ticking on that mis-cast. Why would Lila use Heather to warn everybody when Heather’s using Lila to get close enough to Edward to kill him? She does a better Lila, however, than Emily. Mac is dumber and more paranoid than ever, actually thinking the hallowed NEm capable of cold-blooded murder (I’m surprised he didn’t accuse a dead Lila of the crime), nice to see him misused yet again. Faith and Justus are cute, but they don’t belong in this farce. Big Alice in cahoots with Heather, doesn’t make sense. Felicia’s alright, but again, she’s taking a tip from self-centered, self-important Georgie... Trent died, lady, forget about Mac’s bloody badge for five seconds. 

I’ll bet Frons made the week of August 23^rd so dreadful that the collective majority of fans would be clamoring for the return of the Sonny-centered mob story as blessed relief. 

Because surely, he couldn’t have expected that piece of crap to successfully lure away NBC’s loyal daytime fan base. Surely, nobody is that stupid, delusional and conceited. 

Right? 

EMILY—THE ACCIDENTAL VILLAIN

I’ve yelled at quite a few soap opera characters in my time. I’ve even convinced myself in the heat of my vehemence that these character flaws transferred to the actors IRL. At that point—as with GH’s Brenda/Vanessa Marcil, circa screwing with Karen, Lily and Miranda—I had to step away from my TV, go outside, get a breath of fresh air and come back to my senses. 

It took a couple of fellow GH fans online, interviews with the decidedly different actress Marcil and time spent living life offline for me to recover from the common soap opera fan syndrome of mixing fantasy and reality. I’ve been clean and sober, so to speak, ever since the late 1990s. 

Now, Emily as terribly portrayed by recast Natalia Livingston has brought back those all-too-real feelings. Unfortunately, in her case, I cannot separate character from actress so easily. Oh, I’m sure Livingston, a soap newcomer, former Home Depot employee and prom queen type, is a nice girl, very sweet, occasionally frustrated with having to play Emily as an entitled hypocrite with an obsession bordering on psychotic for Nikolas. 

But, judging by her infrequent, insubstantial interviews, I can’t tell if the actress approves or disapproves of anything Emily does or says, or Emily’s stories, past and present. Livingston falls in the category of the worst kind of pseudo-celebrity, IMHO, the kind that does nothing but follows the happy, shiny, pretty party line, everything’s wonderful, I love NEm, I love my job, 10 hours go by faster than 10 minutes, I bring a softening of the delivery to former rebel with a cause Emily (as played with more conviction by Amber Tamblyn, IMHO), blah, yadda, blah. It’s a personal idiosyncrasy with me that grates on my nerves, the positive Pollyanna who can’t see the critical discontent for the blind cheerleading. 

In one of her first quotes to the soap press, Livingston actually defended, in her softened delivery way, her breast cancer storyline, saying it’s helped lots of young people and provided much moving interaction amongst Emily, her family and friends when... juxtaposed against that far-fetched observation comes the one hitting closer to home, from soap veteran Leslie Charleson (Monica), expressing disappointment that her character, who survived breast cancer in a more realistic, interactive story years prior, couldn’t have helped adopted daughter Emily with her struggles. Nowhere in Livingston’s responses did I ever read chagrin that her breast cancer story had more to do with the growing romance between Emily and Nikolas than the devastating effects on family and friends, or any acknowledgement whatsoever. 

Granted, she’s young, new to the genre and probably wanted to make a good impression on her bosses, not cause trouble, make any waves. But over a year into her job and she’s still brimming over with suspicious enthusiasm as a recast and for her NEm  pairing, as if nothing’s wrong, as if viewers by the thousands aren’t getting more and more pissed at the couple’s isolated, dysfunctional and clearly villainous reactions to anything threatening their closeness, intentional, accidental or Mary’s sudden psychosis. She can tell reporters how much she enjoys playing Emily to Nikolas, loving those love scenes a little too much <giggle>, taking producers’ notes on not narrowing her eyes or looking too angry with Mary in the beginning of her betrayal with Connor/Nikolas ... all with a straight face. 

At best, she’s just an ill fit for the role of an intrinsically good girl, well-meaning, decent, loyal, but lonely, searching and impressionable. Maybe she’d do better in another role, that of a suddenly psychotic, serial-killing Mary Bishop, but not as better as Catherine Wadkins. At worst, she’s a bad actress who doesn’t belong in soap, primetime, movies or infomercials for sleeping pills. With her personal ticks and mannerisms—annoying and distracting to the core—from the constant nodding during conversation, heavy sighing into other performers’ lines, that weird heavy breathing, panting, gulping for air thing she does when she’s angry, and inability to look other people in the eye when they or she talks, to the pointing, furrowing her eyebrows with seeming incomprehension, revealing nothing but contempt and cold hatred, in lieu of torn, tormented conflict, moaning, going “hmmmm... mmmm,” giggling, in lieu of seduction and conquest in the bedroom, and pulling a Tamara Braun (Carly) whenever she confronts an enemy (meaning, anybody who tears her away from mooning over Nikolas)... I’d vote the latter, the bad actress bit. 

I cannot imagine liking Emily – or even understanding her motivations – at this point, not as long as Livingston continues to destroy her character with what appears to be acts of petty spite, one-sided compassion, her side, an unconscious reflex to lie when caught ignoring level-headed advice (such as the one given to her by Lucky to stay away from a hospitalized madwoman, Mary) – I was just standing over Mary, wanting to understand, I didn’t do anything when she punched me!, putting the ultimate lie to her self-professed noble intentions, to try and understand and find some compassion, when all she does is go for the jugular in pure unadulterated hatred of the feral, savage, rabid animal variety, blithely unaware that the very negative traits she attributes to those she deems unworthy are the very traits she continually exhibits, not the least of which is an entitled conceit that she is the most virtuous Quartermaine by blood (she’s adopted) and Nikolas’s greatest love. 

I’ve tried liking her, really and truly I’ve tried. But the past two, three weeks have made that impossible. Just take a glance at the various soap message boards. They’re not buying Emily’s goody-two-shoes act – or Natalia Livingston’s version of a good girl – in the least over at SoapZone or Television Without Pity, two primary sources of feedback, untainted by fan base propaganda and agenda. When Emily screamed “DIE!, JUST DIE!” at an unconscious Mary lying on her hospital death bed, at the top of her lungs, after promising to Lucky that she’d stay away for her and Nikolas’s sake, the boards over there went wild with Emily hate, many calling for the character to DIE! JUST DIE! a bloody death and the actress blacklisted from appearing on another soap ever again. 

Later, as Lorenzo supposedly accosted Emily at the nurse’s station, the disgust rose like bile in my throat. Emily kept interrupting Lorenzo, as she tends to do, with her version of Mary, pure evil, a psychopath who—lest we all forget for five seconds—felt entitled to precious Nikolas. Lorenzo snapped back finally, saying he merely wanted to understand, and coming from him, I believed it. He painted a fairer, balanced picture of a young war widow trying desperately to hold on to a man who resembled her dead soldier husband Connor and somehow, somewhere along the line, she lost her way and went violent. He could barely do this without Emily cutting in to remind him that Mary, regardless of his compassion for her and her own reportedly self-professed compassion (which we’ll never see then and now because compassion from this Emily simply does not exist), is evil. 

Lorenzo: Mary acted from love and loss in the begin—

Emily: Mary tried to take Nikolas away from me.

Lorenzo: Yes, I know, but it seems strange to me that Mary, who suffered greatly from the loss of her hus—

Emily: Mary felt entitled to take Nikolas away from me. She’s a psychopath.

Lorenzo: I’m not saying what she did was wrong but—

Emily: Mary is evil. 

Emily pulled this same crap with Nikolas at the Quartermaine mansion, a week earlier, when he tried to explain a what-if scenario, what if her mother Monica got wind of him on the premises, having escaped from a mental institution, given his shady history, and dropped a dime on him with the cops. He could barely get any of this out because Emily kept interrupting him with her editorializing narrative, But you’re not insane! But I love you and you love me! But Monica would never do anything to thwart my love for you! Yeah, yeah, we get that, Nikolas knows this, but humor him for a minute and shut up! 

My loathing for Emily – and the conviction with which Natalia Livingston plays her – has reached intolerable levels. I’d really like to enjoy my soap opera again without wanting to put a foot through the TV, jump into the TV to drop-kick her out of town, or, on September 1, live vicariously through Mary’s trying to choke Emily to death. Aaah, good times. 

In the meantime, I, along with legions of Emily haters, can’t help but wonder if TPTB have purposely set Emily up as the bad girl, teasing us as everybody else on the show remains oblivious to this fact, while viewers seethe with frustrated fury at their cluelessness. Maybe she turns out to be the villain all along, the true mystery unraveled, instead of the red herring that was Mary, the sudden psychopathic serial killer. 

I’d like to give them more credit. But then, I also know who I’m dealing with. 

They’re the same clowns who have propped up Sonny, Carly and Jason as the good guys, the PCPD as the bad guys, and the once-glorious veterans who’ve stuck with this show through good and bad as the nobodys. 

So unfortunately, Natalia Livingston’s Emily really is the beautiful, kind, noble, worthy ingénue and heroine in every situation. But she’s killing GH for me, scene by scene. 

I hear birds outside, my garden calling to be tended, something, anything else. It’s time to get back on the wagon... 

AMC

Kendall is Erica, reincarnated and, according to Erica’s portrayer, Susan Lucci, her on-screen mom Mona must be laughing up in heaven at the karmic payback. It’s something alright, when Erica is the voice of reason, decency and sanity in the game of love, urging her oldest daughter, the chip off the ole block, to back off interfering in Ryan and Greenlee’s marriage. If what I saw happen between them on August 30 is any confirmation, Erica’s right for once. But Kendall is Erica? Not even on her best hair day is Alicia Minshew’s appropriation of GH’s Tamara Braun as tough mob moll Carly anywhere near Erica. At least Erica, when she went after another woman’s man, schemed, connived and insulted, was funny, slick, menacing, and dressed to kill (the yellow, shoulder-tie number reeked of ‘70s disco reject). 

Kendall kept going at it with Greenlee, grabbing her arm, sneering, smirking, throwing out every clever-sounding quip in the book (in an attempt to sound Greenlee-like), threatening, insulting, blah, blah, when all I wanted to do was jump through the TV, take over Greenlee’s fear-stricken body and punch Kendall’s lights out. Bam! Wham! Slug! Slap! “Shut up, get out of my way and drop dead.” Ditto JR. 

I can’t believe Tad, Krystal and David can’t come up with a fitting reaction to JR’s kidnapping Bess other than wringing their hands, looking aghast and making empty threats. The old David would’ve knocked JR’s block off and tortured him until he talked. Tad would’ve beat the crap out of Adam, kicked JR’s butt to the curb, sicced the cops on ‘em, something, do something! Okay, David stuffed Adam in a crate last week but still, it’s one week too late. 

Aidan and Ethan may be exotic-sexy, hunky-handsome, tall and in the brotherly way, but now, thanks to both their heavy Brit accents, there are two main characters I can’t understand. I’m too lazy to hit the mute for the cc, too. The actors should sit down with Thorsten Kaye (Zachery) and take a few pointers from this transplanted Brit on how to enunciate better. 

Others can tank Mr. Luscious Poetry Man, Thorsten Kaye (ex-Ian, PC; ex-Patrick, OLTL) all they want. I adore him as no-nonsense, dangerous Ryan hater Zachery Slater, aka Alexander Cambias Jr. and I want Maria to bed him down ASAP. Spare no PG-rating in this exclusive case. 

Maria’s hot, but WTCF was up with her press-on boobs August 31-September 1?! The push-up bra they use on soaps don’t work so well on certain body types, shall we say. Eva LaRue claims her buttocks are a country unto themselves, let’s focus a little more on that next time. 

Speaking of lingerie masquerading as dinner-wear, the current AMC designer (formerly from PC then GH) has been watching too many Victoria Secret ads. All the ladies at Zach’s Murder Mystery party, notably Greenlee and Kendall, were under-dressed. Greenlee’s white, then print with pink ruffles, dresses made me wonder when she was going to put her actual dress on over her slip. 

For a brief, welcome, five seconds there—before Kendall pulled the trigger—I almost saw through her eyes, what Ryan and Greenlee’s smug little romantic farce was doing to her, reducing a once-formidable but complex, layered heroine into a sneering, cheesy-one-liner-spouting bully. Think Kendall’s one-liners are cringe-worthy? Try an evening with the Laverys, ugh. It’s too bad Kendall didn’t go with her first instinct in plugging them both, one bullet, two bodies, mission accomplished. 

On a brighter note, once again my Thorsten Kaye (Zach; ex-Ian, PC) came through in what could’ve been an unbelievable, over-the-top, melodramatic soap cliché: his character’s big reveal as Alexander Cambias Jr., the beloved older brother of Michael, the deceased rapist. I plan to write a much lengthier column next week on Kaye and other acting stalwarts in this profession who, time and time again, pull off the convincing, the relatable, despite, quite-often, stupid, inconsistent, silly material. But I’ll just say this about Friday’s (September 3) episode with him in it: He lends so much credibility to the long-lost, presumed-dead sibling plot device. I was wrong in thinking he was Ryan’s uncle in so many ways. Zach’s better served as the misunderstood and misunderstanding guilt-ridden brother of a heinous criminal who once used to be humane. The way Kaye railed and thundered, then whimpered and emotionally bled in front of Maria, as Shakespearean in volume and density (similar to Timothy D. Stickney’s R.J. over at OLTL), clearly in denial about Bianca murdering his brother in self-defense, as well as the rape impetus for that fateful occasion, had me all a-twitter, goose bumps on my soul. It’s too bad, as a minor blocking note, that Eva LaRue (Maria) didn’t remember to try and reach out to him in the middle of his rampage when he pulled his arm back and yelled, “No!” before continuing on. 

I like Adam in a box, Sam I am, put there by a fox, indeed. Nothing beats a patented David scene, where he is in his slimy, methodically underhanded element. I could practically see Krystal’s nipples go erect in admiration when she realized he wasn’t kidding when he hinted, hypothetically, that he might’ve placed JR’s nefarious dad in a crate. David going on medically to JR, that mannequin numbskull, about how long it might take for an average man to last under such claustrophobic conditions, the poisons of carbon dioxide... vintage villainy, not just physical prowess but mental gymnastics, as only he can pull off. Yes, yes, yes, I also noticed his face softening as he held Krystal, hidden from her view. 

I’m softening toward Krystal and Babe myself. Shut up. I can’t help it. I’m such a softie when it comes to true remorse. Like it or not, they feel badly, especially Babe, who is finally coming to grips with how much she’s lost and how stupid, selfish and foolish she’d been to pin all her hopes, dreams and the hostage of Bianca’s baby on a jerk like JR. I like Babe with Jamie, they bring out the goofy, child-like, young love in each other, she sparkles rather than just bemoans her constant woe, and he...I can almost see a new and improved Tad from the ‘80s/90s. 

Although, the baby-switching story has taken entirely too long to wrap up. It won’t be until February of next year before Bianca and Babe receive their rightful babies back, and even then, I suspect TPTB will prolong the agony with the interjection of the Santi mob from OLTL’s Llanview in the mix (Tico had the judge hand custody over to Kevin last week). Good luck to Babe and Jamie in retrieving Ace from the mob, ‘cause that’s what it’ll take, unless Kevin doesn’t care anymore.

OLTL

I wasn’t cringing in fear like Angelina or Carlotta when Antonio bellowed to be let in on the big secret, August 30, in between huffing and puffing. I was laughing my head off, and screaming, “You’re Manuel Santi’s firstborn son! Now go get me some flan!” Oh, and, “Will someone please tell Antonio the truth before my head explodes from his bellowing, huffing and puffing?!” Cut to Jessica and Tico talking about something boring, an excellent Sominex commercial. I should’ve taped those scenes for a couple of insomniac friends of mine. 

Another laff-riot happened in the previews for the next episode, cut to Kelly in the courtroom, making a sour, “Oh crap, I just whizzed my pants!” expression, close up, hair in a disarray. Call me heartless but I’m rooting for big bad Kevin to grind Kelly into powder. Btw, where was Kelly going last week when David caught up to her taxi cab, will we ever know? (Maybe to score some more tranquilizers from her dope dealer.) The verdict went to Kevin but that was an easy call. The verdict would’ve gone in favor of Charles Manson, compared to the alternative. Shut up, I know about Tico fixing the results, just go along with my flow, man. 

Evangeline knows her client isn’t Ace’s biological mother, knows in fact—two hours prior to the custody hearing—that Ace most likely came about through illegal means. And yet this supposed professional lawyer who adheres to strict ethics and lectures R.J., thinks nothing of perpetrating a falsity in the courtroom, acting as if Kelly’s the rightful mother and Todd’s the father, from their one-night stand—all lies. I don’t know about legal ethics here, but this should be grounds for dismissal, miscarriage of justice, disbarment, separation from John McBain, forced to watch R.J. beat her at tennis. 

A two-day courtroom scene with a lot of characters, and for what? Kelly’s constipated expressions and ungrateful eye-rolling.... cut to her tranquilizers. Kevin’s right, she is a pill-popping, neurotic aorta of a fake mom. But then, neither of ‘em should get custody of Ace, since it’s Paul and Babe’s (AMC). I know for sure it’s Paul’s (not just because wack-job mother Melinda mistook Ace for Paul), because the latest uncasting news has the guy murdered off. His real-life sister, Heather Tom, who plays Paul’s reel-life half-sister Kelly, had to read about the firing in the script. Nice. The wrong Tom got screwed. 

I got through watching a little bit of Gina Tognoni’s lively interview with SoapTalk’s Ty Treadway (ex-Troy/Colin) and Lisa Rinna (ex-Billie, DOOL), September 1. She’s the recast Dinah on GL receiving accolades from the soap press, but she should be Kelly again, the one and only original Kelly. Her bubbly personality made me dread Heather Tom’s dour, sour mess of a recast even more. 

So who was surprised by Tico having ordered a hit on his own older brother (I presume) Antonio? <crickets chirping> Thought so. 

LOL... Duke Buchanan. I can’t take this SORAS’s beyond reason son of Kevin and stepson of Kelly seriously. He looks about their age. Kevin would’ve had to be three years old when he knocked up Lee Ann. I know Kevin’s portrayer, Dan Gauthier, is way older, past youth demographic-approved, with a teenaged son of his own, but still... Duke doesn’t look remotely like Lee Ann or Kevin, he does look like a suitor for Kelly and Todd’s frat buddy. It’s ridiculous. 

This just in! In the worst-kept (and least interesting) secret of the soap world, Antonio turns out to be Angelina’s son, revealed shortly before Angelina herself dies at the hands of the Santi mob, probably Tico. The actress asked to come on as Angelina, Saundra Santiago, hasn’t had a whole lot of luck with soap roles. On GL, she played a murdering mother to a mobster, Carmen Santos, but was quickly snuffed out the second the Labines took over the show as head writers years ago. Santiago complained to the press about that betrayal, crying foul at being shoved out when her other boss promised a longer stay. Now, it seems she’s going through déja-vu, as her OLTL bosses didn’t even have the class to tell her to her face beforehand; she had to find out through a co-star, Javier Morga (Tico), when he strolled into her dressing room, crestfallen and apologetic that he had to kill off her character. She reportedly wasn’t even told of this eventuality at the outset. Her spirit will live on, at least until October 20. 

Natalie in a low-cut, Marilyn Monroe-style emerald-green dress, ooh la la. Was I a good girl last week to deserve this? Was Johnnie boy? Never mind, the girl was brick house hot. You can take your bony babes by the dozen, I’ll have one of Nat, in a see-through red number next time. (For the confused, I am a healthy heterosexual woman but must’ve been a lesbian or hetero male in a previous life, ‘cause, I just, y’know, am able to intrinsically understand the hard-on.)

GH

Watch out, Jason, you have a new rival for Sonny’s affections: Jasper Jacks! They have deeper history too. I love their passive-aggressive, passionate undertones. And I’m not even gay (but I play one when I see OLTL’s Natalie in a low-cut green dress, shimmying her boobies). 

Dillon and Justus had the LODs (Lines of the Day) on August 30. And if I had half the memory capacity of more than half of the online posters around here, I could recite their lines, chapter and verse. But suffice it with the paraphrases. Mac and Felicia are busy interrogating Justus and Faith about something unrelated to the killing spree when Dillon pipes up, Um, hello? Why are we discussing this OT bullcrap when a killer’s still on the loose at the Quartermaine property? Another scene, everybody’s getting updated on Emily unmasking the killer and the killer being “mousy” little Mary Bishop, when Justus pipes up, Why in the world is this mousy little nobody Mary Bishop off on a killing spree ALL OF A SUDDEN??? (Answer: NEm must be propagated at all costs.) 

I could barely contain my fury when Emily went off on a bedridden Mary, September 1, screaming at the unmasked killer to “DIE! DIE! DIE!... I wish you would just DIE DIE DIE!,” using the flimsy excuse of outrage on behalf of those innocent teens who did die needlessly because of Mary’s obsession. Since Emily can never spare an ounce of sympathy or empathy for anybody other than herself and her precious Nikolas, I hardly bought this excuse. I did find it bizarre (or would that be ironic?) that Ned’s vote for “Most Virtuous” Quartermaine would wish another human being to DIE! DIE! DIE! Sure Mary killed some people, tried tried tried to kill Emily outright, but that’s to be commended, not condemned, hee hee. Mary’s only fault is in failing. Besides, me and my anti-Emily posse know the truth... Emily’s death wish has little to do with compassion for the unfortunate, innocent victims and concern for Nikolas’s well-being and everything to do with her jealousy over Nikolas and her co-dependent, obsessive possessiveness about Nikolas, y’know, in lieu of actually developing her own personality, getting her own independent act together and being a real, living, breathing, soulful human being—like Mary used to be before the NEm lovers in charge made her into a stark raving lunatic, and perfect justification for Emily being off the rag. 

Carly would be proud. 

Ever self-absorbed, callous, classless, self-entitled, Carly rampages through a dead woman’s (Ruby’s) things for the sole purpose of knowing the medical history of her biological father (in case one of her kids is hit by a disease of the week) and refuses to look even remotely ashamed of herself when caught by her mother Bobbie... yammering on about her right to know, when this is Bobbie’s aunt, Bobbie’s personal private life and Bobbie’s lie to tell...  

I had to laugh, yet again, when Tamara Braun (Carly) tried to explain why her character all of a sudden desired to know her biological father after years of absolutely no interest. Braun said that this desire was always in the back of Carly’s mind, nagging away at her, and would help complete her quest to know herself. At least the woman’s trying to make it sound sensible, give her that much. 

Yet, not even this Carly came close to the phony-baloney, hootchie-kootchie, hypocrite Emily. 

If Emily is among the leading female characters TPTB plan to showcase front and center from now on, the rest of my GH viewing pleasure has just gone into the toilet. Hit flush, and refresh me later, when they’ve fired Natalia Livingston and her nodding, heavy breathing, pausing, lipgloss licking, sighing into everybody else’s lines lack of acting ability. Cruel? Perhaps. But quite necessary if I, as a paying, loyal viewer of over two decades, want to continue enjoying my show. 

I’m sick of being sick of these bad actors and their worsening characters. How about some good ones for a change? Well, you all have to wait until next week for that. 

With bated breath,

GRAPHICS BY SCOTT BILSTAD