Well! That was certainly a week. I think I've reached the point — at least with this writing regime — where not being bored with the show is the best I can hope for, and the only way I'm not going to be bored is if the writers go bananas and start doing whatever they feel like doing regardless of whether it's been properly established or makes the slightest bit of sense given everything we know about the characters involved.
As you know if you regularly read this column, there are certainly times when I'm irritated or alarmed by characters acting out of character — the bullshit that's currently going on with Queen Ava Jerome is a prime example — but when the characters are big bags of nothing, then what difference does it make? I watched much of last week feeling like Tanara Mallory, just blithely watching chaos unfold with a grin, filled with sarcastic admiration for the way everyone is so creative.
Well, That's a Curveball
I am mainly referring, of course, to Drew and Willow sucking face at the Quartermaines' July 4 party while fireworks went off and Sasha looked on in silent horror. On a conceptual level, this kind of thing is perfectly soapy, and well-timed to boot — there isn't a thing wrong with soap characters fooling around when they shouldn't be, particularly during moments that have been infused with extra drama. But good storytelling depends on, you know, actually telling a story rather than throwing things at the wall on the spur of the moment, and like so much of General Hospital lately, this development feels like an impulsive act and the product of poor planning.
Consider the following facts: Willow is not only married, but has basically done nothing for years besides comically moon over her drip of a husband. Drew is her drip of a husband's uncle, and he is also running for Congress. For these two idiots to lock lips, the audience deserves to see some sort of sensible lead-up to their shameful behavior — glimmers of attraction, followed by moments of tortured self-doubt. They try to stay away from each other, but life keeps foiling their best-laid plans. That kind of thing. Instead, two characters who've never had anything more than a friendly vibe (admittedly mixed with a dash of weird hero worship on Willow's part, but whatever) suddenly just up and mashed their faces together in spite of all the damage it could (and certainly will) do to their lives.
I feel like this is due to a couple of things. First, soap writers — especially on GH — are allergic to domestic bliss. Anytime a couple gets married, they've got a one-year grace period at most before they're either confronted with some sort of life-or-death disease, split up, or simply exiled to the back burner so they can be disgustingly happy offscreen. Given that Willow and Michael have already faced her leukemia and fought for ten minutes about his dumb plan to send Sonny to prison, it's time for one of them to fool around on the other. Will we see the return of Michael's allegedly fearsome anger issues when he finds out? Or will he fake his own death and fuck off to Pautauk, meet a spinster shopkeeper, and fall in love? The possibilities are endless! Just kidding, but this is where we are anyway.
The other reason I see for this happening is simple, and has been painfully evident for some time: The writers have no idea what to do with Drew. It's one thing for Willow to sort of bob around in search of a purpose, but Drew is supposed to be a dynamic driver of story, and he simply isn't — largely, I think, because of the insane and inconsistent way he's been portrayed ever since Cameron Mathison took over the role. They've tried to do all sorts of things with Drew, but he's only ever come off as the sort of unhinged, unsettlingly self-confident gargoyle who lurks in C-suites all across corporate America — all eyes, tan, and teeth, with zero self-awareness. He's the type of guy you wouldn't want to share an elevator with, but the show needs him to be in the middle of nearly everything. It's a major pain point, and with this latest development, it isn't hard to sense the writers getting truly desperate over what to do about it.
Again, if they'd bothered to move some pieces into place, I think we could have had some fun with this. Willow hasn't been interesting in forever, and she and Michael have all the sexual chemistry of used furniture, so it isn't like there's an awful lot to lose by blowing up their marriage. Drew, as previously stated, is a bicycle kickstand of a character, so why not put him seriously at odds with the purse-lipped nephew who's helping run his silly company? Once things get going, I'm sure we'll see a few sparks fly; for the moment, I'm just objecting to the embarrassingly abrupt way it all started. It didn't have to be this way.
Anyway, here's where we are: Drew, who is now Drew Quartermaine, has announced his bid for Congressman McConkey's seat, which will of course pull him away from whatever the hell he does at Aurora on a daily basis. Anticipating this, Curtis pulled Michael and Nina into a room to try and get them to agree to let bygones be bygones, if for no other reason than the three of them would be called upon to shoulder more of the burden with Drew on the campaign trail. Somewhat surprisingly, they both agreed, which made Willow happy — which in turn led Nina to lay a sloppy one on Drew once they were alone, none the wiser that his lips had moments before been locked with her daughter.
Drew and Willow quickly agreed that their kiss was a horrible mistake and it could never happen again, but we all know that's horseshit; they're bound to fool around again, and probably very soon, which will mean Drew is having an affair with his nephew's wife and the daughter of his partner in periodic hate sex. Meanwhile, Sasha is mired in all sorts of wide-eyed conflict about what she's seen, but Cody has counseled her to forget all about it. Very messy! The type of story that should be fun, by all rights! Maybe it'll get there… but it's off to a pretty poor start.
I'm Your Son
The other big thing that happened at the Quartermaines' July 4 party — at virtually the same moment Drew and Willow were engaging in a little oral spelunking — was that Cody finally told Mac they're really father and son. After sitting on the secret for months on end, he just ended up blurting it out, which was sort of anticlimactic, but it also felt as clumsy as real life, so I'm not going to complain about that.
I'm not going to complain about much here, really. While it isn't hard to see a whole bunch of more compelling and/or exciting alternative ways to get Mac and Cody's connection out in the open, I think we have to cut the show some slack in this instance, because John J. York was out of commission for months and we don't really know what his availability is now or will be going forward. I don't really love being asked to sit through however many weeks of Mac hating Cody for lying about it — we all know they're bound to reconcile eventually, so making us wait for true father/son moments after all this buildup just feels like punishment — but it's giving Mac and Felicia screen time, which is almost always a net positive.
Right now we have Mac acting petulant and prideful (and being called out for it by Felicia and Maxie), and Cody acting all mopey and noble (and being called out for it by Sasha and Maxie). Again, it isn't the most scintillating way this could have been handled. The big winner so far is Maxie, whose recent streak as the most interesting person in Port Charles continued last week as she forced Cody to promise he wouldn't skip town, chided Mac for his reaction to Cody telling the truth, and conspired with Felicia to put Mac and Cody in the same room again.
I guess the larger question is what the show intends to do with Mac and Cody as father and son after all this posturing is behind us. Given GH's track record when it comes to, say, the long-lost adult children of Scott Baldwin, I'm not feeling super great about Cody's long-term prospects right now; rather than giving Mac and Cody fresh anchor points on the canvas, I can see the writers deciding that suffering through Cody's tragic death is just what the Scorpio clan needs. Either way, I'm sure those two will reconcile with Cody's seemingly inevitable demise looming over them; that five-minute conversation about Cody's bruise happened for a reason. I wish we didn't always have to see this sort of thing coming from several miles away, but it's a Mac storyline, so I'll take it.
I Need to Stay Locked Up
As fine as I am with Drew and Willow behaving nonsensically for the sake of story, I remain irritated about the knots Laura's being tied into in order to prop this bone stupid Heather storyline — and about the way Portia is being portrayed as shrill and unreasonable for having an issue with her daughter's would-be killer potentially going free. As with the Drew/Willow storyline, it doesn't have to be this way; if we're willing to go along with the idea that Heather may not have been in full control of her faculties when she murdered all those people, then there's plenty of room for the residents of Port Charles to have a healthy debate over whether she deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison But a healthy debate isn't what we're getting; instead, Portia is virtually alone on a rapidly shrinking island, and rather than trying to get anyone else to listen to reason, all she does is draw hard lines at the top of her lungs.
This is just one element of the disappointing and problematic treatment that the writers are giving the Robinson/Ashford clan (and GH POC in general) right now. Historically, ABC soaps have tended to build up and betray minority characters in cycles; on GH in particular, you can look back and see it happening with Brian and Claudia, Yank and Jade, the Ward clan… the list goes on. It seems to be happening all over again with Curtis, Portia, and their extended family — they're rarely on anymore, and when they are, they generally tend to serve as talk-tos for characters who are truly driving story. Meanwhile, Selina has faded into the background, Brad may as well not exist, and Terry might be the least visible (co-) chief of staff in GH history. Marshall is running the Savoy offscreen. Stella is a sporadically seen magical wisdom dispenser. Jordan has been stuck sharing scenes with Drew for weeks, Zeke left town without saying a word, and Taggert? Well, you all know how I feel about that particular dropped ball.
And then there's Trina. Much has been written about the way the show has sidelined her, and how systemic racism is the most obvious explanation for GH turning its back on a demonstrably popular character; I don't know if this week's column is the best or most sensible place for an in-depth treatment of that subject. But I will say this: While I generally find it advisable to hold off on attributing to malice anything that can also be attributed to incompetence, hoooooo boy are the writers not making a great case for themselves here, especially in light of Trina's recent admission that Laura might have a point regarding Heather.
Now, again, I think it'd be absolutely possible for the show to both-sides Heather's possible release. It wouldn't be very hard for characters to take their positions and argue them passionately. But Trina's turnaround is just the latest example of the character being written to make other (generally white) characters feel better about their behavior, and in this context, it's insulting.
Let me back up a bit. At the Quartermaines' party, Portia loudly confronted Laura over her advocacy of Heather, was unnecessarily rude to Elizabeth (who popped in for 45 seconds just so she could be snarked at and then assure Laura she's doing the right thing), warned Drew that he needed to keep Heather in prison if he wants her vote, and dragged Curtis out by the ear before telling him that anyone who helps Heather is the enemy. Later in the week, she went to Jordan's office to tell her that she was planning to start rounding up signatures for a ballot measure to recall Laura. When Jordan tried to address Portia's concerns diplomatically, she was accused of sounding more like a politician than an ex-cop, at which point things got heated and Jordan pointedly reminded Portia that "the law isn't just for people we like or approve of, any more than medicine is."
While Portia was barreling around Port Charles, Laura was reeling after her visit with Heather, who told her point blank that she doesn't want to be released from Pentonville — not just because she is (or claims to be) wracked with guilt over her crimes, but because she doesn't remember what she hoped to accomplish by committing them in the first place, and as long as she's that untethered from reality, she feels like prison is the best place for her. Although she wasn't terribly happy about it, Laura agreed to drop her investigation into whether Heather's case can or should be reopened.
This is the situation Trina walked into when she showed up at Laura and Kevin's apartment to return a toy Ace left in her car, and I'm outlining it here to explain how drastically the stakes have been diminished at this point, just in time for Trina to basically say "You know what? She tried to kill me, but she might have been out of her mind at the time, and she deserves justice like anyone else." This isn't a wrong statement, but it's also the type of thing Trina has forever been called upon to say. She perpetually makes her own feelings less of a priority than others'. And hey, it's great to be thoughtful and empathetic, but it's often taken to absurd extremes with Trina, and it's unnecessary for the writers to put her in this situation right now. She could just as easily have told Laura that while she understands there are extenuating circumstances surrounding Heather's case, she was still the target of a serial killer, and she's uncomfortable with the idea of that person rejoining society.
Trina and Laura's conversation was doubly eye-rolling because at the same time it was happening, Curtis was finally getting around to telling Portia he visited Heather in Pentonville — and admitting that he, too, can understand Laura's point of view. What's the point of all this? Why put Laura and Portia in these positions? As I've said before, I can understand the show wanting to free up Heather for future shenanigans, but she's escaped from custody a million times; there was absolutely no reason to go about doing it this way.
Is There a Problem Here?
I've put it off as long as possible, but now it's time to talk about the flaming pile that is Sonny and Ava's corner of the lumbering, brain-dead beast that is the Pikeman storyline. They're now suing each other for sole custody of Avery, which means they're both trying to round up people who might be able or willing to testify on their behalf at a trial. Sonny's first stop, naturally, was Carly's house, where they discussed the outline of the case while Jason stood awkwardly in the background, sipping coffee. After that, he hit up Alexis, who shared her qualms about tearing custody away from any mother, but agreed to testify that Sonny loves his kids, although she warned him that she wouldn't tell the court she approves of what he does for a living.
This was the common thread throughout all the conversations around Sonny and Ava's custody battle — that if he goes after her for being an unfit mother due to her checkered past, she can do the same thing to him, and vice versa. Neither of them have a leg to stand on, and in a sane world, one would think both of them would be worried about a case like this ending with Avery being remanded to the state — but Port Charles does not exist in a sane world, and for further proof, we have Ava going back to the pharmacist's office and blackmailing him into swapping out Sonny's meds for total placebo pills, in the hopes that this will lead to him having a public breakdown that will theoretically help her case.
This hurts my head. As the mighty Wubs has pointed out, Avery is currently living with Sonny, which means she's putting her daughter in very real and extremely unpredictable danger by monkeying with his mental health in this way. There's also the fact that she's done this kind of thing before, and it ended up being a contributing factor in Morgan's death. Ava is morally flexible, prone to overreacting, and always potentially lethal, but she isn't dumb, and yet dumb is the only way she's currently being written.
Like a broken record, I say again: It didn't have to be this way. The Pikeman story has become a skidmark on the underpants of GH history, but setting that aside for a moment, there are a million ways in which Sonny could have been isolated from his friends and loved ones, one by one. There was dramatic mileage to be derived from putting Sonny and Ava on the same side for a change, and their break should have been as sensible as it was emotionally impactful. Instead, everything is happening with all the precision and forethought of a toddler's fingerpainting.
The latest unmoored character to be drawn into this foaming cesspool is Jagger, who happened to walk past Ava's Metro Court suite just as she and Sonny were sniping at each other with the door wide open. He asked if there was a problem, he and Sonny traded barbs, and after Sonny left, Ava shifted into Seductress Mode, invited Jagger in for a drink, and tried working him to see if he'd be willing to testify on her behalf. Although he was noncommittal, he did try making her feel better by predicting that "Sonny's gonna be far away from Avery soon enough. Behind bars, if I have anything to say about it."
This is so tiresome. The only thing that could regenerate my interest at this point would be for Avery to pull a Drew Barrymore in Irreconcilable Differences and sue for emancipation.
Okay, I've gone on long enough. Time for your bullet points!
- Carly and Jason talked (again) about how Sonny's different and wondered (again) about his meds
- Chase picked blackberries with Violet and talked about scaling back to three days a week at work
- Brook Lynn is good at croquet
- Kristina and Blaze agreed to do a joint interview in order to try and put a positive spin on the Natalia scandal
- Jake is going to art school in Barcelona and Jason wants to cover the tuition, as well he fucking should
- Anna went to Valentin's house (again) and snooped while he cooked for her (again) before they started making out (again)
- Miracle of miracles, Portia actually said Taggert's name out loud
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