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JaxAss: I Have NOT Forgotten Once upon a time, I just adored Jax and I want to again. I know GH has developed the nasty habit of leaving issues unresolved and rewriting history in general, but I still want to see Jax redeemed in my eyes. Pretending he didn’t become a total ass late last year isn’t going to do the trick for me, at least not for a while. When he makes his return this week, I will try to pretend he is the “White Knight” of old, but I don’t think I’m going to be very successful in my denial. Back in February, I posted a rant about Jax on an “Eye On Soaps” message board. It was a rant about why Jax, or “JaxAss” as I often called him, had fallen out of favor with me. I kept that old post, thinking it might eventually evolve into a column, but then we hardly saw Jax anymore after Brenda left town and his gorgeous portrayer, Ingo Rademacher, went on vacation for about five months. A column about Jax just didn’t seem timely anymore. Now that Jax is returning, I started thinking of how I felt about him when he left. My feelings haven’t changed any. I have just cut and pasted that old post below in its entirety. This was written just after Jax dumped Brenda at the altar. ************************************************************************ I have spent a few minutes, off and on, trying to feel sorry for Jax, but I just can’t muster up any sympathy. I think he’s a jerk. I think someone needs to beat him mercilessly about the head and neck, and then put a sharp object up his behind. I find myself daydreaming about the many intricate ways JaxAss could die a slow and painful death. I think he would deserve this immensely. He, right now, more than any other character on the show, IMO, deserves a lesson in what comes around goes around. Someone please tell me how I can feel bad for Jax, because I can’t think of a reason. These are the reasons why I can’t (Some Jax history): He left Chloe at the drop of a hat because he “thought” he saw Brenda. He didn’t call or write for months. He had an affair with Angel Boris while he was gone, apparently, without giving Chloe a second thought. He found out Brenda was alive right after he married Skye and didn’t tell Skye anything about it (lying by omission). Instead, he made love to Skye, pretending she was Brenda (deceitful action). If my husband secretly pretends he’s having sex with Angelina Jolie when we’re in bed, then I really don’t care. If he’s pretending I’m an actual ex-girlfriend, then I’d smack him on the skull with a skillet if I ever found out! Jax then convinces Brenda, who is hiding from Alcazar, to stay in town so he can “protect her.” She wanted to leave the country. He then tells Skye they can’t leave on a honeymoon because he must end Alcazar’s vendetta against him, conveniently leaving out the whole “Brenda’s alive and I’m protecting her” part of it. This is also after Taggert has advised Jax to proceed with his planned honeymoon out of the country with Skye for his own safety and let the police take care of Alcazar (as if). Jax doesn’t mention that to Skye, either. Jax wakes up and sneaks out (deceitful action) on Skye the morning after their wedding to run to Brenda’s aid, getting shot in the process. He tries to dump Skye with the excuse that he’s paralyzed, but he’ll let Brenda hang around. He then proceeds to treat Skye, his own wife, as some unwelcome pest whenever she visits him, yet he welcomes Brenda with open arms (literally), often times right in front of Skye. He makes out with Brenda in the hospital, before Skye has lied about anything. Then he proceeds to assure Skye (i.e., lie again) that he and Brenda are now just old friends. No worries, Mate. Then, when Skye lies for four days about Brenda’s illness (because she’s unsure whether Brenda really doesn’t know that she’s not ill or is just faking it to dupe Jax), Jax then dumps Skye immediately because she’s a liar and can’t be trusted. At this point, the same thing can be said for Jax several times over. The very same day Jax tells Brenda she’s not sick and they immediately go have sex. Every time Jax sees Skye for the next two or three months (at least), he proceeds to tell her how pathetic she is, how she can’t be trusted, how she’s a liar, and so on. Skye, a recovering alcoholic, has fallen off the wagon since Jax deceived her and left her for another woman, so the continual bashing from him is definitely adding insult to injury. Jax’s behavior towards her is consistently hateful, condescending and hypocritical. “White Knights” don’t act like that. After Brenda is charged with Luis Alcazar’s murder, Jax proceeds to go behind her back (lie) on numerous occasions, doing the exact things she has told him she doesn’t want (trying to pay off Scotty, have Brenda committed, set up Jason to take the fall, have her leave Jason behind to face the charges alone). He tries to bully Brenda to do things “his” way, constantly. He practically stalks Brenda, as she can’t ever seem to have a conversation alone with Jason or anyone else, without him showing up because he “has to talk” to her. He bullies Brenda into having the wedding as soon as possible, even though she tells him she’s not ready and she’d rather wait. He finds out from Carly that Brenda kissed Sonny the night before the wedding. He tries to overlook it and go on with the ceremony, but suddenly finds he can’t get past it. This, I understand, but….. …JaxAss then proceeds to halt the ceremony and IN FRONT OF EVERYONE he tells Brenda he knows she kissed Sonny and he can’t trust her and he doesn’t want to marry her. He could have, out of some respect for Brenda (and her wedding history), stopped the ceremony, excused Brenda and himself from the room and gone to speak to her privately. Instead, he chose to publicly humiliate her and he definitely had a choice. Jax proves over and over again that he really thinks of no one but himself. Now, he tells Brenda he doesn’t love her anymore and tries to pay her off to leave Port Charles and never come back, as if she is the pimple on his ass of a world. He tried to get Skye to do the same several times after dumping her. What is the point of that? Who does he think he is? Why should I feel sorry for him? At all? What would it take for JaxAss to redeem himself in my eyes? What will he have to do? What will he have to go through? If he ends up with Skye again, telling her that, gee whiz, he’s sorry, well, that won’t be enough. I want her to pulverize his heart. I want him crying his eyes out, overdosing on pills and banging his head against a padded wall at Ferncliff. I want justice. ************************************************************************ I still feel the same way now that I did back when I made that post in February. What is it? Almost eight months later? Why can’t I let it go? Is it because I liked Skye? Maybe, but I also used to like Jax just as much as I used to like Skye (more on that later). I think it’s because I was really caught up in the Jax/Skye romance and I just couldn’t believe it when they were ripped apart so viciously, ruining Jax’s character in the process (those damn writers). The things Jax did to Skye, and then to Brenda, were just not the Jax I knew. When a character hurts so many and acts so rotten, they need to suffer for a while before they can just jump right back into the fray as if nothing happened. I need to see Jax express remorse to Skye. I need to see him want her back so she can reject him, breaking his heart for a change. I want to see Jax explore the reasons why he did the things he did, reaching a greater understanding of himself, and us viewers taking that journey right along with him. Then, and only then, I would believe Jax had learned something as a result of his selfish past actions. Then I would be ready to move with Jax back into “White Knight” mode. Maybe the rumors are true that Ingo was sent on such an unusually long vacation by “The Powers That Be” in hopes that us viewers would just forget that Jax had become an ass? If that’s true, I can speak only for myself when I say that it didn’t work. I’ve missed seeing Ingo, but I haven’t missed JaxAss. Maybe this is why Skye has been turned into such a coldhearted, baby-stealing bitch? In a story where it would have made more sense for Skye to bond with Alexis and scheme and plot to help her get Kristina back, Skye instead has gone balls to the wall to steal the child for herself. Since one of Skye’s main personal issues is that she only recently found her biological mother and has yet to find her biological father, it makes little sense that she would participate in stealing baby Kristina’s real mother from her. If Skye were truly seeing Kristina’s present and future well being through the eyes of Kristina herself, she would be on Alexis’ side. Maybe the writers are trying to make Skye so much worse than JaxAss ever was so that we stupid viewers won’t see any need for Jax to be redeemed anymore? Once again, if that’s the case, then it hasn’t worked on me. That is so NOT Skye. Even if it were, that still doesn’t redeem Jax by default in my eyes. I want to see the real Skye return. She has a heart, she really does. She is a tough, intelligent woman in business and a vulnerable, scared, caring woman in her personal relationships. I want to see the woman who has recovered from having her heart stomped on and shredded by the man who was briefly her husband, not this woman who seems to have forgotten all about it, like it never even happened. Most importantly, as I’ve mentioned before, I want Jax to want her back. I want him to pursue her, at least for a little while. I want her to break his heart, sending him out of control. Let him see how it really feels to be rejected by someone alive and well instead of by someone who has been “presumed dead.” Let him have to look his “rejecter” in the eye as she gallivants all over town on Ned’s arm, having a good time while he languishes in heartache and humiliation. That’s what I want. That’s what I still want,… …justice.
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