Carly (The Mother of the Year) & Franco,
Morgan, Kiki & Michael
If you’ve kept up with my articles about “General Hospital,” you know I have qualms with how the character of Carly has been written since Laura Wright (who’s a fantastic actress) stepped into the role. There have been several instances where the dialogue didn’t align with what we’ve come to know of Carly and the most divergent of these instances is her current relationship with Franco. Over the last few months, Carly worriedly monitored Franco’s health reports, consoled him and gave him pep talks in the wake of the revelation that Kiki isn’t his daughter and tried to convince people that he just might be a changed man and to extend him grace because he had a brain tumor that caused his past deviances. The icing on the cake was when she escorted Franco (Roger Howarth) to his pre-trial murder hearing and volunteered to get on the stand in his defense. She mentioned having reservations and doubts, but emphasized that since Franco’s tumor was removed, she hadn’t seen any alarming behavior and believed he could change.
It makes me Sonny Corinthos-godfather-angry when the writers don’t keep characters in true form or dismantle storylines just to forge a duo. As I said in previous pieces, the writers are trying to re-create the magic Howarth and Wright (sounds like a law firm) had when Howarth was portraying Todd Manning. Fans enjoyed them on screen together, but we don’t need to see their electricity so bad that the script gets sacrificed and stops making sense. Do I really need to reiterate why she and Franco don’t work? Carly worshipped, possessed over and relied on Jason Morgan more than any man in her life-including Sonny. Her firstborn Michael is such a prized and precious jewel to her, that her other son, Morgan, accuses her of favoritism (more on Carly’s Michael adulation soon). Franco lived to make Jason suffer and in the process of his sick blood feud, Michael was raped while in prison. Her daughter Jossyln was also harassed by Franco. Tumor or no, the reasons why or how shouldn’t matter to the usually unforgiving and contemptuous Caroline. She should abhor Franco more than she does AJ, but Franco has seen her softer side of Sears more this month than AJ ever has. I wonder how sweet Michael is going to feel when he realizes Carly now has warmth for Franco. Carly is usually obsessed with her children; all bets are off when it comes to them, and yet, she’s making friends with their terrorist. The writers need to see they’re making vast changes for no good enough cause. Moreover, if part of the writing goal is to make Franco somewhat more tolerable, he has. To. Suffer. Throwing in a tumor doesn’t erase the memories or pain he’s caused to character favorites. If he gets off from these murder charges, there’s going to be a riot. Even criminals who claim mental insanity serve time-be it in an asylum or prison on lesser charges.
Carly continued her exemplary Mother-of-the-Year conduct when she learned that Morgan (Bryan Craig) rushed Kiki (Kristen Alderson) into a courthouse wedding before Kiki could learn of her parentage and run into Michael’s arms. Carly expressed condolences to Michael (Chad Duell) that he didn’t successfully snag his brother’s girlfriend with an “Aww, I’m sorry” and said she was going to put a stop to Morgan “causing trouble.” For the love of Britney Jean Spears, will someone please explain to me how Morgan is the bad guy, here?! I’m so sick of these lines and scenes that imply Michael is the one we should feel sorry for. When Olivia professes her regret of being on the outs with Connie before she died, she encourages Morgan to resolve things with Michael. I thought “Can someone give Michael the same speech, please?” While Morgan contemplated Olivia’s words and stared sadly at a picture of him and Michael, Michael was indicting him with trying to setup AJ for murder! And Kiki? I’ve had it with her Michael Kool-Aid drinking. AJ presumably killed Connie (more on that in a sec), her father-in-law’s girlfriend, and the likely homicide weapon was found by Morgan on her premises (how is it that Morgan, Kiki & Ava still live at the Quartermaine mansion anyway? They’re not Q-affiliated anymore). She nearly suggested that Morgan not turn the gun in because it would be too hard on Michael to see AJ brought to justice. WHAT THE HELL?! Now you’re willing to obstruct a homicide investigation for Michael?! This is too much, writers! It’s too ridiculous! She deserved every bit of Morgan going off on her. It’s amazing how guilty she doesn’t feel about being the center of this brother’s quarrel.
Whoo. A lot has happened in 3 weeks for this foursome. AJ (Sean Kanan) fell off the wagon hard after losing ELQ and drowned himself in Vodka. Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) tried to nurse his bruised ego and get him home when she found him at the Floating Rib, but in true douche-bag fashion, AJ pushed her away by bringing up Jake, her deceased son. Mocking and affronting Liz for having the bar name changed from Jake’s to the Floating Rib, AJ spoke of Jake being “mowed over” and that it was her fault he died. She begged for AJ to stop, but he was on a roll. Angry and hurt, Liz still took the high road by taking AJ’s keys and telling the bartender to call a cab for him. This should be the last straw for Liz when it comes to AJ, but I know the writers will somehow smooth it over, because 1) Liz is always written as a man-mat and 2) the script babies AJ more than Monica does. Signs that all will soon be forgiven have already come across the screen. Michael came to her home soon after she left the bar, and she actually apologized for leaving AJ there. Then came the “I’m sure he didn’t mean it” excuse. Despite the fact all things point to AJ in Connie’s killing and there’s very little doubt he’s innocent (only the audience knows there could be another suspect), Liz obliged Michael and showed up at AJ’s hearing to possibly deter him from pleading guilty. Liz of course fronted like she only came because of Michael, but she told AJ that she “didn’t know how she felt about him” at the minute, which in Lizonese translation means “I’m pissed right now, but I’ll rationalize your behavior and forgive you later.” Like Franco, AJ needs to pay for his crimes and indiscretions. He’s skated past (especially with Liz) and pulled the “everybody loved Jason more” card for far too long. Many argue that Sonny Corinthos has always gotten away with murder, and quite literally I might add, but his personal suffrage has been very great.
On the note of Sonny (Maurice Bernard), when AJ stumbled in home, he had an excellently-written hallucination in which Sonny, Michael and Connie appear. A mean, sarcastic, hilarious and entertaining Michael with far more personality encouraged AJ to kill himself, saying that AJ was an irredeemable failure and that Sonny is the father to be more proud of. Sonny and Michael goad and tease AJ and Connie whisks them away for ice-cream after gloating about ruining his ELQ life with the Kiki paternity story. I love psychological, introspective scenes. Anyhoo, AJ takes his drunken, belligerent stupor to Connie’s office and threatens to kill her. The next time we see him, he’s back home and Connie (Kelly Sullivan) is dying on the floor with a large bullet wound to the stomach (such a waste of a pretty white dress). Sonny finds her, begs her to live and promises to reunite with her, but when he goes to the phone to dial 911, she writes “AJ” (which likely stands for Ava Jerome; I don’t see a main, long-term character taking the wrap for this) in her blood on a piece of paper and takes her last breath. It was so horribly sad; I couldn’t deal with life. A distraught Sonny looks up and sees the paper. The look on Sonny’s face? Oh my goodness, it was classic, epic Maurice Bernard (he’s great with the instant looks of rage and psychosis). I thought “the writers better rock this next scene.” Given that Sonny, who has bi-polar disorder and claustrophobia, was experiencing yet another loss and it was seemingly at the hands of his arch-nemesis, the scene where he finds AJ should’ve been historic. Sonny should’ve had a mental snap. Instead, Sonny tried to banter AJ into a confession and hit him once or twice. It didn’t get good until he grabbed AJ’s head, forced him over the couch, gripped his hair, put a gun to his neck and yelled “get your head down, come on, you bitch!” I laughed hysterically. Dante and Michael showed up and tried to talk Sonny down with the reminder that he’ll go to prison for shooting AJ and be taken away from his family. Even more hilarity: Sonny didn’t give a shiznit. For Sonny to walk away and hand AJ over to the police, Michael had to cash in his “most important son” chips and tell Sonny he’d never forgive him if he killed AJ. The drama of the moment wasn’t high enough for me, but the dialogue between the Corinthos boys was acceptable.
Sonny left a suicide note in his home and went to the Haunted Star (the location of his last attempted wedding to Connie) to shoot himself. Sonny sees an apparition of Connie, who gets him to drop his gun. The two exchange apologies for all the strife prior to Connie’s death, and to give Sonny closure, the wedding setting appears and they finish the vows they never got to. It was really sweet and it took me back to Prince Nikolas’ visions of Emily. It was one of the many times I was nearly in tears over the last 3 weeks.
Maxie, Spinelli, Ellie, Dante & Lulu/Britt, Patrick & Nikolas
Meanwhile, back at the medical ranch, Maxie finally gave birth (8/20) to a healthy baby girl amidst multiple complications, including premature birth, an emergency C-section and hemorrhaging. What incensed me the most about this part of the storyline was how obnoxiously selfish, ungrateful insensitive and callused Dante and Lulu (Dominic Zampronga, Emme Rylan) were towards Maxie (Kirsten Storms) during the whole event. I get that they were enamored with and excited about the arrival of their child, but they never once asked about or checked on Maxie after she gave birth until much later. All the while, Maxie flat-lined long enough to have an out-of-body experience, where she conversed with her dead sister, Georgie. Worse furthermore, the couple (particularly Dante)angrily badgered and chastised Maxie when they found out she tried to breastfeed the child and icily told her she couldn’t be the in the baby’s life because she was too attached. I couldn’t get over how that scene was written. Understandably, Dante and Lulu would be concerned, upset and feel like they have to take certain measures, but how they chose to address and resolve the issue was incredibly unfeeling.
I thought another flaw in the baby drop was that it didn’t coincide with Britt’s (Kelly Thiebaud). I just knew that Britt would go into labor the same time as Maxie and melodramatically, we’d here somehow that her baby didn’t belong to Patrick (Jason Thompson) and she implanted herself with one of Dante and Lulu’s left over fertilized eggs. Nope. When that didn’t happen, and we saw Patrick light into her about her mad scientist mother, Dr. Obrecht, assume they’ve both been targeting his family because of his connection to Robin (it was all very exciting, bravo to Thompson) and demand custody of the child, I thought again Britt would go into labor. Nope. Britt panicked and spit it out that Patrick wasn’t the father; Patrick pushed for her to name her baby-daddy. Over again, I expected soapy goodness and Britt would suddenly name Nikolas (Tyler Christopher), who would be infuriated with her later because of his history with Aiden and Lulu is his sister. Nope. Britt names Brad Cooper (Parry Shen). Subsequent dialogue between Britt, Brad and Nikolas made it sound like it’s true. It would be a huge disappointment and fail if Britt’s baby doesn’t belong to Dante and Lulu. Sidebar: Emma (Brooklyn Rae Silzer) broke my heart trying to cheer up her dad, Patrick; he was devastated he wasn’t having a son, so Emma grabbed a baseball mitt and offered to play catch with him. The cuteness doesn’t stop! Silzer is such a fantastic and convincing little actress; if I didn’t know any better, I’d think Thompson was really her father.
Other Notes
Scotty & Laura
After Laura (Genie Francis) returned home from searching for a sickly and dying Luke (Anthony Geary), Scotty (Kin Shriner) told her he went on a trip with Lucy (Lynn Herring) and gained some perspective on their marriage. Whining, unreasonable and envious as usual, Scotty ranted about Laura trying to help Luke and said he wanted a divorce. Then he went soft, owned up to trying to make Laura love him and went out like a gentleman. I was glad to see that nicer, calmer finish, because the way he started made me dislike him even more. Looking at the reactions on Twitter, people were happy to see them split. I am one of them.
Sam, Danny, Silas & Julian
Yeah! Danny (Jakob & Jaxon Kring) has a bone marrow donor! I am living for the soft spot Julian has for Sam (Kelly Monaco) and the way he tenderly embraced her and stroked her hair. As for comments about the “Siam (Sam & Silas)” kiss, I am in the process of writing a “Pier 52” feature on how I think the writers should handle things post-JaSam, so please stay tuned; I have plenty to say. The feature should be done by the end of this week.
See ya’ for lunch again soon! Best wishes to our departing Kelly Sullivan!