or you can click here for other options.  So, like,

HELP!!!!! 

AMC

Have I mentioned how much I loved (ddddd look at the past tense) Marcie Walsh on OLTL?  Finally, a female character who was not a size 2 "Boobs on a stick" as one of my favorite ex-EOS writers, Chris Simons, would have said.  She had curves and sass and was a champion for nerds everywhere.  One trip into the alma mater dumpster from hell and a character was forever destroyed, reduced into some kind of whining, yapping little dog, jumping up and down, pissing on everyone's feet and playing my last nerve like a freaky loud, off pitch kazoo. 

I loved (ddddd) Lily in this incarnation of Levin Ramblin.  Sure, it's a technical disaster when it comes to an adequate representation of Autism Spectrum Disorder, but I loved it and I loved her.  Like Marcie, she was different and a bit of spice in a soap opera doll machine that cranks out ordinary, cookie-cutter bimbos on an ongoing basis.   Amanda is like Greenlee who is like Simone who is like Kendall who is like Babe who is like 100 other fluff characters before her.  Maria is like Erica who is like Brooke who is like Liza who is like Dixie...  Krystal is like Opal who is like Janet who is like every other "berserker" who is thrown into the mix.  There are about 3-4 specific female archetypes in soap casting and Lily could not be characterized into any of them.  She made her own mold.

One trip into the Sam Grey dumpster and she is boring and one dimensional; a joke instead of the complex and interesting character she was before.  I used to wait to see what Lily's take would be on any set of circumstances and now I no longer need to because it is utterly and completely predictable.  Such a  pity.  She is still salvageable, as is any soap or any character...

except one:

That's right, except one.  In soaps, you can come back from anything unless you live in Sage's World (there I go again with the 3rd person thing... might need some therapy).  When Ryan pulled back his fist on Greenlee and said, "One more word, Greenlee, I swear..."  he was dead to me.  Get rid of the character now or else.  No forgiveness, no excuses, no nothing.  He's outta here.  As Joe Pesci said in "My Cousin Vinny," "I got no more use for dis guy."

In the snap below, is that JR lurking in the background?  Is this guy everywhere?  I don't know why I can't get the notion out of my head that the new local cherry picker, Josh Madden, looks like an Elvis impersonator.  I mean seriously, put him in a light up suit, strap a parachute to his back and he can be one of the Flying Elvises. 

Hey there, MamaBaby, you know, you know,
you know how to make fried banana an' peanut
butter sammiches, MamaBaby?? 
(my best Elvis, sorry)

OLTL

I'm trying, but I cannot think of one redeeming value in this show.  One. OK, one...

davidvickersdavidvickersdavidvickers

OK, I'll give you another.

"There's a new sheriff in town!"

I love it.  With all of her bug-eyed, belly rubbing, mugging, Todd Jr nurturing weirdness, I love Margaret for the same reasons I loved Marcie and Lily.  Although on the surface, she might fit into the Ursula Blackwell School of Crazy Villainesses, this girl has some ENDURANCE (she also gets an A for Creativity)!  Ironic that now that the character is pregnant, Tara Signor (who plays Margaret) doesn't look nearly as pregnant as she did when the character was trying to conceived.  One thing I admired about OLTL was how they didn't even bother to conceal her pregnancy.  It was just right out there and it was up to us to just ignore it.  I love when they give us a tad bit of credit as intelligent viewers.  It's... so rare.

With Asa being crafted as little more than a cartoon character, it's refreshing to have an adversary who is not only sneaky and conniving, but is just crazy as a bedbug.  There is something so unmanageable about such a thing, giving it a "wild card" factor that cannot be predicted.  As she so delightfully put it, Asa is very much out of his league.  Oh and I'm wondering, has Renee really not noticed the weird pregnant woman living on the grounds?  I got the feeling that nothing much gets past the lady of THAT manor.

Dark, angsty, dysfunctional to the extreme with a wicked commitment aversion, is there any further doubt that John McBain is our new Todd Manning, filling the demand that was created by Trevor St John's kinder, gentler Todd?  Was Crispen Glover really unavailable for the recast? 

GH

Who would have thought that GH would be my favorite soap of the day?  More and more, I am finding myself getting frustrated if I have to miss it and that hasn't happened in months.  Through this goony rewrite, which does at least give a nod to true history, if only to embellish it a good bit,  show vets Stuart Damon and Leslie Charleson are getting some wonderfully intense material.  How exactly it all fits together is still living in the subjective land of spoilers, but I am eager to see how it plays out, even if it only lasts for a few more episodes (Has anyone seen Sandra Ferguson since the miracle healing of Maxie and Georgie?  Point made.).  Since this story only touches into Sonny's camp by proxy of Jason's involvement and the fact that his son is getting therapy from the shrink involved, the story cannot be long for this world.

I am deeply drawn to the weird relationship between Courtney and Nikolas, two people who are in different ways being shut out of their primary relationships.  As someone who liked Jax for exactly 38.5 seconds when Journey first started, his bizarre fixation on Elizabeth to the exclusion of Courtney does not seem bizarre to me at all, but in fact, completely in keeping with character.  There is a perfectly good reason why he has often been called "Jaxass."  In fact, some time back, I created this picture for him:

I think this was around the time that Jax started cheating on Skye.  You remember, on their wedding night.  But if you want to know why that is perfectly fine, ask any dedicated Jax fan and they'll be happy to fill you in.  Don't ask me, however.

Likewise, there are plenty of NEm fans who will tell you how Zander was a mere speedbump on the road to their couple's happiness; how it was perfectly fine for Emily to be sneaking around behind her marriage, tonguing Nikolas whenever she could and conveniently forgetting that she and Zander were the last *IT* couple.  Don't ask me on that one either.

Courtney, the other player in this little scenario, is no stranger to letting her lips climb all over Jason while she was still married to AJ.  Nope, no one here is innocent, unless you talk to their fans.

Why it is OK for one couple to cheat and not another lies in the eyes of the beholder.  In this case, I will admit to feeling a little rush of excitement when Nik and Courtney (NikNey?  I'm sure they have a mashed up name by now) flew into that clinch.  I guess it helps that I don't care for Emily or Jax and would love to see each of their individual partners with someone else.

But I ask you... shake your mental etch-a-sketch, release any preconceived biases to the idea and consider this:  Should Nikolas and Courtney continue to be vexed by their errant hormones and actually go the distance to consummate their unacknowledged lust ("I like you too much" doesn't quite cover it), wouldn't it just be awesome drama if she actually got pregnant?  Now THAT is some good, old-school soapy stuff! 

Jennifer Bransford, Kelly Monaco and Corbin Bernsen continue to go above and beyond in performance and never fail to impress me.  If Ted King gets any stiffer, we can package him in a little blue pill and sell him on Spike TV. 

I can't wait for Liz and Lucky to break up.  As if he is the only person to EVER get stuck with medical bills. I mean seriously, if you felt that strongly about the idea of your girlfriend being a surrogate, wouldn't you look into options like a bankruptcy, making payments or bending your pride for five minutes to borrow the money before you rented out her womb?  Elizabeth came up with several viable options before looking into surrogacy and Lucky shot them all down without taking a moment to consider them.  Hospitals and doctors will actually take payments!  Hospitals do spin downs on giant bills for low income patients all the time.  The story is fairly ludicrous and not well investigated at all.  It's as though a bunch of rich people with excellent health care coverage are trying to imagine and write about what it would be like to be the poor and unwashed who do not have health insurance.  This is the tantamount to saying, "We have no money for food, therefore we have absolutely no choice but to roll our shit into little balls and eat it."  There are always options and the one they chose is fairly extreme, especially when one of the parties (the one who owes so freakin much money) is complete adverse to the idea.  On the other hand, I find it interesting that for the first time in soap opera history, someone is actually talking about paying a bill.

And that, my friends, is that for this week.  Peace and love to all of you, my darlings.  Don't forget to give generously to EOS this week!

All my lovins,