What were we saying last week? Something about the herky-jerky pacing of modern daytime dramas, and how the relief of movement/thrill of incident can help to cover up a lot of storytelling issues? Well, welcome back from "somewhere in Greenland," friends — and a week that was half spent unpacking the fallout from Victor's plan, half teasing pending developments in storylines that haven't reached full boil yet. Because not as much happened during these episodes, I may not yap at you as much this time out, but let's see how this edition of Critical Diagnosis breaks down.
Victor Vanquished
As I said, it felt like about half the week was spent sifting through the wreckage of Victor's failed plan to wipe out 80 percent of the world's population via 42-year-old pathogen. This is as it should be! Few things are more frustrating in Soapland than a major storyline that ends without any ripple effects or lasting impact on the canvas. This particular one never really felt as epic as it was supposed to, but at least the writers currently seem to be showing an interest in exploring the various places this could go.
For Spencer and Trina, it's back to reality — a reality that entails Spencer taking Ace back to Laura and Kevin's place, where they'll all be living with Esme again. As conflicts go, this one's pretty standard, but it has the potential to spin off in a number of directions, from more realistic (Spencer realizes caring for an infant is a lot of work! Trina is jealous of all the time he and Esme are spending together!) to soapier (Esme gets her memory back! Or was faking it all along!). Our young power couple will also apparently need to contend with the disapproval of Portia and Taggert, which is another fairly ancient plot device, but one I can mostly respect in this context — even if Spencer's clearly head over heels for Trina, there's no getting around the fact that he's upended her life, often in less than positive ways. And in the midst of all this, we also have Trina deciding to get a DNA test and find out whether Curtis or Taggert is her biological father.
Curtis, meanwhile, needs to figure out what, if anything, he wants out of his marriage to Portia, which has been on pause since he discovered that she rudely withheld the possibility that he could be Trina's father. It's a believable conflict, and I think it's worked out well that recent events have held Curtis and Portia at distant points on the canvas and therefore prevented them from relitigating their estrangement every few days; it's also given Brook Kerr some big emotional beats to hit, and it's always fun to watch her work. Finally and arguably most importantly, Curtis is coming out of the Victor story with a job offer from the WSB, which could put him in full-time action hero mode OR usher him off the canvas. (I have no inside information regarding Donnell Turner's contract status, but the question of whether he'll stick around seems to bob up during odd-numbered years.) Either way, we seem poised to witness a series of events that will leave Curtis free to make facial expressions that communicate something other than "I really need to poop, but I'm afraid to."
There's plenty of story for almost everybody in the Ashford/Robinson/Taggert clan, in other words — with the exceptions of Marshall, whose sole function seems to be walking around with his clarinet case in hand looking for someone to talk to, and the puzzlingly perpetually back-burnered Jordan. And speaking of folks who've been on the back burner lately (or for even longer), this week also made room for a number of characters who don't really have anything interesting going on right now.
You get an episode! And you get an episode! And YOU get an episode!
In a perfect soap world, the writers always have new umbrella stories unfolding as others are closing up, so you never go from a week of action-packed mayhem straight into one full of thumb-twiddling. We are not living in a perfect soap world — and neither are the GH writers, as evidenced by the fact that most of this week's non-Cassadine story fuel came from the flavorless cud in the SEC and Pikeman storylines, neither of which are far enough along (or interesting enough) to support much in the way of engaging drama.
To make up the difference, we saw some motion in a handful of smaller stories. In general, I appreciate this — maybe mostly because I still bear the scars of the seemingly endless period when there were only four characters who ever really saw the front burner — but much of what rounded out this batch of episodes wasn't particularly interesting. For example, as much as I love seeing Tristan Rogers being given anything to do on GH and as fond as my memories of Robert and Holly might be, I can't imagine that very many people are really invested in this half-hearted love triangle between the two of them and Diane.
I once interviewed a head writer who argued that viewers aren't interested in seeing love scenes between actors of a certain age, which is not an opinion I share; I think a healthy, vibrant canvas has room for dynamic characters of all ages, and a daytime drama really only unlocks its full potential when there's true intergenerational drama. That being said? As the kids say, this ain't it. We know Emma Samms is a part-timer (for various very good reasons), and neither Rogers nor Carolyn Hennesy are on anywhere close to often enough for there to be any kind of genuine stakes here. These shows thrive on couples, so I can absolutely understand Hennesy's evident excitement about the potential pairing — it's just that this one feels like something the writers threw together because the actors are in the same general age group. What's supposed to be witty banter between Robert and Diane feels airless and strained, while Robert and Holly haven't had a love scene with any heat since… what, the '80s? I'm hoping this storyline ends up going someplace interesting, but for now, I mostly just feel bad for the actors.
In another part of town, we have Sasha being pressed into active duty as a TV pitchperson for Deception's latest product because Maxie has a sinus infection, Brook Lynn quit off-camera, and Lucy has "lost all credibility" after faking her death (which she actually did not do, but whatever). Much as I've been impressed by Sofia Mattsson's growth over the last couple of years — and happy as I am to see her in a storyline that doesn't involve a husband or baby horribly dying — this engine isn't going to start no matter how hard the writers pull the cord. I can only imagine that Mattsson and Kirsten Storms have some episode guarantees that need to be filled and the writers have run out of solid ideas for either of their characters — especially now that Mattsson has entered the "always put her behind a couch, counter, or potted plant" stage of her pregnancy.
Also Deception-related, but with a much higher degree of potential excitement, is the conflict brewing between Brook Lynn and Tracy: After doing Brook Lynn a favor by secretly helping Chase get his job back at the PCPD, Tracy is ordering her to go back to work at Deception so she can engage in some good old-fashioned corporate espionage. I'll admit that this feels faintly silly, given that Deception appears to be down to its last couple of employees and the writers haven't done a whole lot to make it feel like a truly meaningful part of the show, but if Tracy's involved, it'll at least be fun to watch. Bottom line: Jane Elliot can do no wrong, and any story that gives Amanda Setton something to do besides moon over Chase and/or have a mostly offscreen career in music is a step in the right direction.
Speaking of Chase, he's a cop again, which is outstanding news because it means the show will finally stop putting Josh Swickard in leather pants and asking us to believe in a world where a police detective becomes a social media sensation after singing at a kid's birthday party. They've really done a remarkably horrible job of giving this character anything meaningful to do lately, and an even worse job of managing what once was a not-insignificant amount of genuine romantic tension between Chase and Brook Lynn. Both actors are talented and the characters continue to have potential, but they've been trapped in Snoozetown for a really long time.
That could soon be coming to an end for Brook Lynn, since she has the good fortune to be paired with Tracy in her emerging storyline; things look somewhat less encouraging for Chase, who came back to work just in time to serve as the lead detective on the case of Cody and the not-quite-stolen bracelet. As the audience has known all along, Cody didn't pocket the bauble Gladys wore to the Nurses' Ball — she framed him in order to preemptively discredit him in case he decided to tell Sasha about her gambling problem. Those aren't necessarily bad blocks to build a story on; unfortunately, viewer investment in either of these characters seems pretty low.
Gladys has had a fantastically long run for a character who spent the first few years of her existence as a dingleberry on the Corinthos family tree, most of which I credit to Bonnie Burroughs' ability to do much more than she was originally asked to do. She's perfectly believable as a schemer, but her redemption-ish arc has opened up whole new worlds for her, and that's all down to Burroughs' layered work in the role. Cody, on the other hand? Look, he's come a long way since that painfully strained meet-cute with Britt, and Josh Kelly is not an untalented actor — but this character has been wafting, fartlike, across the canvas for like a year with very little to show for it.
He's Mac Scorpio's secret son, which might mean something if GH had any real interest in calling John J. York down to the set more than half a dozen times a year, but they aren't (and haven't been since the '90s) for reasons that completely elude me. Also, that story's been twisting in the wind for just about as long as whatever the hell this deep, dark secret between Cody and Dante might be. Much like Austin, Cody's largely been a placeholder on the canvas since he was introduced, so it's hard to be terribly invested in however things shake out between him and Gladys.
The one wild card in all that? The one and only Selina Wu. I have absolutely no idea what the show might have planned for her, and I'm not sure I have a great deal of faith in the writers' willingness to take us back to the "Asian Quarter" and the catacombs for another round of Wu-fueled fun, but anytime Ms. Wu is involved in a storyline, my interest is piqued. If this silly slapfight between Cody and Gladys serves as a gateway to a bigger, better storyline involving the Wu crime syndicate, I'll be more than happy to forgive this bracelet business.
And that's it for the week of 5/8-5/12/23! (I'm purposely not getting into the SEC and Pikeman stories, because I complained about them enough last week, and nothing much has changed since then.) As always, if there's anything you think I got particularly wrong or right about these episodes, or there's just stuff you want to discuss, let me know in the comments. See you next week!
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